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The Definitive Guide to Content for SEO and Conversion

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As a seasoned digital marketer and content creator, I understand the critical role that content plays in SEO and conversion optimization. Crafting quality content is vital for driving traffic to your website, building brand awareness, and ultimately, converting visitors into customers.

good vs bad contentHowever, creating an effective content that serves both SEO and conversion goals requires a strategic approach and a deep understanding of your target audience.

In this article, I will share my knowledge and expertise to provide you with a comprehensive guide on how to create content that drives SEO and conversion success. I will focus mainly on conversion rate optimization (CRO).

Whether you’re a seasoned content creator or a beginner, this guide will equip you with the necessary tools to create compelling and effective content that drives results.

Why You Need to Start Taking Your Content Seriously

I hire only the best writers.  Each page of content on my affiliate sites costs at least $200.  On some sites the content ends up costing over $10,000 on its own.

Here’s why I’m so serious about content…

Reason #1: To Get People to Read Your Article in the First Place

bounce rate

Source: mavenec.com

Let me tell you a story about an average web user named Jeff.

Jeff is a dental assistant.  He works 40 hours per week in his office and enjoys fishing on the weekends.

One day Jeff gets home from work, sits down with his family for dinner, and then decides to browse the web, looking to purchase a new fishing rod.  He searches “best fishing rod” and lands on your affiliate site.

At that instant, the clock starts ticking: you have less than 1 second to convince Jeff that he’s in the right place.

Luckily you pass the test.  You have enough images of people fishing and a huge H1 that reads “Best Fishing Rods in 2017: Reviewed”.  You’re in the clear.

Now, you need to convince him that this article is worth reading.  This is where copy comes into play.

If you have a boring introduction, Jeff is going to bounce and spend his time elsewhere.

Something like the following introduction paragraph is not very inspiring to dedicate 10 minutes of your life reading…

Choosing a new fishing pole is a difficult process.  We have reviewed the best poles to come to the market in 2017.  The criteria we have used is… blah blah blah

The first paragraph is your “hook”.  It’s your chance to hook your reader into staying and reading.  Don’t blow it.

Typically I use three different approaches (sometimes combining them) in order to get folks like Jeff to stay on my sites.

The Knowledge Bomb

knowledge bombWith this approach, you need to teach the reader something they didn’t know before.  Show them that you’re an expert on the subject and let them know that if they read your article, they’re about to learn something new.

In the case of fishing poles, you could lead with an introductory paragraph like this…

As of March 2024, over 55 new fishing pole models have become available on the market.  Many of these new rods have introduced new technologies never seen before.  This makes purchasing quite difficult, without having the resources to actually test …

See the difference?

In the above paragraph’s copy, you’ve shown that your market knowledge is up-to-date and by throwing around some industry terms you’ve shown that you’re a fisherman.

The Show

In this approach, you want to entertain them in the first paragraph of copy.

Do whatever it takes: crack a joke, use a lot of slang, and be silly.

The idea is to convey to the reader that if they go on and read the rest of this article, they’re going to have a fun time doing it.

This is quite hard to do for the fishing niche, but I’ll do my best…

Hey boss.  The name’s Karl.  Let set things straight.  I’m not much of interweb guy, but I do know a hell of a lot about fishing.  This year I’ve spent over 200 days on the water and tested over 40 different fishing poles.  Most of them sucked (like this piece of crap) but some of them really fit the bill …

So maybe this isn’t Louis C.K. stand-up material, but you get the idea.  Karl’s article is probably going to be fun to read.

Fear Factor

go ahead and bounceThe third approach I go with, which is often the most effective, is to use fear to make the reader feel like if they don’t read my article, something bad is going to happen.

Horrid things such as…

  1. They’re going to get ripped off
  2. They’re going to buy the wrong product
  3. They’re going to get hurt

If you’ve ever read a headline like “Do NOT Buy Garcinia Cambogia Before You READ THIS REVIEW!!” then you know what I’m talking about.

Let’s try with the fishing niche:

Welcome to Fishermen First’s 2017 Fishing Pole Review

Last year I spent $600 on a new carbon/graphite composite pole.  It was stiff to the point that it actually broke in half on its first deep sea run.

At that point I decided there wasn’t enough information out on proper poles, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and I built this review site…

Playing to someone’s desires to avoid getting ripped off is a HUGE emotional motivator.

