Attracting quality traffic to your website through SEO is a notable accomplishment. Kudos on mastering keyword research, metadata, UX, and more to bolster those traffic figures!

But hold off on the celebration. How much of that traffic translates into actual conversions? SEO professionals can only focus on something other than transactional keywords or rely exclusively on direct response-oriented landing pages.

Much of our content aims at education and raising awareness – encompassing informative pieces, comprehensive guides, and instructional blog posts. As a result, acquisition rates might lag compared to paid traffic sources.

Yet, this shouldn’t justify settling for low conversion rates. Savvy brands (or clients, for agency personnel) will challenge you to improve traffic conversion into leads or sales.

Enter the challenge: adept SEOs will embrace this and implement nine strategies to drive this transformation.

1. Experiment with Various In-Content Calls to Action

Explore many options, whether within a detailed landing page describing a product/service or a blog post covering a secondary topic. Test different elements like language, design, placement, and style.

For instance, place text-based CTAs at the article’s outset, introduce image-based CTAs midway through, or incorporate button CTAs at various points within your content. Formulate a clear testing strategy and discern what drives actual user acquisition most effectively.

2. Explore Diverse Offerings

Pursuing a hard sell is not imperative (although it’s an option; consider offering price-drop alerts upon sign-ups on a product page).

Consider softer approaches like crafting lead magnets or giveaways that can yield many email addresses. Experiment with offerings such as newsletters or event guides, especially those linked to the page’s content.

3. Harmonize CTAs with Content

Aligning CTAs with the content itself proves highly impactful.

For example, if a user lands on a blog discussing Product A, tailor a CTA specific to Product A (e.g., “Subscribe to receive the 2024 buyer’s guide for {product category}”). This alignment enhances relevance and user engagement.

4. Experiment with Off-Content CTAs

While in-line CTAs are effective, it’s prudent to test placements in other page areas: sidebar, top-navigation drop-down, top-of-page banners, takeovers, etc.

Keep a keen eye on both the conversion rate and bounce rate. If there’s minimal improvement in conversions at the expense of a higher bounce rate, consider terminating the test prematurely and proceeding to the next strategy.

5. Prolong the Content Journey

Especially with educational content, it can be more persuasive to encourage visitors to explore other sections of the site before prompting them for any information.

If your content sits primarily at the start of the purchasing journey, guide users toward mid or lower-funnel content before soliciting any actions.

Their natural progression down the funnel positively signals that they’re more inclined to engage further.

For top-of-funnel content, I prefer crafting maps of related content, often a few steps deeper, subtly nudging users toward taking action. This approach gently conditions users while maintaining their interest.

6. Cultivate Engagement Preceding Conversion

Initiate user involvement – providing avenues for engagement can foster a sense of investment in your product or service, ultimately propelling acquisition activities in the future.

Surveys serve as an excellent tool here. You can smoothly transition from “interested in survey results? Share your email” if the survey aims to collect robust insights and data.

7. Harness the Power of Heatmaps

Utilize heat mapping tools like Hotjar and FullStory to gain profound insights into user interactions across your site, not just within the primary content.

Identify pivotal areas for engagement on your homepage, navigation, service pages, top blogs, etc., ensuring users have conversion pathways.

8. Utilize Insights from High-Converting Content

Explore your Google Analytics to pinpoint posts or sections with relatively low traffic but high conversion rates. What distinguishes these pages and leads to conversions?

Whether it’s the language used, product information, or CTA style, there’s likely an element you can replicate on more popular pages.

Additionally, optimize your high-converting pages further to amplify traffic volume and conversions.

9. Conduct Qualitative Research

Collect anecdotal insights from your existing or loyal user base, as this can yield precious information.

Pose questions to uncover what catches their attention, the product features that resonate most, and the offers that entice them to sign up. These insights often spark new ideas for testing that go beyond quantitative data analysis.

Enhancing Your Website’s Conversion Rates

I’ve extensively discussed the importance of measuring SEO efforts beyond keyword rankings, impressions, and clicks to gauge their true business impact.

When you successfully channel robust traffic to your owned properties, you’ve laid a solid foundation for establishing SEO as a substantial growth catalyst. However, it’s crucial to remember that building a base is just the beginning; continuous growth is critical.

Implementing the strategies above will elevate the impact of SEO further down the funnel and should indeed be the ultimate objective.

Augmenting the pipeline or revenue gains directly tied to SEO is a remarkable approach to fortifying your team’s reputation as a pivotal growth asset within the broader organization. Explore our monthly SEO packages to enlist expert assistance if this is challenging.