Quality Content: 15 Best Practices To Boost CRO In 2020

How to write quality content that drives sales

No matter your niche, you need to craft quality content to drive sales. Follow these tips to create a copy that engages, entertains, and most importantly – converts.

conversion-talks-2-how-to-write-effective-content-that-converts

Products don’t sell themselves. A copy is a top salesperson that should address the customer’s concern and guide them to the checkout button.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty as to why ‘quality content’ is so important in this day and age, let’s look at some hard facts to get you into the right mindset for crafting content that influences people to take action. 

  • Content marketing gets three times as many leads as paid ads 
  • Quality content can generate over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less
  • 60% of people are inspired to seek out a product after reading content about it

I. What is Quality Content

Generally, we are generating digital content for 2 major purposes: Deliver value and acquire traffic. So in a nutshell, quality content can be defined as the content that succeeds in delivering value and acquiring traffic. Without any of the two, your content makes little sense to the growth of your business. 

This article will be diving into some of the best practices to write effective content that can be used across your product pages, landing pages, blogs, and email marketing to increase conversions, no matter what you’re selling.

II. Quality Content: First, Value Exchange Mindset

Any successful sales pitch, presentation, business deal or brand building requires a certain mindset to drive the intended result home. 

Your content is no different. Look at the words and images you place on your page as ‘closing in print’. Everything you write should be intended to bring value to the reader, and ultimately influence them to take whatever action your brand requires.

Whether it’s to subscribe to your email list for future marketing campaigns or to buy a product, you are ‘closing’ the prospect by convincing them to do so, without ever having spoken a word to them. This is the power of quality content and is at the core of the value exchange mindset.

graphic-value-exchange-mindset

With the right content, you offer value upfront in exchange for the consumer’s cash that they so diligently worked for. Keep this at the forefront of your mind when crafting content and you’ll be on your way to higher conversion rates.

Some tips to create value and build trustworthy content are:

2.1 Write Exclusive Content for Customer Pain Points

We all need to be understood. Pain is one of the most powerful drivers for people to take action. When you understand your prospects pain, you have the ability to:

  1. Create educational content to tackle customer pain points through a blog or email campaign. This is free information, usually related to your product/service that aims to solve the reader’s problems. For example, as an electronics retailer, a crystal clear how-to post like “5 Ways To Fight Android Battery Drain” is informative and can help place you as an industry leader in the reader’s mind.
  2. Use this knowledge to make a big promise on your product or landing page. Deliver a complete message with confidence that your product is the solution to their pain. A great example of such a headline comes from a classic ad for facial lotion – “The 5$ Alternative To Costly Plastic Surgery”. 

Pain-driven content builds credibility in your brand. Credibility breeds trust. Trust increases conversion rates.

2.2. Quality Content Needs No Applause

Don’t write for applause. Instead, write for money. The harsh truth is, prospects don’t care about your opinion. They care about how your product can benefit them. Research carefully and write like you are creating Wikipedia articles. This is especially essential when it comes to crafting headlines and sales copy. Place 100% emphasis on how the reader can take a big step forward by doing business with you.

graphic-effective-copy-better-conversions-rate

BettingExpert.com used the standard “Join BettingExpert” headline for their subscribe forms which did not perform to their satisfaction. To appeal more to their audience, they tweaked the form copy (headline & button text). They changed from the original “Sign up” CTA button to “Sign Up & Get the Best Daily Tips.” The direct statement turned out to be successful, with an increase of 33% in membership sign-ups.

bettingexpert-form-copy-ab-test

Inspiring, witty CTAs are a favorite in every industry, especially when you sell apparel and cosmetic products. Displaying a clear, benefit-oriented value prop on the landing page of your store can trigger customers’ interest in what you have to offer them.

prominent-cta-examples

2.3. Craft Compelling Headlines

David Ogilvy, one of the greatest marketers, said, “On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you’ve spent eighty cents out of your dollar”.

Quality content starts at captivating headlines.

Imagine you write the world’s best email, but the headline is severely underwhelming. The recipient doesn’t even open the email and you lose the sales. Is it still the world’s best email now? If your headline fails to engage, nobody will read it. It’s arguably the most important element of your content.

