10 Proven Strategies to Create Content that Converts

Read on to learn how to create your very own highly convertible content.👇

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1. Understand your target audience

Effective content marketing focuses on a clearly defined audience. Every word should make your brand a little bit more comfortable and appealing to your target market. Which, unsurprisingly, is tricky to pull off — but is doable.

Relatable writing takes a deep understanding of your customers. To do this, you’ll need to find out:

• Demographics — Who you're trying to reach, what they do, and where they are
• Knowledge Gaps — Everything your audience doesn't know about your industry and business
• Struggles — The pain points customers experience relevant to your offering
• Objections — Why people aren't buying from you

Once you’ve answered the above, you’re in a position to build user personas that you can write for time-and-time again to ensure your content is resonating from the first draft.

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2. Use conversion-proven techniques

You could spend weeks coming up with ideas for content that converts. Or, you could just use these tried and tested techniques from us:

How-to guides & tutorials

Guides give readers access to the knowledge they need. They teach skills, solve problems, and educate on an infinite number of topics. Sounds great for readers. But, what's in it for brands?

• Guides and tutorials give people an opportunity to discover your brand. They’re also the most popular online content format with 77% of ‘netizens’ seeking them out. People have questions they're going to Google. You have the answers. Meet them head-on to add some newbies to your sales funnel.
• Helpful content makes readers see you as an authority. They'll trust what you say. Some will even tell their friends about you.

Customer success stories

Don't just tell people how great you are — show them with customer success stories.

The best way to do that is with a case study. Gather your impressive figures and sparkliest testimonials. Show how your customer went from struggle to success. Your end product should look something like how we helped Bonsai drastically increase leads with SEO.

Persuasive storytelling

Humans love a good story. And unlike facts and figures, stories rely on emotions. Because of this, they effortlessly slip into our brains and grab us by our feelings. Stories are so powerful that 68% of consumers say that brand storytelling influences their purchasing decisions—not a number to ignore.

Create blogs that hijack the human love of a good tale. Your customers become your characters with struggles to overcome. Their specific pain point is the villain. Your brand, the hero, swooping in to save the day.

Are you ready to learn the art of storytelling to apply it to either your fiction writing or your NON-fiction writing? We got you. Head over to The Art of Storytelling, a course by Ray Berry and the dslx academy.

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3. Craft compelling headlines

Headlines should instantly grab attention and get people reading. The more compelling your headline, the more clicks you can expect. So, what makes a headline compelling?

• It's Simple — Catchy headlines are clear and concise, perfectly summarising your content.
• It's Emotional — Make people feel something.
• It's Specific — Tell readers exactly what to expect.

Transforming a weak headline into a compelling headline

Here's an example of a weak headline:

Improve Your Productivity

It's certainly simple but not specific or emotional. We know the article has productivity advice, but for what? There's also no language to excite or intrigue the reader into learning more.

Let's tweak the line into something more compelling:

9 Quick and Easy Productivity Hacks to Make More Time for Exercise

Adding a number makes the headline specific. There are also more details on why you should read the article — "to make more time for exercise." Emotional language grabs attention. For example, "quick and easy" evokes feelings of efficiency and convenience.

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4. Create relevant content

The trick to writing relevant content is addressing your target audience's needs. Fill their knowledge gaps by answering questions they need answers to. Meet their objections head-on to help them see why your brand is their solution. And always write in a tone of voice that's relatable to readers.

There's a lot of noise about using AI for creating articles. It's a handy tool that speeds up production. The drawback is that it lacks originality, and you must fact-check rigorously.

Plus, AI is only as good as the data we give it, many brands have been writing for Google in recent years above their readers, which means AI is churning out answers that are great for Google yet lack originality for those humans out there.

If you’re ever unsure of how to create content that’s relevant, here are a few things you can do:

• Ask your customers what they want to learn about
• Take a peek at what your competitors are doing (especially on social media)
• Jump into comments sections and forums for the inside scoop
• Discover pain points via negative reviews on your competitors
• Run keyword searches and take a look at Google’s: people also asked section

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5. Use persuasive calls to action (CTAs)

Drive more conversions with persuasive calls to action. These nifty phrases invite users to do things like read, subscribe, and buy.

But what makes a CTA persuasive?

• A sense of urgency
• Compelling language
• Explaining the benefits of acting
• Personalization to your audience and offer

Ever wondered what not to do? Here are some examples of poor CTAs:

• Click here
• Submit
• Learn More
• Subscribe
• Buy Now

We've all seen these lines before. They're generic and ineffective because they're not personalized or sell the benefits of acting.

Now, here's an example of a persuasive CTA from the dslx team:

Ready to create content that will boost bookmarks, not your bounce rate? Let's chat! 👋

This CTA is personalized to address the audience's problems and provide a solution. The benefit "create content that will increase bookmarks" is clear and compelling. It then encourages readers to take an easy next step. Try it!

