How to increase sales in a blog: TOP recommendations
Today, various technologies, tools, and solutions are used to attract customers to a business. Much attention is paid not so much to advertising as to organic traffic, since it inspires more trust in potential customers. It is believed that if a search engine has checked a site and concluded that it is reliable, then people can trust it. But directly attracting an audience to the company's official website is quite problematic. And here, interaction with the target audience through blogs can be a good assistant for a business.
Today, many Internet marketers use blogs in their practice as a tool for attracting potential customers and increasing the number of conversions. In order for readers of the material to perform a particular target action, for example, subscribe, follow a link to the official website of the business, order a product or service, you must offer them something interesting, useful, exciting and easy to study. But at the same time, attention must be focused not only on the user audience, but also on search bots. It is important to ensure that your publications are indexed by the system, because this is the only way people will be able to find them and evaluate their usefulness for themselves. This will be the basis for subsequent purchases.
As part of today's review, we will dwell in more detail on what advantages launching your own blog opens up for business and what types of content can be posted in it. We will provide 8 proven practices that have a direct impact on user behavior and will facilitate the placement of orders. We will tell you how to perform all the transformations and get a really high-quality blog that will sell your products and services as quickly as possible and with minimal effort.
Why should a blog be included in a digital marketing strategy?
Many modern specialists who work in the field of Internet marketing agree that blogging is one of the best solutions for many business representatives. It can be used to establish the most trusting relationships with your audience, to present yourself and your business to new clients. This way, you can get a platform where you can share your latest innovations and developments. In addition, if you compare it with other ways of attracting a target audience, then launching a blog will in many ways be simpler, more convenient and less expensive in material terms. And the most interesting thing is that all this is relevant for absolutely any business, regardless of its size, as well as the niche in which the work is being carried out.
All this means that the time has passed when a blog was considered an exclusively informational section, focused not so much on the user audience as on search bots. Previously, materials were mainly published here only so that the system could see that the site was not abandoned, and that work was being done on it. A modern blog is a tool that can attract a target audience and help increase sales of goods or services. Here are just a few of the main advantages that your business will receive if you launch full-fledged work with a blog:
- Attracting additional traffic to the official pages of the company. When preparing articles for a blog, you can add direct links to the product categories of your site or the landing page. Thanks to this, you will not only provide potential buyers with a simple and quick transition to your resource, but also form an external link mass that will definitely be noticed and taken into account by search bots. As a result, your site has every chance of rising in search results and becoming more visible to the consumer market. Moreover, your audience will be able to share the articles they like with their friends on social networks, thematic forums, and communities. Just do not forget to fill such publications with correctly selected key queries. This will allow readers to find the material that interests them.
- Increasing brand awareness. This is one of the key tasks that every business at the development stage faces. In order to get a name that will be widely known in the target market and will attract customers in itself, you have to spend a lot of effort, time, money. With the help of a blog, you can minimize all these costs and get excellent results. The work that you will do in this section will gradually increase the level of awareness of the target market about your products, services, and the company as a whole. Here you have unlimited opportunities to tell the maximum about your business. As a result, people who already know you are more likely to turn to you for a purchase, and not to unfamiliar competitors, even if your position in the search results is slightly lower than theirs.
- Improving loyalty from the market. This parameter is manifested in the fact that a certain number of the target audience prefers your products or services, and not the products of competitors. It is the loyal audience that makes up the bulk of regular customers, which almost every modern business relies on. Such people are highly unlikely to go shopping with competitors even if they see that they have launched additional discounts or some other promotion. Blogging and publishing interesting, informative materials will help you form such a loyal audience.
- The opportunity to gain a reputation as an expert in your niche. In the articles that you will post on the blog pages, you can talk about how you built this business, show how deeply you are immersed in it, give advice and recommendations to people, and do many other jobs that will help them understand that you are truly competent in this matter. The consumer market today is too volatile. If people do not like something in the product or service, they immediately switch to competitors. The same will happen if you cannot answer some questions or provide an incorrect recommendation. That is, blog posts are what will allow you to prove your competence. Don't be afraid to get in touch with your audience. Give them advice, help them with their choices. You've probably already seen that today the Internet offers a wide variety of information, including some that is very controversial. Run your blog in a way that shows people that you are an expert and can be trusted.
