If you’ve got a blog that is starting to gain traffic, then your work is just beginning. When a user lands on your blog, they are likely there to gain information. It is up to your website’s content and experience to get the user to take the desired actions. In this case, the desired action is clicking on a “Call To Action” or CTA to submit their information and gaining conversions from blog content.
Eliminate Distractions
To engineer a user experience that aligns with the actions we want them to take, the first step is to clean up the page. The human eye is naturally attracted to contrast and you’ll need to play that to your advantage. All too often, a website is stuffed with elements that detract from the CTA. While it may seem like a good idea to load up the sidebar with relevant content and pages from somewhere else on your site, don’t. Create a smooth text interface. The only thing drawing attention should be your CTA. It should be very clear where the user is supposed to click.
Optimize the Conversion Path
Blog traffic is important to Google’s PageRank, but worthless to a business if the blog doesn’t convert, right? Then we need to create a clear path to the CTA. Even if your blog is getting a lot of traffic, it doesn’t mean users are consuming the content in its entirety. This becomes an issue if your CTA button is at the bottom of the page. At Firestarter SEO, we use the Crazyegg heatmap to find out what actions users are taking once they are on the page. With this tool, you can decipher where on the page users are spending the bulk of their time and adjust your CTA accordingly. This article by Hubspot covers some different types of CTAs you might want to try out. A slide-in CTA could be the key difference between someone exiting your site or handing over their information.
CTA Wording
Just as important as the flow of your page to your CTA, is the wording. Even if you’ve done everything else right, if the CTA doesn’t motivate users to click the button you won’t see conversions. While “Buy Now!” or “Submit a Request” might seem like good descriptive options of the action you want users to take, they also infer the user will have to give up time, money, or information. Try to use words that focus on the personalized benefit of the action they are taking like “Get My Free Download” or “Receive My Proposal”. Your CTA should also tell the user exactly what is going to happen when they click the button.
Don’t be afraid to A/B test your site with different versions of CTAs. The best wording, position, and style of CTA will be different for everyone. Reach out to the Firestarter SEO team and ensure you are getting the most out of blog conversions.