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6. Bring your blogs to life with visuals

Brighten up your content strategy with these powerful visual content ideas:

• Infographics — Make complex ideas easy to understand and attract eyeballs to crucial information.
• Comparison charts — Help readers visualize data and quickly evaluate product differences.
• Attention-grabbing banners — Encourage clicks on your blog content by using banners with colors, images, and easy-to-read messages that connect with your target audience.
• Visual storytelling — Photographs and illustrations bring text to life. Videos enhance posts by providing context and an engaging format to digest information.

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7. Optimize content for humans and search engines

No content marketing campaign is complete without an SEO strategy. Without one, you won't be showing up on anyone's search engine results pages.

SEO is all about making search engines (predominantly Google) show your content to the right people. When done right, it will accelerate growth for your business by increasing your organic traffic. Here's how it's done:

1. Keyword research — Identify topics and phrases your audience searches for online. Pick one primary keyword and two secondary ones per article.
2. Create high-quality content — Craft a valuable resource your readers will benefit from. Solve their problems. Keep them engaged. Consistently create quality content that soars through the rankings with Google's EEAT framework. Standing for experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, EEAT is how Google ranks content, with trust being the most important factor.
3. Implement your keywords — Use your keywords in the titles and body of your text.
4. Don't forget your meta description — Meta descriptions have the power to compel clicks with juicy details about the article inside. Include keywords to improve your ranking.
5. Add alt-text to images — Google ranks images using alt-text. Accurately describe your images and use keywords to expand your reach for image search—this is especially useful for infographics and charts.
6. Include links — Internal links to pages on your site keep people engaging with your content for longer while helping Google navigate your site and topics better.
7. Edit existing content — Optimizing existing content keeps it fresh as it stays up to date with trends, changes in the industry, and changes to Google’s algorithm.

Looking to create content that raises you to the top of the SERPs? Step right this way! 👋

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8. Win hearts with social proof

It's one thing hearing how great your brand is from you. But it's a lot more believable hearing it from others. People trust other humans more than brands. In fact, 92% of people trust recommendations from people they know. Plus reading experiences help shoppers visualize what it's like buying from your business.

Then there's good old-fashioned FOMO. When people see others enjoying your products, they worry they're missing out.

Use this to your advantage. Start creating high-quality content that showcases great experiences. Let people know about all the paying customers who love your brand.

Try these effective formats to show the world your brand's the bee’s knees:

Testimonials — Recommendations and experiences from the customers who love you most.

Case studies — Take readers on the journey from your customer's struggles to success.

Reviews — Simply knowing somebody had a great experience is often enough to tip shoppers over the edge and get their cash out.

Social proof is best provided on ‘checkout pages’. Social proof gives someone that extra nudge when they’re seriously considering getting their card out of their pocket.

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9. Encourage engagement and interaction

Get people to leave likes and comments, and build a loyal connection with your audience. Engagements are great for SEO, too. They tell search engines that people enjoy your content. You'll get a healthy boost to your rankings, making more people aware of your brand.

It's up to you to encourage interaction. Ask questions and respond to comments. Use a conversational style so people feel relaxed and ready to engage. Include surveys and polls for easy ways to interact.

On LinkedIn, especially, commenting has become the new posting. The more you engage with your followers—and others—the more your profile will be shown and the more engagement you’ll receive in your posts. However, be genuine in the connections you’re making, build real relationships, slide into people’s DMs with a value-first mindset, and see your LinkedIn profile and SEO grow naturally and exponentially!

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10. Use engaging writing techniques

One of your most powerful growth tools is your content itself. But you still need to create engaging content to generate leads and convert viewers into loyal customers.

Want some content writing tips? The LIFT model is a good writing framework to start with. Its six elements work together to demonstrate value and create demand for your business.

The six elements of the LIFT model are:

1. Value proposition — What benefit do you provide to your customers?
2. Relevance — Is your content what customers expect to see?
3. Clarity — Are your key messages easy to understand?
4. Urgency — Why should people act now?
5. Distraction — Does everything on the page align with your primary goal?
6. Anxiety — Is there any uncertainty preventing people from acting?

Try using this framework on your next landing page and see how it helps you ensure every word on the page has a job and is delivering on expectations.

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Bye for now!

Alright, all you headline crafters, tale-tellers, and quandary clearers – it’s time to wrap this double-stuffed strategy burrito up. While it’s sad to part ways, may I live on in your hearts in the form of highly convertible content strategies you can add to your marketing toolkit?

Now get out there and put these strategies to the test!

Like this content and hungry for more? Devour more posts just like this over on our blog. 😋