- Building a regular audience. If you regularly add interesting and useful articles to your blog, you will be able to attract people who will simply be interested in reading and discussing them. Alternatively, you can even form a kind of community of readers, informing people about the release of a new publication through the same email newsletter. The main thing here is to find materials that might interest your potential buyers. Let's say you sell indoor plants and care products. You can dedicate your entire blog to telling people how to care for a particular flower, when it can be replanted, what to fertilize it with, how to protect it from diseases. You can pay special attention to caring for indoor plants at different times of the year. Considering how many varieties of decorative flowers exist, you will have enough material for more than one year. But it is important not to forget about interacting with your audience. You need to maintain feedback, answer their questions. This is the only way to form a thematic community with the most loyal audience. This is what will allow you to stand out from the competition and ensure stable business development.
As you can see, starting a blog has many advantages, and all of them are very important for interacting with the target market. You can be sure that if a person finds at least something interesting for themselves, they will contact you again and again, recommend you to their friends. Don't forget about the possibility of creating a large base of external links. Just think how many products you currently have on your site that you can transfer your blog readers to. And people who already know about you and trust you.
All these features have led to the fact that over 50% of modern marketers have not only included a blog in their business promotion strategy, but also make it a key focus. The only relative disadvantage that can be found here is that in this case you will not get instant results. This is work for the future. And this means that you will have to systematically work in this direction, spend your own time and effort on preparing content, publishing it regularly.
What content options are suitable for posting on a blog?
You can use different content options for publishing on a blog. This can be:
- Expert-class material. This includes various interviews, reviews, guides, articles written by someone who is thoroughly versed in this niche. Such publications will be used to show the market that you are well acquainted with the specifics of your business and really understand all the nuances. Such material will be useful not only for attracting the target audience, but also business partners. If you can convince a person who has delved deeply into your subject that you are an expert, there is a high probability that he will approach you with an offer of permanent cooperation.
- Reputational. This is material presented in the form of cases, that is, those projects that you have already implemented, proving your expertise in practice. In this way, you can attract the attention of people to your blog and the company as a whole, who are looking for a reliable contractor in a particular area of services. With the help of reputational content, you can show the market what you can do, and not only in words, but also in practice, and also convince them of the benefits they will receive if they contact you directly.
- Advertising. Such content, when posted on a blog, is designed to draw the attention of the target market to your products, services, competitive advantages. Also, with its help, you can show a certain person that he needs this product, thereby stimulating him to place an order. Most advertising content is presented in the form of a product description, its competitive advantages. If there are any shortcomings, then tell people about it and tell them how to avoid them in practice.
By and large, you will be able to combine all these types of content in your block, which will ultimately allow you to interact with the widest possible audience, as well as ensure comprehensive promotion of your business as a whole. This way, you will be able to avoid monotony in your publications, you will enliven the content and activity in your blog. Agree, reading diverse articles is much more interesting than the same type.
TOP 8 practices that will help you set up effective sales through a blog
Now that you are convinced of how effective the promotion of your business through publications in a personal blog will be, you can proceed directly to the implementation of this marketing strategy. In order for your work to be as effective as possible, so that you can avoid the most common mistakes and minimize labor and time costs, use our recommendations. We have provided 8 practices that will allow you to set up effective sales of goods and services through a blog. In particular, we are talking about the following points:
- Create quality content.
- Work out the structure and improve the perception of the content.
- Strengthen trust in your brand.
- Connect CTA buttons and use SEO principles.
- Personalize content.
- Adapt the blog to work with mobile devices
- Analyze and improve publications.
- Use best practices.
Let's look at all these 8 aspects in more detail so that you can apply these recommendations in practice.