 

More on this later…

Putting these Approaches to the Test

The key thing about these different approaches is that there’s never a one-size-fits-all solution to choosing which one will work best for your eCommerce site.

Depending on the niche, one approach might be better than the other.

This is why it’s extremely important to AB split test to find the best approach for your niche.

For the following experiment, I used Optimizely to put The Knowledge Bomb, The Show and Fear Factor against each other in one of my niches.

  • Original = The Knowledge Bomb
  • Variation #1 = The Show
  • Variation #2 = Fear Factor

Each of these gets served to various readers 1/3 of the time.

For the test criteria, I’m looking at “Engagement.” An engagement event occurs when someone does something on my page, such as click.  It’s a good indicator of that someone stayed on my page due to my “hook” paragraph.

Introduction Content

As you can see here, The Show is highly superior over the other approaches, resulting in an 8.0% increase in engagement over The Knowledge Bomb.  Each time a new visitor comes to my site, through the conversion funnel, the chance that they stay and read, and site’s conversion rate,  increases by 8%.  This adds up quick when you have more traffic like thousands of visitors per day.

This is both surprising and not; surprising because The Show hardly ever wins and not surprising because of the niche that I tested this on (which is a pretty light topic).

You can see now how important it is to test your intro content.  If you want to keep people from bouncing once they get to your site, it’s worth taking seriously.

Now that we’ve gotten people to agree to read your page, let’s see how we can use content to keep them there.

Reason #2 – To Get People to Continue Reading Until They Get to Your Call-to-Actions

Time on site

Time-on-Site (actual data)

It’s no secret: we all have internet attention deficit disorder.

When was the last time you fully read every single word of an article?

Hopefully, you’re doing that right now, but I’d be surprised (and honored) if you were.

Most people read the first paragraph of copy and then go into skim mode, rapidly scrolling their eyes down the page until they see something they like.

Or they bounce when they see a lack of things that they like.

Let’s work on that…

Eliminate Walls of Text

As mentioned above, people don’t like to read.  Ain’t nobody got time for that.

When you present a top-to-bottom, browser filled wall-of-text, it’s a huge turn off to your visitors.

Instead, break up your content with more visually digestible pieces of content along the way to your CTAs.

Here’s a list of techniques that I commonly use:

  • Media: At any given point in the vertical scroll of your article you should see some kind of image, video or one of the following…
  • Headings: Use H2, H3, H4 headlines to notify a skimming reader when there’s a new section that he might be interested in.
  • Call Outs: Use call-out boxes to highlight important information that they might like
  • Formatted Content: Use structured markup like tables and lists to present information in easily digestible ways. Also works well for capturing feature snippets.

Scroll up to see what I’ve done in this article.

Short Paragraphs

Loooooong paragraph blocks look intimidating.  They’re hard to read.

Do you ever see that guy on Facebook that doesn’t use his “Enter” key?  He writes a post that very well may be the best piece of literature ever to grace the internet, but you witness this textual behemoth and say to yourself “fuck that!”

Don’t be that guy.

Make your paragraphs brief (1-3 sentences long).

 

Bucket Brigades

Bucket brigades are inserted into the copy to encourage the reader to continue reading the article.

They’re short and sweet, and usually convey the promise that more information is going to revealed later.  Other times they might promise that a concept will finally start to come together.

Scroll up to see where I’ve inserted bucket brigades into this article.

[Hint: “You’re about to learn all about it”.  “Here’s why…” “More on this later…”]

These bucket brigades subconsciously encourage the reader to stick around and keep reading.

Write in the Reader’s Language

ivy league guy

Your fancy-pants vocab is no good here

While it may sound fun to show off your Ivy League vocabulary, it typically doesn’t sell.

By using words that the average person and potential customers may not understand, you’ve either confused them or make them feel dumb which results in (you guessed it) a bounce.

Speak simply and clear.  Don’t show off.

Use the words that your audience understands.

I wrote a children’s book about 10 years ago and actually took classes on how to do it properly.  Did you know they actually have different writing styles for 2-3 graders as opposed to 4-6 graders?

They have entirely different vocabularies.

Make sure you use the right vocabulary for your audience, whoever that may be.

Understand Where Your Visitors Are in the Sale Cycle

Any serious marketer or salesperson that wants to truly understand the psychology of a prospect needs to understand one very fundamental concept…

That concept is called the “Sale Cycle”.