Your headline is the first stage in what is known in the world of marketing as “The Slippery Slope”. If the headline can convince them to open the email, read the blog post or click on the sales page, you have started the prospect on their way. Make sure the beginning of the body text pushes them further and further down the slope, with every line being more engaging than the last until they reach their final destination – the “Call To Action”.

craft-compelling-headlines

This is a topic on which we could go on and on for days, but now let’s dive into some quick tips to create headlines for landing pages, product pages and emails. 

2.4. Attention-grabbing headlines

A successful headline is one that can pop through the clutter. Take an ad or any other piece of content and look at it with your eyes squinted so it’s blurry. This is how most people look at your content. As human attention spans grow shorter and marketplace gets noisier, we pay less attention.

Headlines come in all shapes and sizes but ultimately perform the same function. Here are some examples of the different headlines you can use based on your product:

  • Make a recommendation – “The 1 Tech Gadget You Must Own NOW”
  • Tell a story – “They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano, But When I Started To Play….”
  • Use a testimonial – “‘We were fresh out of options until we discovered Shopify’” 
  • Promise to reveal a secret – “Unlock Wall Street’s Secret Logic”
  • Make a big promise – “Slice 5 Years Off Your Age”
  • State a benefit – “Opening An Online Store – Once Difficult, Now Easy.”

2.5. The 4 U’s for Effective Headlines

Joseph Sugarman, a well-known advertiser, published the principle of the 4 U’s in The Copywriter’s Handbook and can be used for anyone struggling to create effective headlines. 

  • Urgent – Incorporate time elements
  • Unique – Craft a new message or an old message conveyed in a fresh way
  • Ultra-specific – Ex: “What never to eat on an airplane”
  • Useful – Offer a benefit like saving money

When you finish writing the headline, rate it on a scale from 1 to 4 on each “U”. Your headline should score at least 3 in 3 out of 4 “U”s.

effective-headlines-example

You’re looking at the most opened piece of mail sent by Boardroom for over 3 years. The bold print and ultra-specific headline trigger curiosity at the very least.

2.6. Keep it relevant (and specific)

Irrelevant headlines will leave your prospect feeling deceived with a bad taste in their mouth. You don’t often get a second chance to make a good impression as a brand, and consumers generally make a buying decision within 3 seconds of reading a piece of content. It’s perfectly fine to entice your readers and make them curious. However:

  1. Don’t use a clickbait headline
  2. Never make a promise in the headline unless your product can deliver

“A Submarine That Can Fly?!” isn’t relevant to your range of gourmet dog treats, so why use it? Clickbait headlines certainly get clicks, but they also drag in a pool of people who aren’t interested in your product. When you use specific, relevant headlines, you filter non-qualified buyers. As a merchant, understanding your customers needs in combination with these principles, you can create headlines that validate your products and sell like crazy.

III. How To Write Quality Content

Now that you’re on your way to making headlines that sell, it’s time to pay attention to the next stage of the content creation process – the body text. More than just words and images, the body content is your chance to ‘close’ the deal with prospects by making a connection, understanding their pain points and influencing them to take action emotionally.

One mistake of many businesses is to place their products on top. They have forgotten that the customer is the priority. Customers do not want to buy an i3 processor or 500GB hard drive. They want to buy a loading speed of 1GB/sec and memory that can contain 5 million photos. Let customers know how the product will help them be more successful and make their lives better. In the end, as women buy lots of cosmetics, they don’t actually buy cosmetics. They are buying youth and beauty that they desire. The bottom line is, sell benefits – how the product/service solves a problem, not features or ingredients. Always make sure your page copy aligns with the needs of your target audience.

Start getting creative. People see dozens of websites per day, so there’s a very high chance what you are showing is no more than just a template design like many other brands.

3.1 Choose content type wisely

Quality content is not limited to good blog posts or good product copywriting.

There are some popular content types that can help you boost conversions, especially in the long run. You can start experimenting with some of them to gradually grow your loyal customer base and attract traffic to your store at the same time.

Let’s take a closer look.

Blog posts

The content format most people think of as content marketing. Blog posts are quite easy to produce and are diverse in content, with little to no restriction as long as it is captivating to your audience. Blogging covers many types of articles. BuzzSumo’s research in 2017 among 100 million articles led to the discovery that people love to share lists, infographics, “What” posts (e.g. articles titled started with the word “what”) and “Why” posts (e.g. articles that tried to answer a “Why” question).

