Creating blog content has many benefits when it comes to SEO including providing E-E-A-T signals, increasing organic traffic, generating brand awareness, and increasing engagement. However, another extremely important reason is to increase conversions. Creating blog content that not only attracts customers but also converts them, is therefore a skill that is definitely worth mastering. After all, according to HubSpot, more than one in three marketing leaders cite conversion rates as a top KPI that they prioritise tracking.
In this blog, we will explore how to create SEO blog content that converts your users.
Understanding The User’s Buying Journey
The first step when creating blog content that converts is understanding your user’s buying journey. This is a crucial step and will likely consist of the following stages:
- Awareness – during the first stage, the user has become aware of a problem or need that they have and they are looking for information and solutions.
2. Consideration – the next stage is consideration, and during this stage the users are evaluating different options and looking at the benefits and drawbacks of potential solutions. They are researching products and services that would meet their needs.
3. Purchase – during this stage, the user is ready to make a purchase, they have narrowed down their options and are now looking to convert.
Understanding each stage of the buying journey will help you tailor your SEO blog content to meet the needs of your users at every stage. By providing valuable information, addressing concerns and offering support throughout the whole process, you can address all the needs of your customers and therefore increase the chance of conversions.
Within understanding the user’s buying journey, it is also important to understand your target audience and who is going to be buying your products or services. Think about demographics, struggles and pain points, knowledge gaps, and objectives. This will allow you to create a persona that you are writing for and every piece of content that you create can be completely targeted to your audience who will likely have a high intent.
Keyword Research
Once you have figured out the user’s buying journey, you need to see what they are searching for when they are looking for your product/ service. Keyword research forms the foundation of all successful SEO strategies, but in order to create content that resonates with your users at each stage of the buying journey, you must categorise your keywords into the buying journey.
- Awareness – these keywords will be informational keywords that users are typically searching for when they are in the awareness stage. For example: “how to solve…”, “tips for …”, “what is a…” and “what are the benefits of…”.
2. Consideration – these keywords will be focused on helping users weigh up their options. For example: “what are the best…”, “reviews of…” and “what are the differences between…”.
3. Purchase – these keywords will be much more specific and will have a strong purchase intent. For example: “buy….” and “… near me”.
By sorting your keywords into categories, you can make sure that your blog content is tailored to your users and it will be addressing their needs and preferences at every stage of their buying journey. Keyword research can be done in a variety of ways and you can read our guide to keyword research here to find out how you can effectively carry out keyword research for SEO. However, as well as the traditional ways of carrying out keyword research, it can also be extremely valuable to speak to your customer service team and find out what your actual customers are asking, because the chances are, other users will want the same information and you will be able to provide extremely valuable information, and this could make users more likely to convert if they have that important information easily available to them.
Competitor Research
Another important step when creating blog content that converts is to research what your competitors are writing about. Researching and analysing your competitors’ blog strategy can provide you with valuable insights and inspiration for your own blog content. It is important to identify competitors within your industry and have a look into the following:
- ➡️ What topics they are covering
- ➡️ How they are targeting keywords that are closely related to the buying journey
- ➡️ What sorts of content formats they are using (guides, reviews, tips…)
- ➡️ If there are any gaps or opportunities that you can capitalise on
Competitor research and analysis can provide you with inspiration on what you should be focusing your content on, but it can also allow you to see areas where you can outperform your competitors. If there is an area of need that you have identified your users are looking for but your competitors are not writing about it, this does not mean that you also shouldn’t write about it, you absolutely should! These can be niche areas that can bring in valuable, high intent traffic and can give you that edge over your competitors.
Using tools such as Ahrefs and SEMrush can be extremely helpful when conducting competitor research and can give you plenty of actionable insights for your SEO blog content strategy.
Internal Linking
If you are creating blog content that you want to convert, internal linking will be your best friend and you need to ensure you do not abandon it. Internal linking plays a crucial role in SEO and can be instrumental to your blogs. You should always incorporate internal links to your blog content to guide users to relevant pages or resources within your website, and to establish a logical hierarchy and structure for your content.
Including CTAs
Including Calls to Action (CTAs) in your blog content is essential, particularly when your goal is to convert readers into customers. Including CTAs can:
- ➡️ Guide user behaviour: CTAs provide a clear direction to your users, guiding them towards a desired action, whether that action is making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or contacting your company. Without a CTA, users may be unsure of what steps to take next or how to navigate to the next step, potentially leading to a missed conversion opportunity.
- ➡️ Create a sense of urgency: effective CTAs often include persuasive language that can create a sense of urgency or excitement for users, potentially increasing the likelihood that users will act more promptly.
- ➡️ Increasing conversion rates: ultimately, well-crafted CTAs can significantly impact conversion rates by encouraging users to take action. By strategically placing CTAs throughout your blog content, you can encourage users to move further down the sales funnel and ultimately convert users into customers. Strategic CTAs coupled with helpful content can be the best way to convert your blog content.
Utilising AI
When creating blog content, AI can be extremely helpful, and although I do not believe you should get AI to write your blog content for you, I do believe that it can help with the process of creating blog content that converts. In fact, according to HubSpot, 43% of content marketers report using AI to help them generate ideas and one in two writers use AI tools to boost the performance of their content. These statistics show that AI can be a positive tool in the online industry and below are some of the ways you can use AI effectively:
- ➡️ Generate content ideas based on trending topics
- ➡️ Gain insights into how to optimise your content’s structure and readability
- ➡️ Automate tasks including meta title creation
Be Authentic, Honest And Unique
When creating blog content, it is important to create content for the benefit of your users. Authenticity, honesty and uniqueness are qualities that will resonate with your users and create a sense of trust. When you are creating blog content for SEO, it is important to be genuine and transparent within your content and avoid overly promotional or salesy language. Make sure you are providing content that is offering valuable insights, expertise or solutions that are genuinely helpful for your audience and will address their needs or challenges. By creating this type of content, you will actually be helping your users address their issues and needs, and they will be more likely to convert if you have answered an issue that they are experiencing.
Measure, Learn And Refine
Effective blog content creation is a process that requires ongoing monitoring, analysis and refinement. There are many different analytic tools that you can use when tracking your blog content including GA4 and Ahrefs. Key metrics to monitor include:
- ➡️ Users
- ➡️ Bounce rate
- ➡️ Session length
- ➡️ Engagement
- ➡️ Conversions
Based on your analysis, you can find any areas for improvement and optimisation and this can really help to improve your content and ultimately gain more traffic and conversions.
Be Patient
The final point I am going to suggest is to be patient. Patience is so important when it comes to SEO blog content creation because, as I’m sure you’re aware, SEO is a long-term strategy that takes time to see results. Be patient and consistent in your efforts, knowing that you are creating high quality content that will gradually acquire traffic and conversions as you increase your visibility in the SERPs.
Summary
To conclude, creating SEO blog content that converts requires a strategic approach that will be informed by an understanding of the user’s buying journey, keyword research, competitor analysis, content planning, internal linking, authenticity, measurement and patience (just a few things…). But, by implementing these best practices discussed above and continuously improving and refining your content, you can elevate your blog’s performance, attract qualified leads and actually drive conversions that will contribute to your business’s growth and success.
If you need any help with your SEO blog content strategy, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us today and our SEO experts can provide you with insights on how to create blog content that will actually convert.
