18 Content Writing Tips For Improving Conversions

Content writers often think about on-page layout as a way to make posts more readable. You use lots of white space, include bullet points and lists, and bold specific phrases in the text. The main reason you do this is for skim-readers. Business people are busy, and they only need the highlights. For this reason, you also need to place your CTAs with these skim-readers in mind.

A clear CTA at the end of the introduction (or first paragraph) is a great example. Even if the reader doesn't click immediately, they're likely to see your offer. They keep reading with this offer in mind, and if you present it again further down the page, there's a much better chance they convert. The most important part is to think about how your links and CTAs look in the context of the piece and make sure you use them with this in mind.

Contributors: Patrick Whatman from Spendesk 

One of the most effective tactics to drive conversions through content writing is to demonstrate why the reader needs to take action quickly by driving urgency. For example, if your product is email privacy software, you could write a listicle article about the different dangers facing small businesses through email and place call-to-actions saying “secure your business’s emails” at the middle and end of the article.

The goal of driving urgency isn’t to needlessly scare readers but to make them aware of the problems that face their business, how your product can serve as a solution, and why they shouldn’t delay in utilizing it. Providing revealing statistics can also serve to drive urgency in your content writing by tangibly demonstrating the need for your product. If say, 4/10 companies experience cybersecurity risks, you can include this fact to highlight the magnitude of the problem you can solve. Anecdotal examples can also make a problem seem that much more real by vividly describing the issues other people or businesses experienced.

Contributors: Nicolas Straut from Fundera 

Never think of a page, blog post, or other content in isolation. Instead, consider how it presents your message, and how prospective customers approach it. The sales funnel is a very helpful way to visualize this approach to content writing and all other aspects of marketing: Consumers become aware of your brand through high-quality content describing your solution to their needs, you earn their interest through content that informs them about the service you provide, and they make the decision to contact you when your content makes it clear why you are different. Do all of this well, and creating content with a strong call-to-action will drive conversions.  

Contributors: Saralyn Ward from Page 1 Solutions, LLC 

Any time you create content, you are giving people information. You want them to do something with that information, but what do you want? You're readers aren't going to know unless you tell them. You can say "Here's how to improve your business", and readers will just think "that's cool" and move on. But, if you say "Here's how to improve your business. Shoot me an email with your biggest challenge right now, and I'll help you solve it." You'll get people reaching out. Once you've got them on a leash, you can guide them through your funnel, whatever that looks like for your business. 

Contributors: Kenneth Burke from Text Request 

Satisfied customers are one of the richest wells of content ideas a marketing strategist can draw from. Post their picture on Instagram, create a video in which they tell their story, or invite them to contribute a guest post to your blog. Curating customer-created content amplifies customer loyalty and can increase your reach to new leads, and featured customers are likely to share their contribution with their social networks. Those without a personal connection to the featured customer will also be drawn in more, as the recommendation of a real customer carries far more weight than company-created content. Some ways to cultivate customer drive stories:

• Invite customers to connect with you via email or different social platforms if they have a story to share.
• Monitor social media mentions and reviews for customers with particularly strong or unique opinions and insights into your products. Reach out to invite them to contribute.
• Consider integrating a review platform directly into your site to gather even more reviews. Choose the best ones to highlight as tweets or in other portions of your site.

Contributors: Stuart Ridge from VitaMedica 

When writing content try and make sure you only create short two or three sentences together, then a line break. It makes it much easier for the reader to digest bite-sized chunks of information as opposed to long paragraph blocks. Your reader will invest more time, ultimately increasing your content conversion rate. 

Contributors: Damien Buxton from Midas Creative

Go to your Sales team and collect a list of questions people ask over the phone. Add them to your landing page. In order to convert, people need to see answers to all the questions they might have.

Contributors: Leslie Carruthers from TheSearchGuru Inc.

Want your blog to rank? You will need to be bigger and better than your competition. Google is now favoring longer and more detailed content. Consider writing a guide that is over 3K works with heavy image use.

Contributors: Milad Hassibi from CrediReady

You want to keep your intro short and to the point but you also want to grab the reader's attention, pique their interest and explain to them what the content is going to involve (and what problem it is going to help solve). Make use of short paragraphs as well as bolded and italics text to further push the reader to keep reading. The longer the reader stays on the page, the more chance you have of a conversion.

Contributors: Jamie Campbell from Gaijin Crew Travel Blog

Being a customer-centric digital life insurance agency, we work hard at developing content that meets our customers needs when shopping for insurance. When it comes to our site, the content that converts the best is the content that focuses less on the ranking and more on providing blatant honesty in the information we produce. No salesy copy, no gimmicks. Take the time to understand what the customer wants to know, be honest, and put them first. Customers like honesty. Honesty builds trust. Trust builds relationships. Relationships create conversions.

Contributors: Luke Kinton from True Blue Life Insurance

In a mobile-first world, you have less time to grab people, attention spans are shorter than ever so video will be used, even more, show don¹t tell for maximum impact, rich content drives engagement.

Contributors: Paige Arnof-Fenn from Mavens & Moguls 

When people are on your blog it’s usually because they’re looking for something in particular. That being said, giving them what they want within the first couple sentences of the first paragraph will yield great results. For one, people have short attention spans. Two, your site visitors are like wild animals hungry for information. Feed that hunger or they’ll find somewhere else to eat.. Two things to keep in mind when writing content: How fast can they find what they’re looking for? And how easily can they find it? 

Contributors: Tim Absalikov from Lasting Trend

I think making your content as clear as possible to the reader will get you more conversions. Make everything clean and simple, have a catchy title, a clear value proposition and make it as easy as possible to convert.

Other than that I think simplest and quickest way to improve conversions is to add a call to action, i.e. tell them what you want your readers to do and make it as easy as possible for them to do it. You can see this done especially well in YouTube videos, almost all videos on YouTube will tell you to like, subscribe, hit the bell icon etc. 

Contributors: Zygimantas Jacikevicius from WiseTeam 

According to many studies, today's average American adults read effectively at a 9th-grade level. Your content shouldn't be too wordy nor complicated. You should write conversationally instead. 

Contributors: Gregory Golinski from YourParkingSpace

It's a simple and effective way to reroute visitors and keep them reading on your site. The more information you give them, the more they trust you. Once they trust you as a reliable source, they're likely to convert. 

Contributors: Kelly Jacobson from Illumine8 Marketing & PR 

 Do not use long sentences as a long-form essay most of the time feels like a long read. Write content as if it is a conversation between you and your readers. 

Contributors: Supriya AN  from Talk Travel 

You need to pick the right person to write your company's blog posts. Whether you choose to have a part-time content writer or ghost-blogger to write your posts, is up to you. The posts on your blog need to convey the same tone, voice, and sentence structure to establish and maintain your company's brand. Similar and well-written blog posts can drive your website visitors who read your blog to other pages on your website. 

Your content writer should also be able to understand and effectively use keywords that your target audience enters in a search engine. Your content writer needs to use keywords that your competitors use to drive traffic to their blog in order to drive traffic to your blog. Once you have people reading thoughtful and engaging content on your blog, you are much more likely to have your readers explore the rest of your website. This can help improve your business's conversion rate regardless of the service or product that you sell. 

Contributors: Peter Ventura from Peter Ventura Law

No one wants to read stuff that drones on and on. But, how do you keep your tone positive and exciting? Simple. Just let your tone be conversational and structure your content to focus more on solutions rather than pose questions or problems. 

Contributors: Sowndarya Kishore from Social Animal