3 Ways to Increase the Blog Conversion Rate for Your Online Store
This is how you use your blog as an organic revenue driver for your online store and turn visitors into customers.
- Why do so many online shops have a blog?
- What is meant by conversion rate?
- 3 ways to increase blog conversion rate and turn blog visitors into online shop customers
- How can you measure the success of your blog conversion optimizations?
- These tools help you with blog conversion optimization
- Conclusion on customer acquisition through an improved blog conversion rate
The majority of successful online stores now maintain a blog on which the companies write about current and relevant topics related to their product range. Having your own blog in the online shop increases the visibility on Google for new search terms and thus has the potential to generate a lot of organic traffic for your own online shop and to win new leads.
In this article, our guest author James Kirkby shows you how to convert this organic traffic on your blog into paying customers and how you can measure the success of this strategy.
The basis for this is a search engine optimized blog that already generates notable traffic.
Recommended conversion optimization tools
On our comparison platform OMR Reviews you can find more recommended conversion optimization tools. We present over 140 solutions that are specifically tailored to the needs of companies and brands that want to improve their conversion rates. This conversion optimization software offers comprehensive support in all aspects of conversion optimization. Take this opportunity to compare the different software solutions, drawing on authentic and verified user reviews:
Why do so many online shops have a blog?
A successful online shop lives, like every website, on relevant traffic that is also already willing to buy something in the online shop. The more visitors in the target group with an interest in your own products come to the online shop, the more this shop will sell.
To generate this traffic, most online shops rely on a mix of paid marketing channels (SEA, social media ads, influencer marketing, TV commercials, etc.) and organic marketing channels (SEO).
One of the most effective and cost-effective organic channels is a own blog within the online shop. By writing blog articles on topics your target group is searching for on Google (you can find these topics through a detailed keyword research) you increase the visibility of your own online shop on Google and thereby generate organic traffic and new leads.
By linking the topics in the blog with your own products and targeted optimization of the ordering process, good online stores can convert these information-oriented visitors into customers who actually buy something in the shop.
The success of this strategy is then measured using the conversion rate.
Organic traffic and search engine ranking of an online shop after introducing an optimized blog
What is meant by conversion rate?
The conversion rate (also called conversion rate) describes the percentage of your visitors who buy something in your online shop. The calculation for this is very simple:
>>> ( purchasers / visitors ) * 100
The conversion rate is therefore a good indicator of how effectively your online shop generates new customers from won traffic.
Through so-called Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) an online shop is optimized on the basis of this key figure so that relatively speaking more visitors per won traffic actually make purchases and become customers.
You can carry out this optimization on the basis of hypothesis tests in which you make incremental changes to your online shop and then test these in comparison to the original version.
In relation to your own blog in the online shop, the conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who have come to your online shop via your blog and have actually made purchases. Here too, you can make minor changes and check whether the blog conversion rate has changed positively. If this is the case, your optimization measures were successful.
The prerequisite for measuring the (blog-)conversion rate is that you can trace which landing pages your visitors landed on your online shop. You can carry out this evaluation with the common online shop systems or use your own web analytics tool for this.
3 ways to increase blog conversion rate and turn blog visitors into online shop customers
To increase the blog conversion rate in your online shop and thus generate more purchases, there are three essential approaches:
- Optimize your blog content
- Optimize the bond with your readers
- Optimize your Call-to-Actions (CTAs) in the blog
By optimizing the content in your blog, you can boost your blog conversion rate by offering your readers relevant content that integrates your product range and serves as a sensible solution for their needs. You can also use your blog to turn visitors into regular readers and thus indirectly convert them into buyers.
However, the biggest lever is offered by relevant call-to-actions in the blog that initiate an order process directly from the article. In order to be able to optimize your blog for conversions according to these approaches, you have to carry out tests.
When optimizing blog content, you can use similar blog articles to test different functions. When optimizing reader retention and the CTAs, you need a tool with which you can test adjustments on your blog. With these Conversion Optimization tools you can test two versions of a page or a function A/B test, among other things, in order to identify successful adjustments.
>>> More information about AB tests for e-commerce, you can find in our separate article.
In every test, it is important that you only test ONE function at a time. Otherwise, you can't say for sure which change caused an improvement (or deterioration) in the blog conversion rate.
1. Optimize your blog content
When optimizing your blog content, you can test different approaches. For one, you can vary the frequency and posting time to find out when and how often your readers expect your content and also actively read it.
In addition to publishing, you can also test different content formats. For example, you can try out whether your readers like to watch videos on your blog, react particularly positively to checklists, or prefer pure text posts.
You can measure the success of the adjustments by how many visitors land on your online shop via these articles and then order something.
Sessions and conversions by landing page in Shopify
Finally, you can try to optimize your blog articles for more commercial or even more suitable keywords in order to better reach your target group and win new leads. By focusing on commercial keywords, you can also try to reach your target group further down the funnel while they are searching for a specific product that solves their problem.
Tools for keyword research and SEO optimization of your texts can be found on OMR Reviews.
2. Optimize the bond with your readers
In addition to optimizing your blog content, you can improve the bonding with your readers to generate more regular readers, who are more likely to make purchases in your online shop - for this there are tools like Neocom.
The bonding of your readers in the blog works best with email marketing or SMS newsletter subscriptions, with which you inform your readers about new posts. So you try to generate recurring visitors via a direct channel in addition to visitors via Google.
To increase the number of regular blog readers, you can try to optimize the number of clicks on your links in newsletters (so-called click rate) to get more visitors to your blog articles.
Here you should focus your adjustments and tests on three areas:
- the timing
- the subject line
- the call-to-action
To find out the perfect time to send your newsletters, vary the time of sending after publication of a new blog article. Then compare the open rates of your newsletters and click rates among the different times. If you do this test often enough, you will find the optimal time to send.
