In these days of low attention spans, a blog continues to be an effective way to add fresh content to a promo website. Done right, blog posts help you to get found, generate leads and convert potential clients to the next stage of your sales funnel.
For many distributors, blog posts seem to get little results. They either don’t get any traffic or they earn plenty of traffic, but lackluster conversion numbers.
There are a number of reasons this can be happening, and usually have to do with a poor content strategy and/or brand positioning, among other reasons.
Here are five things you can do to improve the results of your blogging efforts.
1. Write With Your Target Audience in Mind
Take a close look at your content topics and make sure that they are of interest to your ideal client.
If you haven’t already, take the time to study your ideal client’s profile and the topics that they’ll be interested in as they relate to your solutions.
Think about what they want to know, and what are their concerns when buying promotional products.
Consider what your audience values in order to perceive you as the go-to expert. The questions your clients ask you and how your conversations with them go.
The more you understand what their interests, needs, and expectations are, and write about it, the more your posts will be found and read.
2. Improve Your Writing Quality
Check your posts before posting them. Use free tools like Grammarly and the Hemingway app to check your posts’ grammar and structure. Misspelled words and grammatical errors will compromise your credibility and professionalism.
It is important to communicate your ideas clearly and concisely when writing blog posts. Spelling, grammar and structure are all critical. If your sentences don’t make sense, readers will have a hard time understanding your point or might be confused as to what you meant to say.
As for structure, break your content into sub-sections to make it scannable. Keep the paragraphs short. Start with a topic introduction that tells people what they will get out of reading. Then, break up your main topic into several sub-points. This way they are easily read in small bite sizes.
Getting feedback from others can be very helpful, especially if they are good at English grammar and knowledgeable in the subject matter.
3. Make Your Titles Interesting
Certain approaches to headline writing seem to grab our attention, while we ignore others. If you have low traffic from your blog posts through search engines or social media, check your titles.
In general, asking a question or promising something people want to know are good ways to create interesting titles.
4. Include a Call to Action
With limited exceptions, it’s a good business practice to close out your posts with a call to action (CTA). It can be as simple as “If you want help with [the post topic], contact us by clicking here.”
The CTA comes after the argument being made is completely wrapped up, and its purpose is to keep your reader engaged and take them to the next step.
Example calls to action include:
- Take a look at our product catalog
- Tell us about your upcoming project
- Sign up for our email list for promo ideas
- View further information for an upcoming /webinar/event
- Visit this service page for more information
- Contact us to start the conversation
- Read more about this topic
Whatever your call to action is, make sure you provide a link for people to take action by clicking. Also, make sure it is clear and written as a strong command or suggestion. While that may seem pushy, people respond better to messages written in this format and remember them more clearly.
Notice that most marketers do this, a commercial would never say “consider visiting our store during our sales event.” Instead, they would lead with a commanding verb: “Come visit our store during our one-day sales event to get incredible savings!”
5. Improve Your Conversion Elements
Sometimes when you can’t convert blog readers, the issue isn’t the blog itself, but the website ecosystem around it. Make sure that your calls to action lead to compelling landing pages or website pages. These pages should capture your audience’s interest and further direct them to the next step.
There is no need to overthink this. Start by improving your contact us page with compelling text that provides reasons to contact you, a form that includes custom fields such as event theme and such, as well as testimonials.
For website pages you want to link to, such as explanations of your services, ensure that the page guides the reader through the most important information and benefits first, concluding in yet another strong CTA.
Another conversion element you want to include is a two-field newsletter email capture form—just name and email—so they involve minimal effort.
The Point
Writing blog posts require time and effort, so you want to make sure they are generating traffic and conversions. Pledge to work on best practices and write for your audience. Check the data provided in Google Analytics regularly to evaluate your blog performance and possible improvements needed.
This approach will help you make small but continuous improvements over time, and get better results from your distributor business blog.
This article was first published in the ActionMarketingco.com blog. If you’re interested in more digital marketing information specific to the distributor business, visit the Resources section of the Action Marketing website.