The method of producing blog posts with quality content depends on what type of post you are going for. If it is Infographics, you should focus on quality and visual appeal, by either using free tools for creating infographics or invest in a professional to create the perfect look you want.

If it is Lists, keep in mind that they need to help your users become aware of the choices they have, and better yet, make a decision. The “Top 10” formula always work well, but sometimes you can offer hundreds of recommendations and resources that visitors can save for later. Also, make them skimmable by numbering them and headline them nicely.

If it is How-to guides, remember that they are only helpful if they actually solve a real problem for your audience. So write the right content for the right target group. A tutorial for building high-converting sales funnel will certainly attract the attention of eCommerce merchants. And as How-to guides can be long, break them up visually through checklists, quotes, a bullet point.

Long-form articles

Long-form articles are a type of blogging, but can also stand alone as an editorial, a comprehensive guideline, or cumulative research on multiple topics. Interestingly, people love to share long-form articles on social media (over 2,000 up to 10,000 words), like Facebook, Pinterest or even Twitter. So this breaks the stigma that only short-form content is acceptable for effective ecommerce marketing.

buzzsumo-average-shares-by-content-length

To produce quality content for long-form articles, you’ll need to research and write content with real depth. You can also break into several chapters to deviate from the pressure of creating the perfect “ultimate article” at once. Frequently check resources and insights from industry experts, and try to deliver something better and fresher.

Case studies

For over 27,000 years, since the first cave paintings were discovered, telling stories has been one of our most fundamental communication methods. The impact of storytelling is undeniable, it’s inhuman design to love stories, especially those that we can relate to and learn from. Case studies in Ecommerce connect to everyone, from beginners, small-medium businesses to industry moguls, as they disclose the highs, the lows, and the dragons the protagonist has beaten down to get to their success today. That is exactly what you need to recreate.

Instead of just telling your audience about the awesome features of your product, try telling them stories too, about how you and other people built businesses from scratch, found mentors, and eventually reached new heights. Talk about both failures and successes. Even better, make it about your audience, about how your product can aid their journey to grow and achieve their goals in life.

Check out this captivating Shopify case story if you need the inspiration to start typing.

EBooks

EBooks have always been a great form of marketing content. As content come in a variety of forms, from YouTube videos to blog posts, eBooks still retain their unique strength in that they’re downloadable. They are convenient to store in smartphones, laptops, eBook readers and other devices. The act of owning an eBook feels more valuable to users than just seeing online content. 

You can distribute eBooks to users in exchange for their contact information, it will be more compelling than offering them to subscribe to a newsletter, as the sense of value is not evident. Or, you can give your eBooks to new subscribers as free gifts. If you have a sufficient amount of eBooks at hand, turn them into a series of weekly-to-monthly releases through emails to your subscribers. No effort goes to waste, you can even recover the interest of your former customers once they notice these free gifts. 

piktochart-ebook-email-offer

Webinars and E-courses

Webinars and E-courses are go-to content types for marketers operating in the B2B world.

In fact, 66% of marketers believe webinars to be an effective form of B2B content marketing. Furthermore, a well-planned webinar/ e-course will help boost your traffic and build relationships with influencers and generate leads.

To deliver webinars and e-courses well, you need appropriate tools to create an exceptional experience for your users. 

For Webinars, popular options recommended by G2Crowd score are GotoWebinar, On24, Clickmeeting, and WebexWebinar. 

E-courses are mainly in the form of ready-made sessions, so they are less complex and don’t necessarily require an interactive environment. Video, audio, presentation is common e-course formats.

As webinars and E-courses are a great way to generate leads by requiring your users to register for an account. Users will not see it as a business’ method to acquire their contact information, but a sensible requirement. SALESmanago applies this with their Marketing Automation Academy; meanwhile, they also showcase a list of certified specialists who completed their course as testimonials.

salesmanago-free-webinar

Podcasts

An underrated content marketing tactic, podcasts are actually one of the best ways to build an audience base and boost traffic. 

According to kickofflabs, between 2015 and 2016 podcast listenership grew by 23%, and, compared to numbers in 2013, grew by 75%. 