Creating quality content
The material that will be presented on your block page has a direct impact on its development. The fact is that both visitors pay attention to it, assessing its usefulness for themselves, and search bots. And this means that it is necessary to satisfy the requests of both parties. Therefore, you should focus exclusively on high-quality, expert, relevant, simple and easy-to-perceive material. Here are just a few parameters that can turn an ordinary publication into a good one:
- Deep development of the original material. In the context of a certain topic, you should collect as much information as possible, think over the structure of its presentation and present everything as consistently as possible, without fluff. The more useful things your material contains, the more positive feedback your blog will receive.
- Ease of perception. This is achieved by dividing into thematic blocks, adding lists, and avoiding complex terminology and boring explanations. That is, it is necessary to make sure that the person reading your material immediately understands what you are talking about.
- Adding graphic content, video. Relevant for certain topics. These can be pictures that demonstrate the product in detail, graphs showing statistics, educational videos, etc. This is all that will increase the visibility of your material and help your readers delve deeper into the material.
The importance of quality content for promoting a blog and business in general has been proven in practice by numerous A/B tests. More conversions were observed on those resources that provided more in-depth and professional information than the same type of basic material supplemented with key queries.
If we analyze the material that was presented in the blogs of leading companies for the current year, then over 25% of the material is the company's own developments, about 22% is closed content, infographics - 15%, a selection of news and trends - 24%, interviews - 13%.
Working out the structure and improving the perception of content
The fact that the material presented on any site, including a blog, should be as easy to perceive as possible for the target audience has been repeatedly confirmed by practical research. Only structured content with a consistent presentation of thoughts can hold the attention of the user audience and be positively assessed by search bots. Here is a list of the main points that directly affect the ease of perception of the material:
- The presence of subheadings and, accordingly, thematic blocks. This is what will allow users to navigate the material well, easily find exactly the information that is interesting to them and not waste time studying unnecessary information.
- Inclusion of lists. Allows you to improve the perception of complex information, add structure, make perception more convenient and faster.
- The simplest sentences, the exclusion of large paragraphs. If a person has to reread the same sentence several times to understand its essence, they will quickly close your publication.
We also remind you about the need to exclude complex terms. You must understand that your material can be read even by those people who are not very deeply immersed in the topic. Present them with important information in the simplest language possible.
Strengthening trust in your brand
We have already talked about the fact that the consumer market buys more goods and services from those whom it is used to trusting. And this means that building good relationships with the target audience is the key to the successful development of your blog and business as a whole. To achieve these goals, it is important to:
- Post only expert authorial content on the blog. If people see that your materials are useful, reliable, based on facts and research, they are more likely to become your regular readers. If you are not sure that you can handle the preparation of such content on your own, involve third-party specialists who are immersed in the subject matter.
- Ask your customers to leave feedback about their cooperation with you. This will also help to increase trust from other buyers.
- Add links to expert sources and scientific research to your materials. This is what will convince readers of the reliability of your information.
This means that all your work that will be carried out in the process of blogging should be aimed at forming maximum trust in your brand from potential customers, improving its recognition and loyalty rate.
Connecting CTA buttons and using SEO principles
Yes, quality content is the basis of any site, including a blog. But it is also very important to properly promote this material, make it as visible to your audience as possible. It is also worth thinking about improving interaction with potential buyers of goods and services. This means that for a blog it is also very important to comply with all the principles of SEO optimization that are typical for any other sites. In particular, we recommend focusing on internal links, which will make it easy for users to navigate between your blog and the pages of the main business website, including those where product items are presented. It is also worth adding a CTA button that will encourage people to perform a particular target action.
When creating such a button, consider a number of recommendations:
- Make the CTA button as visible as possible, so that it stands out from the general background;
- The wording of the text itself should be as short and clear as possible, such as “order”, “buy”, “get a discount”, “learn more”, “register” etc.;
- the button should complement your text, fit harmoniously into it, and not just be a third-party block on the page: add it to the section where you talk about the product or your company;
- use gamification principles to attract attention to the CTA button: you can arrange a kind of quest for your readers, offering a prize, a bonus for completing the target action.
