Yes, a blog post needs to be complete and well-written content to appear on the first pages of Google. Everyone who works with SEO knows this well, right? But it is necessary to remember that this is not the only objective of a text like this. It also needs to generate leads, which can turn into future sales.
How, then, can we ensure that content not only teaches, entertains, or solves problems for readers, but also brings them one step closer to becoming part of your customer base? Read on – below we will list some tips that can be useful in this process.
SEO for Lead Conversion: How to Get Started?
To know what you can offer your readers, you must be fully aware of what you have available at your fingertips. This means that whoever produces the content for a particular company needs to know its resources well. Therefore, it is necessary to have a list, folder or drive that contains these materials in an easy to find and use way. It all starts with organization.
A practical example: a writer who writes blog posts for a dental clinic needs to have other useful content that has been produced before – it can be an ebook, a video, landing page addresses, etc.
That way, if the writer’s writing a blog post about clear aligner treatment, he already knows there’s an ebook detailing the entire process available. Thus, he will be able to link the ebook in his post – whoever gets to the post and is interested in the subject, can provide the email address to receive the material. Okay, another lead conquered.
Conversion Step by Step
As we mentioned at the beginning of this text, those who write for SEO are already trained to write good content that also pleases Google. So much so that they often end up forgetting about lead generation. With that in mind (and already having all the content cataloged and organized), we prepared a step-by-step guide to help.
- Know Your Audience
To know your audience, you must talk to them! Get in touch with a few of them to gather feedback, create a routine of weekly or monthly interviews. This is easier for companies that deal directly with the public, but it can also be done online. In addition, you can also:
- track your web analytics;
- capture site click maps or easy-to-interpret heat maps;
- use session recording tools;
- do frequent surveys to collect first-party data;
- do A/B tests to understand what brings the best results.
2. Understand What the Reader Wants
A good content briefing will likely highlight the keyword, the persona, what stage of the customer journey it is being planned for (top, middle or bottom of the funnel) and a summary of the topics they need to have to successfully achieve the intent of the reader.
All of this information is also important when choosing the lead generation offer that you will display in the blog post. If the offer doesn’t match the context, it’s likely to have a sad small conversion rate (if any!). That is, there needs to be consistency between the content and the lead generation tool.
3. Diversify!
We know that our content is not fully read 100% of the time. Depending on the reader’s need, he will just scan the text, eager to find what he is looking for with the least amount of effort. With that in mind, we need to make sure we have a call to action (CTA) and offer for each type of reader.
For example, if your text is about interactive content and you have an in-depth ebook about that, add CTAs to it more than once and, if possible, in different styles:
- Text CTA;
- Banner CTA;
- Short video introducing the subject.
All this counts!
4. Good UX Writing Practices
Readers tend to scan content, looking for the sections that match their search. So, if you’re sure your lead generation offer is related to the material’s context and can help them, make sure you highlight it properly.
You can use bold, italics, bulleted lists, larger letters, or different colors. The important thing is to know what works for your audience. Whenever possible, work with mental triggers to increase the chances of attracting leads. They are stimuli received by our brain that directly influence our decision making.
Some of the most common triggers for content marketing are:
- social proof: “More than 10 thousand people have already downloaded this template”
- scarcity: “Apply now! Limited seats”
- authority: “Watch our latest webinar on this with the subject matter expert.”
There are many more possibilities! The important thing here is to use mental triggers only when the information communicated is true.
Ultimate SEO Checklist for Conversion
OK! Now you know what you need to create content optimized for SEO and conversion.
To always remember all the tips we’ve discussed here, be sure to follow this checklist:
- open the document where you have all your lead generation offers documented;
- take the blog post context into account when choosing which CTAs to include;
- add more than one offer;
- add more than one path to the main offer;
- if the keyword is educational, make sure you can create a lead generation offer specifically for it (e.g. templates or quick tutorials);
That’s it! Now you can hit “publish” and make the lead capture process feel like a natural next step for your reader — and for your business to increase sales! Always remembering that if you need help with producing qualified content, you can always count on us. To get in touch and learn more, click here