You put all that effort to creating a blog post—researching a great topic, reading about it, writing it, promoting it even, so that it gets great traffic. But do you notice if it’s actually doing something for your ecommerce site?

The whole point of developing content for your site is so that you can generate leads, that will ultimately lead to conversions.

Think of it like this—each post you publish can essentially be used as a marketing tool to drive sales; so use it wisely.

Here are some ways you can maximize the conversion potential of your blog posts:

1. Create compelling CTAs that grab attention

Call-to-actions (CTA) typically appear at the end of blog posts to give your readers clear direction about what to do next. While that is important, know that the end of a blog post isn’t the only place you can spur your readers into action.

Make the most out of your post and include relevant CTAs that grab reader’s attention.

• Try using a slide-in CTA if you have an offer that you’d like to pitch early on—it’s a great way to capture the attention of new users without being too intrusive.
• Slide-in CTAs, which appear after you’ve reached a certain point or section on your page, function like traditional pop-ups, but feel less disruptive to a user’s reading experience.
• Apart from incorporating a CTA at the end of your post, a prominent CTA box at the end of a post is a great way to drive your conversion rates up.

2. Offer content upgrades

Yes, it will require additional content to be produced by you. And obviously it will have to be crafted with as much care and attention as you would your blog posts, but it goes a long way towards driving up your conversions.

The idea is to give away a resource that is unique to every blog post. Take this example for instance, written by Kim Roach, who wrote a post about the “Top 10 Fiverr Gigs for Small Business Owners.”

Kim Roach’s article on providing upgraded content on Fiverr offers a clear and simple example of how to build interest and conversions with content.

Fiverr being a known resource for freelancers and small business owners alike makes the topic interesting and useful. But to drive further interest and deliver the conversion numbers, the author added the option for readers to get more.

Once the user scrolls down the article, the option to get a more comprehensive version of the article is available—if you opt-in to her mailing list.

3. Design the layout of your site based on heat maps

Heat maps are very useful tools that give you a visual representation of where people spend the most time on a page, giving you a general overview of your user’s behavior on your site.

Insight drawn from information delivered by heat maps can prove to be a valuable tool for conversions.

There are numerous ways you can improve your page using insight gathered from heat maps. For example—

• Keeping most of your important information at the top of the page means you can deliver your most relevant information to readers immediately. Generally, audience attention spans are so short that viewing time lowers significantly below the fold.
• Viewing time also rose significantly at the bottom of the page. So a good CTA, promotional offer or other relevant content placed at the end of a post will likely do well.
• Remember—audiences see what sticks out; and what sticks out is typically what you buy. Visuals make a major impact in buying decisions. So if you have a particular item that you want noticed, strategic design can help focus your user’s attention towards it.
• Heat maps show that the left side of the page generally get a lot of attention and that people read following an F-shaped pattern.

4. Link to content within your site

When users are already on your site, you want to keep things engaging and dynamic—but make sure that they don’t bounce of your website either. So link to content found within your site.

A typical technique used is to link to the previous or next post. If you have crafted your posts well enough, chances are high that the user will be compelled to browse through your other posts and topics, which then gives you more chances to pitch a promotion or remind them of the great offers you have.

5. Use Tweetables to increase social shares

A big part of content production includes social media—it’s a great way to drive traffic towards your blog and promote your content as it get shared. And one of the easiest ways to do that is by creating Tweetables—relevant little snippets of your entire post that people can simply click on to share.

Take short but relevant snippets of your content to be used as tweetables to encourage social sharing–this drives people towards your post and offers more opportunity for conversions.

Now, ask yourself if you’re maximizing your content’s conversion potential… and if the answer is no, try incorporating these strategies to see if these techniques make a difference. Be sure to track how well it does on your site and tell us all about it.

If you have any questions, leave it in the comment section below!