With podcasts, you can tap into one of the hardest to catch audience base: The on-the-go audience. They take daily commute, they can’t read your blog posts, your emails, your ebooks while driving or jogging, but they can listen to you. Podcasts are portable and convenient.

Moreover, speaking is quicker than writing. A podcast can take you about 30 minutes of recording, but the same amount of content in written form can take hours, if not days, to go through. So it’s a win-win situation for marketers and business owners alike.

So how can you use podcasts to promote your brand and boost traffic? You can discuss current trends and hot topics, and there’s never a shortage of those. Think of those “Storytime” videos on YouTube or series after series of product reviews that are less about products and more about the latest gossip. 

If there’s a significant news story related to your niche, your audience wants to learn more about it. You can position yourself as an expert, or interview experts, and provide insights for free. If you have time and resources, look into your blog posts and convert them to podcasts, and vise Versa. Therefore, you will be able to access multiple audience base without having to churn out new, original content constantly.

Email marketing

Email marketing is still relevant in 2018. In fact, it has an average ROI of 3,800 percent. For every dollar invested, the average return is $38. Email isn’t going away either; as of 2017, there are 3.7 billion global email users, and this number is predicted to grow to 4.1 billion users by 2021. So it’s just unwise to not integrate this wonderful tactic into your roster of marketing strategies.

A marketing email will break into four very basic parts: Subject line, Body copy, Call to action (CTA), then Sign off. Within each of these parts is an opportunity and need to weave content marketing in. See Headspace’s marketing email for their meditation app below. The structure is good for those who don’t have time to scroll down emails, while still focused on the promotion and with a touch of well-designed graphics.

headspace-email-marketing

Nowadays, when personalization is no longer optional, you will benefit from segmenting your email lists to send out more personalized and tailored emails. This will increase the relevance for your recipients, which helps you retain subscribers over the long-term and keep them engaged. Follow up by customizing your content to best approach your target subscribers.

Videos

To remain competitive in the marketplace, it’s vital that you find a way to grab your targeted audience’s attention and engage them quickly. Video is a quality content marketing tactic – especially for small and medium businesses – because it provides such an appealing return on investment.

The content of your videos will depend on the type of topics that appeal to your audience. 

Where are they on the buyer’s journey? 

Will they be interested in how-to videos, or pay more attention to product demos? 

This affects video length. Micro videos (typically between 5-10 seconds long) are for building brand awareness; short-form videos (often seen on YouTube or Facebook) are no more than a minute long and will fuel engagement and time spent on a brand’s website; long-form videos tell the full story and provide in-depth presentations. Consider all your options and get the camera rolling!

Social media posts

It’s a given fact that small businesses can harness the power of social media to gain influence and reach more customers. PwC’s 2018 Global Consumer Insights Survey disclosed that social networks are the number one choice of online media where consumers get inspired to purchase. 

Up to millions of products are being promoted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at any given moment, and there is still more ground for new businesses to jump in. 

Also, social media is a good channel for you to gain user-generated content, which is a strong valuable social proof. So why not take the chance?

3.2. Write To Communicate

Quality content is content that communicates in a clear manner.

Before you’re able to sell a pen, it’s no brainer that you must be able to talk first.

  • Put the reader first. Make your writing “you” orientated at all times. Ask yourself – will the reader understand what I’ve written?
  • Carefully organize your selling points. Organize them in a logical, persuasive and clear fashion. Listing benefits are infinitely more effective than stating features. 
  • Vary the length of sentences to increase readability and flow. Use occasional short sentences and sentence fragments for extra punch. For example: “Basic eye emphasizer does it all. It’s the one eye make up everyone needs. The only one.” Also, feel free to use one-sentence paragraphs to shock the reader into wakefulness again.
  • Don’t use a technical term unless you are sure 90% of your readers will understand it. Jargon terms turn readers off. 
  • Be concise. Lengthy words dilute your message and take up space unnecessarily. Don’t be afraid to rewrite and edit to give your message more vigor and clarity.
  • Write in a conversational tone. Conversational style writing engages people and makes it instantly relatable. Imagine yourself sitting in front of the reader and write down what you speak. Writing naturally is more important than being grammatically correct.
  • Use Hashtags: For social media quality content, hashtags are an integral part that can make or break a marketing strategy. When done right, using hashtags can be fundamental to generating exposure and audience engagement. You can utilize trending hashtags like #photooftheday, #fashion, #beautiful, #tbt and much, much more to express your brand in a way that is accessible to your audience. Or better yet, create your own hashtags for your brand, certain product lines and campaigns to measure exactly how impactful your business is.

kitkat-haveabreak-hashtag

Kit Kat uses #HaveABreak to engage with the social community.

