To drive conversions, you must have an effective content creation strategy that includes the top three components of compelling content. Without these elements, your content is unlikely to attract and engage your target audience and will not effectively drive conversions.
So in this article, we review the top components of compelling internet content, so you can drive more conversions and succeed as a business.
#1 Create a Compelling Headline
Compelling content that drives conversions starts with an effective headline, which with an article is the title.
A compelling headline has two distinct features:
- Defined value proposition.
- Concise explanation of content.
Without these two elements, your headline is unlikely to attract and engage your target audience.
A value proposition in a headline doesn’t need to be long, but it should tell readers what they can expect from the content. By defining the value of your content in the headline, you’re giving potential readers an excellent reason to consume the content, which can involve clicking on a link and possibly filling out a lead generation form.
Headlines should also accurately define the content. Headlines that are vague, non-descriptive, and generic in nature tend to have lower clickthrough and conversion rates. Viewers want to have some idea of what they’ll find on a page before they click to see it. If you leave them guessing, without a well-defined and captivating title, they will ignore your content.
The best content, therefore, stimulates viewers and compels them to consume the content, with a well-defined headline containing a desirable value proposition.
#2 Focus on Content that Benefits the Audience
People consume content that benefits them in some way. Depending on their need at the moment, people may consume content for entertainment, education, professional development, generating income, spirituality, etc.
Content that is of utmost benefit to the audience, while meeting and exceeding their needs, typically performs the best at driving conversions.
Even though the products and services of a company should be secondary to the benefits of the content audience, the products and services should be part of the benefit. And whenever possible, promoted products and services should solve a problem.
Therefore, content that drives conversions is of immense benefit to the audience. As a result, it is usually different from sales copy with lots of bold text in all caps that is highlighted with a bright color. Writing in a style that may be construed as sleazy sales language doesn’t help build trust with readers, which is important when creating internet content that drives conversions.
#3 Use an Effective Content Style That Resonates with Your Target Audience
It’s important to understand that people consume content for specific purposes. Therefore, content must be created in a suitable style for the visitor to consume it in a manner desirable for the moment.
For example, a woman who works in a B2B industry doing research at work for suppliers is focused on getting the information she needs as quickly as possible, and in as concise a manner as possible. However, when she goes home and relaxes at the end of the evening, she consumes content that is entertaining and provokes emotional responses that are gratifying. So at work, she may prefer technical content she can quickly digest and move to the next task, and at home, she may prefer video love stories that are humorous.
It’s important to know our target audience, and of paramount importance to understand how our audience desires to consume content relative to our industry.
To discover the most effective style of content for an audience:
- Learn from leading companies in your industry that provide the best content to the audience.
- Test different styles of content to see which works best with your audience, especially with specific demographics such as age. You may find that different styles of content achieve different objectives.
- Test readability. Some audiences desire to consume highly technical content, while others desire to consume easy-to-read.
- Test the presentation of content, i.e., page layout, presentation of text, video presentation with introductions, etc.
- Test landing pages, which in some cases may be another form of content.
- Test forms, which should typically have the least amount of content (i.e., friction).
Take Away
To drive conversion and succeed as a business, you must have an effective content creation strategy, which should include:
- Create a compelling headline.
- Focus on content that benefits the audience.
- Use an effective content style that resonates with your target audience.
To learn more about the displayClicks platform, and how it can help you drive more conversions through internet content, schedule a demo or request a 30-day free trial. We also recommend Optimizely’s Conversion Best Practices Toolkit.