There are different versions of the sale cycle so depending on where you first learn it the steps might come out different, but the model I adhere to is illustrated as follows.

sale cycle diagram

  • Latent Pain – The prospect has an issue, but it doesn’t register to him that isn’t a problem at all. For example, someone might be overweight but simply not notice it nor do they care.  To get them to the next stage of the sale, you would need to educate the person that being overweight poses health problems.
  • Acknowledged Pain – The prospect now acknowledges that being overweight is an issue. People are in this phase if they’re searching for terms like “how to lose weight”.  Your job is now to communicate that there are indeed solutions to this issue and that they do indeed work (this last part is very important).
  • Actively Seeking a Solution – The prospect is looking around for solutions. He’s searching around using keywords like “best weight loss supplement”.  Your job is to show him that one of them is the best, such as garcinia cambogia, a product I still promote.
  • Seeking the Best Solution – The prospect is searching for more information on the best product and is searching for “garcinia cambogia reviews”. Confirm to him that this product is the best and he’ll be ready to buy it.  Testimonials work well in this stage.
  • Seeking the Best Place to Buy the Best Solution – The prospect wants to get a good deal, with free shipping, money back guarantee, etc.  Give him that and he will…
  • Convert

Read this over a few times.

Understanding the sale cycle has helped me in an infinite number of business situations – more than I can count.

But how does this apply to writing search engine optimization content and keeping people on your page?

You need to match your content with the intent of the search.

 

Here’s what happens when you ignore the sale cycle…

Rewinding Back in the Sale Cycle

If someone searches for “best fishing pole” and your first 5 paragraphs are about why a good fishing pole can help them fish better, they’re going to bounce.

These types of keywords indicate prospects that are ready-to-buy.  They searched for “best fishing pole” because they want to know which one is the best so they can buy it.  They don’t need to be told again why good fishing rods are good.  This is where you lost them.

Fast-forwarding Prematurely in the Sale Cycle

On the contrary, if you fast forward into the sale cycle, you’re going to lose people as well.

Imagine someone searching for “how to lose weight”.  They’re in the Acknowledged Pain phase but you’ve immediately served them some “Seeking the Best Place to Buy the Best Solution” content with a one-time-only free trial offer on garcinia cambogia.

The reader is gone, gone, gone.

Instead, respect the sale cycle.

Lead potential customers through the steps of the cycle, one-by-one, and then pitch your miracle weight loss pill when they’re ready.

Remember to take a look at the keywords people are using to get to your page and serve them up the appropriate content, so they continue along the path.

Sequence each piece of content, one after another, so the conversion funnel leads the visitor along the sale cycle naturally and gently.

This is the key to keeping people on the page, and the key to getting them to convert.

Reason #3 – To Get People to Convert

Let’s imagine that your content, thus far, has done its job.  The visitor has stayed on your page and read it to the point of that they’re introduced to your call to action.

This is the pivotal point – the ultimate goal of your website.

It makes sense that the copy around these CTAs is some the best written copy on your entire website.

Let’s use another example to illustrate a bad example of conversion copy versus a strong example of conversion copy.

In this example, we own BroomstickBros.com (a review site or user feedback for Quidditch flying broomsticks)

The reader got to your page by searching “best quidditch broomstick”, started reading your article, and got all the way down to your #1 product: The Nimbus 2000.

Even muggles know this is, by far, the best broomstick on the market, but let’s pretend they don’t and try to pitch it anyways.


#1 – The Nimbus 2000

nimbus 2000The Nimbus 2000 has been the top of our lists for the past 2 years.  It has a high top speed, great handling, and is crafted with the highest precision.  It comes with a 2 year warranty as well.  Use the link below to check the price on Amazon.

buy now button


Not bad… but definitely not good.

Here are some of the key essentials that pre-CTA conversion copy requires:

  1. Convince them that this is indeed the #1 product
  2. Talk about the benefits of the product to the potential customers, not its features
  3. Play to their desire to get a real, authentic product and not a knock-off
  4. Play to their desire to get the best price (we talked about this before)
  5. Dispel all need to get a second opinion by placing a testimonial

Let’s give it another shot…


#1 – The Nimbus 2000 (Harry Potter’s Choice)

nimbus 2000The Nimbus 2000 has been Potter’s broomstick for the past 4 Quidditch seasons.  With it, just like Harry, you’ll ride faster than your opponents and you’ll easily outmaneuver their defenses.  Be sure to watch out for knock-off imitations that are springing up as of late.  The link below will get you to the official supplier which has the best price available on the Nimbus 2000 as of March 28, 2024.