3.3. Quality Content is Content That Sells.

  • Convert features to benefits. Take some time and think about how your product can benefit the reader because this is what drives them at the end of the day. For example: “A pencil is a wooden cylinder surrounding a graphite core” becomes “Can be re-sharpened as often as you like to ensure clean, crisp writing”. The benefits are the results of the features. Remember that people don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.
  • Define your Unique Selling Point. It must have benefits over other products, so make sure to state them in your content creation process. If there isn’t a clear benefit over your competition, you can differentiate it. For example, M&M’s came up with a successful USP with the term “M&M’s melt in your mouth, not in your hand”. While this wasn’t any different from what the competition offered, M&M’s were the first to say it.
  • Dramatize a known benefit in a compelling fashion. A super successful walkie talkies ad showed the devices being used over the grand canyon. This is the standard range for most walkie-talkies, however, displaying it in such a fashion dramatizes it.
  • Use a sniper rifle, not a shotgun. When you are more specific with your target demographic, conversion rates go up. Write to appeal to a narrow audience and they will feel better understood. When you speak to a mass audience, you dilute your message have less relatability with your content. 
  • Make your Call-to-Action bold and clear. Show the prospect exactly what they need to do to make the purchase, or how to take the next step in the sales funnel. Start with strong and active verbs to lead the prospect by the hand. Be concise and clear, and include no more than 5 words. When transactions become too difficult, the buyer will flee in a blink.

crazyegg-cta

3.4. Be Creative To Catch Customers’ Attention

Creativity is key indicator of quality content. People see dozens of websites per day, so there’s a very high chance what you are showing is no more than just a template design like many other brands. This can make visitors get bored very easily, so you would need to display your creativity through subtle details, like the form below.

This is a form created by HuffDuffer. They put a new twist on their forms, which makes it looks like an actual letter instead of the common field-by-field layout.

huffduffer-customer-form-before-after

This personal touch added a 40% improvement in form completions and conversions for them – a simple yet very smart method.

3.5 Discuss Customers’ Objection.

If we want to produce an effective piece of content, all high school teachers (hopefully) have taught us to put counter-arguments onto the table. Don’t be afraid to put customers’ barriers, doubts, and hesitations, on your site…and directly counter them. Common barriers include:

  • You don’t understand my unique problem
  • Why should I believe you?
  • What if it doesn’t work for me?
  • It’s not worth the money

Many brands even use these questions as keywords in the FAQ section. Try to counter objections at different points in your funnel, it will pay off in the end.

3.6. Use Micro-copy And Directional Cues

Microcopy typically exists in the form of notifications, explanations, suggestions that are strategically placed across an eCommerce website, to help visitors stay in the right direction to perform the desired action. At a glance, these minor lines might be insignificant, but in actuality, they make a huge impact on how you can improve your conversion rates.

In some situations, microcopy helps eliminate spectacles of doubt a visitor has about tasks on your website, like registration, subscribe, or purchase. By anticipating user’s questions, you can make a great counter before the argument even starts. On Timely’s invitation to connect their visitors’ Twitter account with their website, they cover all potential concerns in one tight little sentence:

timely-microcopy

In other situations, microcopy will explain to users what they are doing wrong and how they can fix it because a crude error callout will leave them confused and having a hard to figuring out what to do next. MailChimp handles the error state short and polite, on a red background to emphasize.

mailchimp-microcopy

There’s also nothing wrong about reminding your customers or subscribers that they are about to do a very smart thing. You can use microcopy to boast a little about numbers and incentives to them as Basecamp does:

basecamp-microcopy

Ultimately, you should find the right balance between helpful and intruding microcopy. If you keep showing unnecessary information to your visitors’ intention throughout the sales funnel, you will only clutter your UI and frustrate potential customers.

