When readers find your content helpful and interesting, they get glued to it, read more of your posts, share them, leave comments, join your email list or even buy whatever you’ve got to sell.
In simple English, they convert.
But when the other end of the spectrum happens, they don’t engage or relate to your content, conversion becomes difficult and bounce rate soars, right?
Having written for myself and some other bigger brands over the past two years, I’ve found a few things that make content compelling and I’ll be sharing them in three simple tips today.
Forget about selling anything first
It’s quite understandable, you’ve got bills to pay and they can’t wait. So you want to sell (almost) at all cost. And if you’re just starting up your own business, you want to become the next Buffer as fast as possible. You dream of leaving your day job to blog (or you already have!) and to do that, you need an income.
That’s fine, but the problem is people naturally get turned off when we just try to sell them stuff with our content. Even if it’s a sales copy, they want to see that we’re not just about selling.
They want to see that we have an understanding of their problem and a solution that solves it.
For instance, if you’re writing a sales page to sell a new product that solves the nagging problem of writers having to lose ideas because they’re not always with their notepads, you could make the content all about that problem and then introduce your product in the end.
For example,
[Headline] Losing Ideas Can Be Painful As Well As Pricey
Sometimes, as writers, we don’t have the convenience of getting inspiration when we happen to be near our phones or computers.
The best of these ideas mostly pops up when we’re in places like the bathroom…
And when we lose them (due to the absence of our gadgets or other writing materials), we, in turn, lose the returns they can bring. Returns like…
- An opportunity to beat the competition
- Adding a new client to our customer base
- Making more money
- Getting featured on a giant publication
- An opportunity to work with an established brand
And so forth…
What if we had notepads that are capable of being used even underwater?
Great ideas wouldn’t be slipping away from us so easily anymore.
In other words, we won’t be losing all the goodies that come from them.
Once they show up, we pen them immediately, regardless of where we are.
[more useful content here]
To get my get new waterproof notepad, go to [my sales page].
See? All the way from the headline to the call to action, it’s more about solving the prospect’s problem and a little about how cool the product is.
James A. DeSena in his book 10 Immutable Laws of Power Selling puts it this way:
“If you can’t put your finger on your customer’s problem, you won’t solve it. Worse, you will waste time and lose credibility. You must describe the problem clearly, and do it from the customer’s point of view.”
Prospects keep getting smarter year by year, and that won’t change in 2016. There several brands on the internet and your readers want to be the ones who make decisions on who they buy from, depending on the value they perceive.
So if you’re writing any content in 2016, you want to ensure it’s in the best interest of your reader or potential customer.
And as you already know, when people want to choose who they buy from, they turn to those they trust first. So make your blog or brand trustworthy. When you forget about selling anything first in your content and really zero in on your audience’s problems, you’ll be earning their trust.
Tell readers they’re not the only one struggling with the problem your content is aiming to address
Sometimes when your content makes people feel like they’re some kind of weirdo because they’re the only person having trouble in a particular area, they don’t feel comfortable enough to read it through. Then they won’t come back because they don’t feel good about what you’ve written.
Truth is, irrespective of how compelling my example above might look, readers would only struggle reading it through if it does not make them feel comfortable.
Notice how I use this “empathy technique”?
Sometimes, as writers, we don’t have the convenience of getting inspiration when we happen to be near our phones or computers.
(Emphasis on the word ‘we’ – I am like you, I struggle with the same thing, we are in this together.)
In fact, if you’re a writer, you’d mostly find yourself nodding in agreement with my points in the example.
Henneke Duistermaat, in a post on Copyblogger, also mirrors this empathy tactic:
“when readers start nodding yes, they get into an almost hypnotic state. They can’t help themselves — they have to continue reading, because they feel the post is written especially for them, to solve their problems.”
You could also begin with something like “75% of people, according to Forrester research, are having problems converting readers with their content”.
This way, the first thing prospects are learning from your content is “so I’m not (totally) an idiot after all; I’m just like other experts who are experiencing the same issue”.
Once you make them realize that they are in good company, they naturally feel comfortable to read on – even to the last line – which is your pitch.
Let readers know why you’re in the position to tell them what to do
Especially if you’re a startup who hasn’t gained so much recognition from the industry you’re in, yet, it’s important for you to let people know why you’re in a good position to advise them on what to do on whatever issue you aim to address in your content. Why are you the expert? Why should they listen to you?
This is also a trait you’d find in my example above. When you use “we” instead of “you” it shows “we’re in this together”. So you aren’t just trying to sell; you know your prospects’ frustration and have a solution to help them out.
This makes you look (or sound) like someone they should REALLY listen to.
Bonus point: Slow page load time would only rip off the benefits you should be getting from your content
It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the best content in the world, if your site loads too slowly prospects would mostly leave upset.
Kissmetrics, in an infographic, puts it this way: “Loading time is a major contributing factor to page abandonment. The average user has no patience for a page that takes too long to load, and justifiably so.”
Once I visit a site and it’s taking too long to show me whatever I want to see, I close the tab immediately. Why? I have other things to take care of and there are other sites that can show me, within seconds, whatever it is I’m looking for.
If you’re using WordPress, there are several plugins that can help your site load faster.
And if you’re building a new site, ensure you choose a hosting provider that supports fast loading time. The guys at Hosting Facts tested and reviewed 27 web hosting providers. According to their findings, there are several hosting providers out there but they advised that we choose something that loads faster than 900ms (which is current average).
In conclusion
When you make your content all about your prospects’ problems, it becomes a amazing content. And what does amazing content do? It converts. People engage, they comment, they share, and they even buy. PrestaShop, a leader in the ecommerce niche, puts it this way “…amazing content can certainly convince new visitors…”
I’m sure you’ve experienced this? Writing that had you feeling like you belonged, and so you engaged with it? And on the flip side, writing that turned you off so much you were never going to convert. Right?
Victor Ijidola is an expert copywriter who has written for top publications like Forbes, The Next Web, etc and shares tips about sales and marketing with Internet startups on his blog – Startup with Great Sales.