FB testimonial

buy now button


How’d we do?

  1. If the best player uses it, it’s the best product.
  2. We didn’t mention how fast the broom goes. We talked about how fast YOU’LL go.
  3. Scared them from getting a fake product.
  4. Told them where to get the best price
  5. Slapped on a testimonial for good measure

If we were to split test this, I can guarantee that the second piece of copy would increase conversions.

In fact, I’ve already tested it.

In a niche site of mine I created the following experiment in Optimizely:

pre-CTA content

  • Original – Bland, straight forward content
  • Variation #1 – Using all elements above
  • Variation #2 – Leaving out elements #3-5

Our metric that we’re watching is the number of clicks on the call to action following the copy.

As you can see here, throwing all these copywriting elements together gets a much higher site’s conversion rate optimization.  And in this case, items #3 – #5 seem to be carrying most of the weight.

The numbers look nice and all but let me translate this into dollars for you.

If this call to action was generating $1000/month, after switching to variation #1, it is now generating $1429/month.

If you’re in the leadgen game, conversion is achieved through a contact form.  For that, I recommend HubSpot’s free contact form builder or some other tools to get this done.

I hope you’re starting to see the value of copywriting when it comes to conversion rate optimization.  It’s just as important as your SEO strategy.  Here’s a good guide on the basics.

Let’s now take a look at how you can improve your skills.

How to Level-Up Your Copy Game

Start Reading more Books

Here’s a list of books I recommend reading that have been hugely impactful in my life with regards to copy.

Solution Selling by Michael Bosworthsolution selling – This book best lays out the sale cycle which you read about above.  The sale cycle is fundamental in how you lay out the flow of your content.  You need to make sure you’re giving people what they came there to read, and you need to progress them to the next stage in the sale cycle, one level at a time.  This book is all about that.

Convert! By Ben Hunt – This book is a bit old.  It subscribes to the old idea that we would make a single web page for each stage in the sale cycle.  That might have worked great in 2010, but now Google likes long form pages that cover the entire topic.  Nonetheless, the knowledge in this book is profound.  You just need to apply it to modern day long-form content.

The Online Copywriter’s Handbookonline copywriters handbook by Robert Bly – Most of the greatest copywriting books are written for the pre-internet days.  This book is adapted for the digital realm and is quite good I might add.  Even covers copywriting differences between website homepages vs landing pages, SEM, and email marketing as well.

Read More Articles on Copywriting

I recently stumbled upon the following two articles which were superb, especially when it comes to keeping people on the page.

Read Other People’s Copy

When you’ve stumbled upon a nice piece of copy you’ll know it.

You’re sucked into the article.  You feel like the author definitely knows what they’re talking about.  You read the article quickly and it never feels like it’s a struggle to get through.  In fact, it seems like it was written for you and even uses your own words.

This is good copy.

Unfortunately, you won’t find it too often in the search engine optimization world.  Affiliate, leadgen and client sites rarely have extremely compelling content unless you get lucky.

Look towards big marketers and check out what they’re writing.  There are free lessons all around us.

Outsource It

For some people, writing simply isn’t in their blood.

And if you’re not a native English speaker, the challenge of writing in a language that isn’t your primary language is beyond daunting.

In these cases, I recommend outsourcing.

I outsource my content as well.  While I might have decent skill in writing copy that the search engines and visitors like, I’m certainly not better than experts that do it full time.

Who do I typically outsource to?

SEO Butler

pbn butler logoJonathan Kiekbusch’s SEO Butler has a premium content service.  This is not to be mistaken with their PBN content offering.

SEO Butler’s premium content team is based in the US and consists of all college graduates.  When they were first setting up the program, I worked with them on many of the concepts you’ve learned in this article and they actually implemented everything we discussed.

Use Coupon Code “DIGGITY10” for 10% off

So… does this stuff actually work in practice?

Yes, it does work in practice.

At the beginning of last month (August 1, 2017), I started working on an affiliate site that I purchased.  It was making $2100/month when I got my hands on it.

Here’s what daily traffic looked like over August…

daily traffic

Pretty flat, right?