Remember that the CTA button is what will allow you to hold the attention of the audience and unobtrusively direct readers to the sales funnel.
Personalize content
This is the solution that will help increase conversions. In this case, you need to use solutions such as email newsletters and dynamic content when working with your blog. At the same time, it is important to adapt it to the reader's gender, interests, location, age and other data that will be at your disposal as a result of collecting a portrait of the target audience.
Thus, dynamic content will show a person what actions he previously performed in your block, adjust the issuance to individual requests. With the help of a personalized email newsletter, you can increase the loyalty of your audience, hold their attention, and build more trusting relationships. In any case, personalization is what can strengthen the relationship between the brand and the consumer market and significantly increase the likelihood of target actions.
Adapting a blog to work with mobile devices
Surely you have already noticed that recently more and more people are using their smartphones and tablets to surf the Internet. And this means that you should adapt your blog to such devices and make working with them as convenient as possible. If it is difficult for a person to study your publications from a phone or tablet, you can be sure that he will not even make an effort. He will go to your competitors.
The speed of page loading also plays a very important role: no one will wait several minutes for a publication to open in front of him. All this suggests that it is necessary to carry out comprehensive work with your blog site.
Analyzing and improving publications
The modern market is too dynamic. The trends that were relevant yesterday may no longer be interesting to anyone today. This means that you should constantly keep your finger on the pulse and present readers with only interesting and useful materials that are relevant today. This way, you can maintain constant interest, encourage subscribers to perform certain target actions, and promote closer interaction with your business. It is also important to monitor how well your publications reach the target market, which of them were read in full, and which did not arouse interest at all.
In order to perform these tasks as quickly and easily as possible, you can use specialized services, such as:
- Google Analytics. This is a tool that will allow you to study user behavioral factors, including how much time they spent on your blog, whether they went to the main pages of the site, and where they left the page.
- Page Analytics (by Google) or Microsoft Clarity. These are 2 services with similar specifics of work. They allow you to create a click map so that you can see which elements on the user's page were clicked most often.
- HubSpot. This is an analogue of Google Analytics, but with even broader functionality. With its help, you can connect your blog with sales and directly with your CRM system.
- Mixpanel. This is a mobile analytics tool, using which you can also create a customer transition map, analyze their behavior on the site. It is convenient that here you can also track the monetization of the resource.
Keep the key parameters of your blog under control in order to offer the market the most relevant, interesting and educational material.
Using best practices
The entire success of your blog and how effective sales you can organize through it directly depends on how many readers you manage to attract to the pages. To accomplish this task, you can use the following tips:
- Define the main goals and the indicators you want to achieve. As an option, this could be traffic, leaving a subscription, registration, reading the material to the end, clicking on links, placing an order, requesting a call back, etc. Also, be sure to indicate for what period of time you want to receive certain indicators.
- Divide your target audience into segments. Use behavioral factors, demographics, interests or any other criteria. As a result, you will need to prepare materials aimed at different segments.
- Build an approximate customer transition map. You must understand what actions your potential buyer will perform on the site, starting from the first transition to the site and up until he performs the target action. This will allow you to see what stage a particular client is at, as well as encourage them to contact your business, for example, through a newsletter in messengers or via email.
- Follow the practices that your competitors use. Perhaps on their site you will find interesting topics for your publications, you will be able to adopt technologies for interacting with the consumer market, etc.
And do not forget to follow the latest trends in your market niche, instantly reacting and adapting your blog to them.
Summing up
We hope that the material presented in this publication was useful for you and made it clear how powerful a tool for attracting the target audience and increasing conversion can be called a blog. But in any case, you need to make it so that users are interested in studying the materials. So that they want to share them with their friends. One that would encourage them to return to your blog again and take further targeted actions.
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