Work Your Content Until it Works

If you are spending money on SEM/SEO and focused on traffic targets rather than conversion rates — STOP.

Put that cart back behind the horse. Instead of buying the keywords for a specific search term and sending traffic to a page with low conversion rates, drive traffic to valuable content with higher conversion rates.

How? By experimenting. Work your content until it works.

Experiment with user experiences

Maximizing user retention and action means testing your content out and being ready/able to make adjustments.

Tools like Google Website Optimizer can help you measure content effectiveness. Through A/B and multivariate testing, let the higher-quality content rise to the top.

Gone are the days when you could expect to drive hordes of traffic to a landing page and hope that something would happen. This ‘blind faith’ approach is not only ineffective, it actually can result in a user experience that damages your brand.

Open your eyes and get involved with your content. Get your hands dirty. Stop suffering from analysis paralysis. Stop wasting time discussing what you think will work and allow your customers to show you what works.

Pull, don’t push

We find in our testing that simple things, like images and headlines, can drastically change the conversion rates on a specific page. As you begin to pull in more engag-ed users with more engag-ing content, you can really capitalize on the nuances.

Increasingly, this will allow the quality of your content to drive the monetary value of your content.

Page e-Valuation

When you’re optimizing your conversion rate, try giving each page — or better yet, each piece of content (video, podcast, blog) — a numeric monetary value.

For example, in our Breville case study, we showcased how content can increase conversion rates. Let’s say, the price of an espresso machine is $100. If Page A sells 5 espresso machines and Video B sells 20 espresso machines, then Page A is worth $500 and Video B is worth $2000.

This helps you to visualize what is working and will suggest ways to replicate and build on your successes.

If that doesn’t help, think of your content portfolio as a giant rolling snowball avalanche. You want to to keep increasing the ball (converting) so it gains momentum (engagement), building upon itself until it knocks over the decrepit old ski-lodge (your competition).

No matter how you look at it, if you want sales to increase, you have to get rolling with content experimentation.

Takeaway

Increase your conversion rates by experimenting with and testing your content. Continually adjust to what works with your audience.

My questions to you

What tools do you use to experiment and measure your content?

About the author

Andrew Davis -

In 2002, Andrew founded Tippingpoint Labs with journalist James Cosco. Since then, he's spent countless hours exploring the online universe and building a methodological approach to developing digital strategies that drive revenue or reduce costs.

Andrew's always asking big questions and analyzing data to understand markets, online forces and even business models. Andrew's research has resulted in the creation of innovative online metrics including Online Brand Value and Category Brand Value, eye-opening graphical representations of website evolution through the New Media Life Cycle and even using online data to predict offline revenue.

When he's not surfing the web, Andrew's traveling the globe speaking to a wide-variety of audiences about everything from social media to the future of print. Andrew is a frequent contributor to the Tippingpoint Labs website and has been creating valuable content since the early 1990s for The Jim Henson Company, CNN, The Today Show and MTV.

He's contributed to a book of short stories, called The Way Things Were and produced and co-wrote Roadside Ambition a documentary film about one small town with two huge balls.

"In a world where content is consumed as rapidly as it's created, companies need to develop a sound strategy to creating valuable online experiences that can, and should, be leveraged enterprise-wide. There is a content solution to every business challenge."