But check out the increase in monthly revenue from just going all-out on content CRO:

revenue

Don’t believe me?  This site has about 10 different affiliate networks involved with it, so I’ll just post a couple of dashboard screenshots:

proof

No increase in traffic, but 2.46x increase in revenue?

How?  Content CRO.

To Sum Up

I hope this article helped you see the value of content, both as an SEO tool but also in terms of increasing conversions.

While most people are focused on backlinks, we tend to ignore the high-ROI testing we could be doing on the actual copy on our site’s conversion rate to get people to stay on our sites and make us money.

If you have any personal stories about how optimizing content has made a difference in your business, please comment below. Conversion rate optimization efforts for search engine optimization should be on your mind all the time.

To add… I’m going to be taking a brief hiatus from my blog so I can focus on a course I’m releasing with some friends that has been on the backburner for way too long.

I cherish this blog for the opportunity to share my ideas and test results with others that are gracious enough to listen to me.  But there’s even more information that I’ve always wanted to share in a more detailed and intense manner which a blog isn’t suitable for.

To stay informed of my next big thing, please sign up below.

I’ll keep you in the loop.

 

Matt-Author-Img

Article by

Matt Diggity

Matt is the founder of Diggity Marketing, LeadSpring, The Search Initiative, The Affiliate Lab, and the Chiang Mai SEO Conference. He actually does SEO too.

 

118 thoughts on “The Definitive Guide to Content for SEO and Conversion”

  1. Great article Matt. I recently took one of my top ranking articles and completely re-wrote the content to be more focused on benefits rather than features. And making it clearer as to why I recommend X product over the rest of them. The uplift in conversion has been dramatic. Ive gone from selling 1-2 products per day to 5-6.

  2. You blew my mind matt. These type of quality post are really hard to find . You Literally sold me Nimbus 2000. Thank you 🙂

    1. Thanks. 🙂 Did you actually try to click the CTA for the Nimbus? If so… I guess this content CRO stuff actually works.

  3. Very cool blog post, neighbor :p

    I’m not at this stage yet for most of my sites, so I wouldn’t know. But, do you see ranking fluctuations when you split test and in the end change the text copy for a site that’s already ranking?
    Will you see the sites dancing around for a few days/weeks after making changes, or is this nothing to worry about when it’s only a few paragraphs you change?

    Regards,
    Simon Treulle

    1. I keep keyword placement and density the same between splits. Not sure if that’s necessary, but as a result, no ranking fluctuations.

  4. Powerful stuff bro. Loved the intro approaches! I guess this post is a “knowledge bomb” and a bit of “fear factor” – wouldn’t you agree?

    Anyway, when are you going to write that book? I want to be able to hold all the knowledge bombs in my hand 🙂

      1. Oh ok, then we’re back to the beer night plan.
        BTW, have you experimented where it’s best to put your first CTA? Above/below the intro, or perhaps in a floating summary box?

    1. Excellent article. I love the sales cycle part. When writing guides/long form content like this, is it simply a matter of sequentially writing sections that follow each level/stage of the sales cycle?

    2. Matt, specifically on amazon sites, have you done any testing on the button text? e.g. “check price on amazon” versus “buy now” And whether displaying the price on the page has any effect?

        1. Curious as to which one performed better – the ‘check price’ or ‘buy now’?

          And did you test a various button colors too? If so, which one performed best?

    3. Hey Matt,

      Interesting piece, I like how you’ve covered the CRO of content, something that I’ve quite honestly not seen before. Walls of text are the worst! Nothing sends a reader directly to the back button like a big black wall of unbroken sentences! Slytherin, eat your heart out!

      Seriously though. I really didn’t think it could have such a big impact on ROI. Great stuff.

    4. Hi Matt,

      Cool article as always.

      May I know where you buy these websites?
      Is it just marketplaces like Flippa, or you do buy them private?

      Thanks,
      Kris

    5. Hey Matt. Such a good guide! I’m new to SEO and have found your stuff invaluable. I find myself looking at your on-page SEO guide daily.

      With conversions – Am I right in thinking that for a long form buyers guide targeting the keyword “best broomsticks,” you would start with an overview of the best products first and then go into a buyer’s guide later (benefits of owning a broomstick, etc).

      The prospect is actively seeking a solution. So being told the benefits first would cause them to bounce?

      I’ve seen it done both ways and always wondered if there was one that performed better than the other.

