7 ways to turn blog visitors into customers
With the popularity of apps like Pinterest and Feedly, more and more of typical website visitors first point of contact with websites is a blog post. There are many steps you can take to entice your visitors to stay on your site longer and/or to connect with you in a longer term relationship.
01/ Solve their problem
The main reason why they ended up on your blog post is because they have a problem and you have promised a solution. Make sure you address that problem or topic in a thorough way and leave them satisfied. They will be more likely to want to check out your other posts or sign up for your newsletter if you provide valuable information that helps them out.
02/ Make is easy to share
Include social sharing buttons at the bottom of your blog posts so that they can easily pin, tweet or post your content to their social media feeds. With Squarespace 7.0 you can turn on these social sharing buttons under the Marketing panel. Select “Share Buttons” and check any accounts that you would like to include.
You can also change the style of the social share buttons by opening up the Site Styles panel under the Design panel when you are in a blog post. You can select different options for icons or include text with the number of times it has been shared.
For Squarespace 7.1 you will need a third party tool in order to add social icons to your blog post. You can use a tool such as Sharethis. Watch Christy’s great tutorial on how to add them to your 7.1 site.
03/ Add related posts
Since your visitor is interested in the topic you have written about, encourage them to read other posts on that category by including a related posts gallery.
On Squarespace you can add this manually or you can use a purchased plugin to automate it.
Read here to find out more about how to add related posts to your blog posts in Squarespace.
04/ Use free opt-ins to encourage email sign ups
To encourage your blog visitors to sign up to your email list, include a targeted opt in for that category on each blog post.
If you can get them on your email list you have a much higher percentage of converting them to paying clients. Plus it shows that they are interested in your content and opening to hearing more. Regular emails from you will keep your business fresh in their mind and warm them up to future sales.
Other places you could place an opt-in is in your sidebar, your footer, your announcement bar or in a pop-up. The key is to offer something that is highly valuable that they would be willing to trade their email address for. You can definitely use more than one spot for your opt-ins.
05/ Allow visitors to explore by categories on your blog
To make it easy for visitors to explore your blog, create category links and place them in a sidebar. These category buttons can be used to display all posts in that category or you could create a specific page for that category which is even more targeted to convert visitors.
On the Momma Society site, we created a category page for 6 different categories on the blog. These pages included the targeted opt in for that category, a featured post and a search bar in the top section, the blog posts for the category in the middle section and then a section of category links with beautiful images.
06/ optimize your sidebar for conversion
Add blog categories to your sidebar (as mentioned above)
Include a search bar
When visitors are looking for something on your site you want to make it as easy as possible for them to find what they need. Include a search bar in your sidebar and/or footer to allow them to find posts easily.
Encourage connection on all social media platforms
Having your social media icons visible for visitors to easily follow you on other platforms is a great way to encourage connection. Do you have a facebook group that would be of interest to them? Encourage them to sign up for that in your footer or sidebar.
There are third party tools that also allow you to embed social sharing icons on your site such as Sumo and Sharethis
Introduce yourself!
Add a photo a short bio in your sidebar to let your visitors get to know you a little bit. Have a link to your About page for those who want to learn more about you. The About page is one of the most visited pages on websites so people are naturally curious!
Include other promotions
The sidebar is also a good place to include other products your offer, places you are also involved (such as a podcast or facebook group) or encourage visitors to other pages on your site.
07/ Fix broken links
Have you ever clicked on a pin from Pinterest and arrived at a page that either does not match the pin graphic or is a broken link? Most likely you did and you just left the site.
You can easily check for broken links by using a tool such as broken link check. Either correct your links after you have run it or set up redirects from your broken links to the correct link you want the URL to go to.
On Squarespace you can set up redirects by following these instructions.
In conclusion
When you follow these steps you will be able to convert readers from Pinterest, Feedly and other platforms into regular readers, email subscribers and eventually customers.