You can also try different subject lines. So you can either try to use generic subject lines or you can try the title of the new blog article you are informing about.
Again, it is important to vary the subject line regularly and collect data. So you can then determine which subject lines have achieved the most clicks and thus the best opening rates and click rates.
Finally, you can try to include multiple CTAs in your newsletters. For example, in addition to the link to your blog article, you can also link to the product that fits this blog article. In addition, you can vary the wording and placement of your CTAs to generate the best open rate and click rate for your newsletters.
3. Optimize your call-to-actions in the blog
Visitors who land on your online shop via your blog are usually looking for a solution to a problem or a question. So the traffic over your blog is predominantly information-oriented.
Compared to visitors who are directly looking for your brand or a product from your range, these persons are still earlier in the Customer Journey. So they are not directly looking for a product and are accordingly not ready to buy.
Keywords by intent in Semrush
In this context, you can optimize both the content and placement of your CTAs to pick up visitors to your shop at this point in their customer journey and convert more effectively.
As with the other two methods of optimizing the blog conversion rate, these suggestions are not universally valid. You can use these suggestions to adjust your CTAs, afterwards you have to test the individual success for your online shop.
Firstly, you can test the content of your CTAs. If one of your products solves the problem that you address in your blog article, you can place a direct link to the product page as something. Alternatively, you can try to place a certain category and let the visitors browse your range from there.
If visitors are not ready to buy a product after reading your blog article, you can also link your shop homepage or another info page.
If you want to first convert your visitors to newsletter subscribers in order to play them with email marketing, you can also test a newsletter sign-up as a CTA.
In addition to the content, it is important to test the placement of your call-to-actions. For example, you can try placing your CTAs within the blog article to present them to the readers in the reading flow. Alternatively, you can also test whether the call-to-action works better as a pop-up or in the sidebar.
Finally, you can adjust the wording and design of the CTAs to maximize the blog conversion rate.
Again, it is important to test only one of these dimensions at a time. Only then can you subsequently make good decisions about which optimizations you actually want to make.
How can you measure the success of your blog conversion optimizations?
To capture the success of your blog conversion optimizations, you need a web analytics tool that can segment your traffic by landing page. You can then measure the conversion rate of your blog traffic. With advanced analytics tools, you can also use funnels or UTM parameters to track the user behavior of blog visitors on your site.
These tools help you with blog conversion optimization
As described above, you need different tools to optimize the conversion rate of your blog. On the one hand, we present in our article about the 7 best conversion optimization tools some tools incl. functions, prices and alternatives and on the other hand we give you some tool tips for certain application areas below:
1. Shop systems
First of all, when choosing your online shop system you should make sure that you can easily make changes to your online shop or your blog. If you have to hire a developer or an external agency every time you want to make adjustments, you can't do the optimization efficiently.
As a straightforward and effective shop solution for this data-driven optimization approach, the shop systems Shopify, IONOS MyWebsite Shop by 1&1 and Squarespace are suitable. With Shopify you can quickly and easily make adjustments via visual editor and then evaluate them.
2. SEO tools
To optimize your blog content for the right target group and a successful search engine ranking you need the right SEO tool. Only in this way can you effectively carry out keyword research and subsequently write good SEO texts, that generate organic traffic for you.
I usually work with Semrush, as the tool allows detailed research and subsequent evaluation of the SEO measures. Additionally, you can use Semrush to monitor your competitors and see on which keywords they optimize their blog articles.
Other great SEO tools with which you can carry out keyword and competitor research are Sistrix, SE Ranking, Ahrefs, XOVI, Mangools and UberSuggest.
3. Conversion optimization tools
To perform proper tests in your online shop, you need a Conversion Optimization Tool. With these tools you can carry out different tests (e.g. A/B-tests, Multivariate tests, etc.) to compare different elements on your pages.
Recommended tools for optimizing your conversion rate are among others Heyflow, Conversionmaker.ai, Leadz, Neocom, Kameleoon and AB Tasty.
4. Website analysis tools
So that you can properly analyse user behaviour on your site, you should also use a website analysis tool. With these tools, you can track user behavior during navigation and on individual pages. In this way, you can gain new test ideas and at the same time monitor the success of optimizations.
I regularly use both Hotjar and Google Analytics. With this combination, you can analyse your traffic and conversions by landing page and use heatmaps and session recordings on individual pages to better understand your visitors.
On OMR Reviews you can find other web analysis tools (like Contentsquare, mixpanel, Amplitude, Leadinfo, etracker Analytics and FullStory) incl. user ratings that you can compare to find the best solution for your online shop.
Conclusion on customer acquisition through an improved blog conversion rate
Having your own blog in the online shop is a very effective method to win new customers for your business who buy your products. The biggest advantage is that you don't have to invest money in performance marketing to acquire these customers.
In addition, customers that you win through organic measures are generally more loyal than customers who buy something from you via paid channels.
The success of your blog strategy depends largely on how accurately you can track the blog conversion rate in order to then test and implement optimizations.
For this you need a set of tools that need to work together in order to get a valid data base for these decisions.
If you can establish this set-up in your company, you will build a successful acquisition channel in the long run that works independently of your paid advertising measures.
Als Gründer und Geschäftsführer einer eigenen Shopify Agentur hat James Kirby über 50 Händler:innen beim Aufbau und der Optimierung von Shopify Shops unterstützt. Darüber hinaus betreibt er seit 2015 eigene Onlineshops und hat die Entwicklung von Shopify seitdem mitverfolgt. Mit seiner jetzigen Agentur marketborn hilft er und sein Team Shopify Händler:innen bei der Skalierung von Onlineshops mit Performance Marketing.