    6. Great post Matt! I gotta say you’re one of the few SEO’s out that I actually enjoy reading. With that said, what are your thoughts on low-ticket vs high-ticket products and copy.

      From my experience I found out that its especially important on high ticket. For example I have 2 sites promoting the same product and both of them are hang around 4-6 position, but 90% of sales come from only 1 site. However, I can’t figure out what is the difference between the two copies. Hopefully your methods will help me out with that. Thanks!

    7. Matt, this is a great articles and you really encapsulated the point that creating good content is very important. I am coaching a group of 20 people that are fairly new and will be sharing this article with them.

    8. When creating niche affiliate sites, how should the actual product links be presented? In the same way that you transitioned the article to the reading section with the books linking to the products on Amazon? Or would one typically have a products page? I guess what I’m asking is if it should be based around articles with the links woven in, or more of a shop feel. Or maybe both?

    9. This article has definitely got me thinking more about my copywriting. Awesome read, you are such a nerd for the nimbus 2000 review! Haha.

    10. Matt, I’m trying to understand this, so should the full sales cycle be on a long form post? So a 2000 word article where you start with what the problem is, then go about the solution, then reviews ended with CTAs?

      The part where I get hung up is this: If someone searches for “blue widget reviews” and lands on your long page that starts talking about what the problem is…he’ll bounce like you said. Or do you assume he’ll skim the whole page and hopefully make it to the reviews part? Wouldn’t a page that is focused on the reviews ONLY be more beneficial (but then we’d be at the old model again at splitting off related keywords into their own pages)?

      1. You can divide it up into multiple pages. Benefits of blue widgets -> Blue widget reviews -> Where to buy the blue widget #123.

    11. Wow, this article smashed it.

      I’ve only recently come across Diggity Marketing in the last few months, but I’ve literally read every article on your site, so thanks Matt.

      The value you provide is amazing. This article has really got me pumped to focus on my copywriting again.

      I used to do copywriting for years (client side) but it wasn’t my favourite thing, even though I was good at it. I’m definitely going to be pushing my own content much more. (Got a 5000 word “how to” in draft mode as we speak)

      Question?

      I’m on a bootstrap startup budget so links, tools and other growth stuff has to be budgeted out (slow growth) but I can write good copy (I have time)

      Do you think just focusing hard for next 6 months on making strong copy based on what you’ve said here would have a decent impact if tested? especially if I pushed it out via cheaper paid social, whilst the SEO catches up.

      Naturally, I’d build links and run social etc etc, but these things are all limited by budget, content is only limited by my time and sanity lol

      Thanks

      Dan

      1. Writing good copy isn’t going to be enough. As mentioned in the introduction of this article, Google won’t rank quality content by itself.

    12. Awesome Matt! Your content is always the best and it’s too much in flow that I can’t stop reading that.
      Yes! You are right I’m one of the guys who doesn’t read the whole article. But I did now 🙂

    13. Hey Matt,

      It was a good read. More than 4,000 words, but yet felt as though I was reading 2000 words article, that simply means the readability is top notch. Kudos and more grease to your elbow!

      Lest I forget, I notice something, the URL of this article has a stop word, does that really matter in terms of on-page SEO? I guess not (debatable). However, I will like to know your own opinion.

    14. Awesome stuff Matt. Recently discovered your blog and thank you for putting out great information and holding nothing back 🙂

    15. Sooo Matt, when are you going to do the big site reveal?
      Or is their more to come on this later(:
      P.S. Thanks for the great content tips once again Matt, truly the best!
      -Justin

      1. Hoping to do so eventually. I’ve been taking video documentation of every thing just in case. The thing is, I’ll flip this site and the new buyer needs to be ok with the site going public.

    16. Hey Matt,

      This is an awesome article. It gave me a lot of great things to try out. Thanks for the lesson.

      I’ll repost after I implement some split tests,

      Look forward to seeing your course as well!

    17. Awesome stuff as always Matt! I am always doing client SEO and I am just about to dive in into affiliate side. This article is gold.

      Just a couple of quick questions. Let’s say I am trying to promote “boxing gloves” on my affiliate site.
      1. Recently I found that there were many searches for “boxing gloves New York”, “boxing gloves Los Angeles”, etc. Those that showed up on the first page were something like Craiglist, buy and sell forums, eBay, small store sites, etc. I know Craiglist, etc are big sites but the internal pages that showed up didn’t have many links going to them. Do you think they are good keywords to target?