3.7. Make It Easy-to-scan

Generally, an online copy is scanned or glanced at, not really read. Prospects are looking for specific information or products. Does your website have what they’re looking for? If yes, is it easy to find? With the human attention span recently dropping from 12 seconds to 8, we now sit below goldfish attention span – 9 seconds. To remove all barriers to make sure people can find what they need on your site fast. You can do the following:  

  • Put the most important information first
  • Create a table of contents with navigation links
  • Avoid long, intimidating text paragraphs
  • Construct a clear structure for your headlines and body copy
  • Compile and organize your content by lists. Stay as compact as possible, especially on mobile display where keeping users swiping up and down to read the whole text is not recommended

easy-to-scan-copy-mobile-example

IV. Optimize your SEO presence

What’s the point of quality content if your readers can not even find you?

For small and medium businesses whose “net” isn’t big enough yet, look no further than SEO to increase your sales on your eCommerce site. Many just stop at thinking that SEO is usually used to increase web traffic, but the truth is: The better your ranking on Google and other search engines, the more you will sell.

So how about optimizing your website’s SEO to achieve better sales? Let’s dig in.

4.1. Extensive Keyword Research

SEO is firstly about keywords. If your eCommerce pages contain the right keywords, you are heading in the right direction. Find those that are most relevant to the products you’re selling. The first solution you think of is probably Google, but it contains such broad search terms that you will invest more time into the treasure hunt than you want. Instead, turn to industrial tools to do the job for you.

Übersuggest allows you to see keywords that aren’t visible in Google’s keyword research tools. For example, by typing in “heat lamp”, you will receive hundreds of variations of keywords people might use when they search for heat lamps. Have you thought about “heat lamp in the dog house”, “heat lamp snake”, or “heat lamp bulb for bathroom” before seeing Ubersuggest’s list?

neilpatel-ubersuggest

Neil Patel pointed out that long-tail keywords prove effective as they allow you to drive large traffic with marginal effort and less competition, especially against major brands that already have capitalized popular keywords. To look for these catches, head to Amazon. They are one of the best places to find long-tail keywords, as their humongous database allows them to predict the most common search queries.

For example, type “bean bag” in Amazon’s search bar.

amazon-long-tail-keywords-suggestion

See that there are many long-tail keywords that you should target if you sell bean bags like “bean bag stuffed animal storage”, or “bean bags for cornhole toss”. You can strike gold with phrases that your competitors aren’t even mining for.

By expanding your keyword options, you should not simplify your keyword vault by assigning a keyword for multiple pages with a similar product line. This will tell Google to rank all these pages with the same keyword, and you’ll lose a lot of credibilities. Notice how Bellroy’s Minimalist collection set “micro sleeve”, “slim sleeve”, “card sleeve”, and more, not adding “wallet” at the end.

bellroy-product-keyword-variations

Another tip is to use competitor keywords, which is understandable since their targeted consumer base might very well be your own. A good method is to use Google Keyword Planner, which has the function to search for keywords related to a specific landing/product page – your competitors. 

Once you have the targeted landing/product page in mind, head to Google Keyword Planner (Note: You need to log in your Google Ads account first to use the tool), choose to Find new keywords, then paste the URL. You will then have the option to find keywords by the entire site, or by the page only. Here we have Zara’s Men’s Jackets Collection.

google-keyword-planner

By juggling between finding keywords by the entire site or by the page only, you can see a vast difference in how your competitors define their content to maximize consumer reach ratio. You will need to focus on keyword ideas generated from your competitors’ landing/product page only, as they are the one actually relevant to your products. 

Below is the Zara’s Men’s Jackets Collection keyword ideas by entire site vs. keyword ideas by the landing/product page only:

zara-product-page-keyword-use

zara-website-keyword-use

To improve your SEO results, make sure to include these competitor keywords in your product descriptions. However, make sure to expand your keyword collection by circulating the market too. An ideal tool to assist you in this ordeal is Keywords Everywhere, a tidy and free Chrome extension that displays monthly search volumes, CPC, competition, and related keywords right below the search bar.

keywords-everywhere-seo

You can also highlight words from any website and see their SEO performance metrics.

4.2. Optimize Product Pages

To improve your results in Google, you need to optimize each product page you want to rank. Otherwise, you’re missing out on a lot of SEO advantages. Rest assured that the basics of optimizing product pages for SEO are quite doable, but they can help you sell more than what you are aware of.

Many overlook the fact that product photos are a way for Google to find their businesses since they also have their own URL. So firstly we need to optimize your images by paying more attention to how they are named on your server. Look to Calzedonia, the Italian Legwear & Beachwear brand, and their landing page featuring Julia Roberts.

calzedonia-julia-roberts-product-page-1

calzedonia-julia-roberts-product-page-2

The names of all these promotional images include Julia Robert’s household name as SEO keyword.

calzedonia-julia-roberts-product-page-3

Simply renaming your images, or even adding alt tags to them can help you improve your results in Google.

Follow up with optimizing your images, you need to pay attention to what you say in the title of your product. For best results, make sure the product description and title are related, and use your most important keywords in both.

Interestingly, long-form content gets more traffic than short-form. And not just long-ish, we are talking about at least 500 words to as much as 1,000 words, which is astounding especially if you are driven toward mobile-oriented marketing. But data on Google shows that web users want specific answers to specific questions; and along with long-tail search keywords, long-form content will more likely contain exactly what they’re looking for.

To do this, you may consider including multiple details in each description on your product page. Look to Blueair for example, their Classic Air Purifier product page includes the whole story behind the air purifier, why it works and why people need it in their homes.

blueair-specific-product-description

Have you seen many product search results with the product rating directly underneath the titles? Google’s built-in product review schema helps you achieve that, as it is a special code for search engines that allows you to include details of your product in Google’s SERPs.

google-serp-product-rating-badge

You can check the guide right here. This is the perfect badge to boost click-through rates, as ratings are easily one of the first criteria people have in mind when searching for a product. Why not shorten the process for them?

4.3. Include Quality Content

Google adores backlinks over almost everything else, and they’re not subtle about placing pages with a high amount of domains linking to on top of their search result pages. But how do you get those backlinks? By writing quality content. Then from these content pages, you can link to products and boost sales.

A fascinating thing about quality content in eCommerce marketing is that there is no restriction. Anything that catches your consumers’ attention, grab onto it. You can write both content largely unrelated to what you sell, and content closely tied to your products. An online clothing store that writes about underground music passion is not risky, not if the article is interesting enough to catch the community’s attention.

You may need: Copywritely is a helpful SEO Content Checker to identify plagiarism, detect keyword stuffing and test readability score. Tools like this make sure your content is unique and best optimized for search engines.

Meanwhile, Jeffree Star Cosmetics maintains the perfect equilibrium between casual content and product-specific content on their media page. From makeup reviews to stories about switching cars with a celebrity for a day, the extravaganza of this sensational personality is what drives tons of visitors to his website every day. His content is worthwhile and shareable, while linked to his products.

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4.4. Review Your Site Structure

Site structure is how your pages are linked to each other. If you have different categories, and different products in these categories, that’s your site structure.

A complex, disorganized site structure leads to messy page URLs, and they do not perform well on Google search engine rankings. Remember that your site structure needs to make sense to Google’s web crawlers, nevermind that it may seem logical to you at first.

To “tidy up” your site structure, start by going back to the basics. Create a list of categories and parent pages, designate a set of product pages under those, and maintain the structure as you add new pages. Remember to keep it simple and consistent.

Check out Canon UK for references, they have a clear site structure in their website’s footer that shows every category visitors can look for:

canon-site-structure-at-page-footer

It is recommended that you make every page three of fewer clicks away from the homepage. For example:

  • Home page >> Collection >> Sub-category >> Product page
  • Home page >> Services >> Maintenance
  • Home page >> Get inspired >> Blog post

One final thing is to check if your website contains duplicated pages or not. It is not uncommon, especially for eCommerce sites where product pages are typically generated automatically. Think Shopify, if you enter a product twice into the database, you may end up with duplicate content that’s spread across your site without your knowledge. Do a careful manual site check through, or use third-party tools like Siteliner to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Smart Marketer while managed by an efficient team of eCommerce experts, still lets a tiny portion of duplicated pages slip by. Using Siteliner, you can see the results immediately. So there’s no reason for you to not pay attention to this mistake.

siteliner-check-duplicate-content-1

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Now you must have a better idea of creating quality content that converts. Understand their pain, grab their attention, write like you speak and lead them by the hand. When it’s all said and done, you will see dramatic increases in conversion rates.

Happy selling folks!

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