      2. If you say yes to my question above, do you think it’s best to create a page for each city keyword?

      3. If you also say yes to the above, what would be the content strategy since it’s basically promoting the same boxing gloves only to different city?

      Thanks heaps Matt!

    18. Hey Matt,

      Thanks for Sharing your knowledge with us. I am eagerly waiting for the course.

      My Questions: 1) Have you ever used Google Optimize? What is your view on it compared to Optimizely?

      2) Do you use GTM for your websites?

      3) Do you use pricing table? if yes, do you test different variants?

      4) Expected Course Date 😉

      Thanks and I will surely share the result of my tests with you after implementing the gained knowledge from DiggityMarketing.

      1. 1) Nope
        2) Dunno what that is
        3) I use tables but I don’t include price
        4) If we’re lucky, this month or next.

        1. Thanks for the reply.

          GTM stands for Google Tag Manager. I use it to track affiliate links.

          Small query related to pricing table. Do you use Tablepress/GoPricing/Thrive Table?

          I know Tablepress is a great plugin and your post on feature snippet was awesome =D .

          So many questions from my side. Sorry for it.

    19. Great article.

      I’ve started shifting my writing to benefit mode, as opposed to feature mode.

      The sliver of testimonial is genius. Gonna look into that.

      But I have to remind myself to stay in that mode.

    20. Coolie, agree with everything. Cro needs to be taken into account seriously since a few tweaks can increase your revenue.

      P.S can we expect to see your seo course before the end of 2017?(u mentioned it a lot in your replies here and in your fb posts)

      Thanks

    21. Great article as always.

      Matt, do you prefer using the first person singular instead of plural (“we”, “our team”…) in your affiliate articles?

      Thanks

    22. Freckin awesome Matt, saved me so much time. Random AF question feel free not to answer but do you have an affiliate site in a large niche inside investing? I keep seeing this site come up in the serps and had to know.

    23. Great content as always.

      Have a little question. If someone from the US is searching for “Best Fishing Rod”, does he/she have any idea beforehand where he/she will purchase from?

      Isn’t against Amazon TOS if you don’t tell users where your links will take them?

      Since I’m not from the States when I search for similar terms most of the times I know beforehand where I will get my things.

      1. He might, but you need to give them a reason to click your button instead. The way you do that is in my article.

        Also, I don’t give Amazon advice, sorry.

    24. Very valuable stuff. Other question: I got to this article from your newsletter but it was not a clickable link but rather just plain text so I had to copy/paste it in the browser. Was there a specific reason not to use a regular link like passing the spam filters? Just wondering because I am working on my own newsletter now.

    25. Hey Matt, awesome article man. CRO is a little bit of a guilty pleasure of mine but I’ll be honest, I always neglected the copy in favor of layout, CTAs and features so this is an eye opener. Can’t wait to see the results after implementing these. And looking forward to when the course comes out.

    26. I like to put so many effort on my content, because I do not have resources to rank like my competitors. This CRO is another eye opener for me.

      It seems content is taking over.

    27. It is safe to say that, no matter how awesome the product is, it is the copy writing that can make or break the deal (conversion in this case).

    28. Hey Matt,
      Not the first, certainly not the last who says this — but thanks so much for all the information you share with us and for helping us change our lives!

      I want to ask three questions:
      1. Do you have a standard method to determine when it is time to start focusing on CRO? For example when the site reaches “x” impressions in a month, or when it hits first page rankings?
      In my book it’s a very different story if the clicks/sales go from 100->200 (100% increase) or from 3000->4500 (50% increase).
      The percentage increase doesn’t provide statistical significance, unless the variance is low, so I was wondering if you have a more robust way to know when you should start optimizing your content, than just “feeling it out”.

      2. In terms of outsourcing the content, can you share any other sources you are using especially for “quality” content for PBNs.
      After reading your latest posts, I tend not to think in terms of PBN/MS sites anymore — they all need to be able to rank, but if you are just starting and are on a budget, how would you go around outsourcing content?

      3. I have been searching and reading many blogs, seeking for a question that still keeps me up at night!
      Everybody talks about “quality” content…
      But what is quality content?!?
      The only quantifiable method I have seen is the volume of the keywords (2k words I guess is considered decent).
      But how can you judge if a piece is considered quality content? Is it the syntax, the grammar, the vocabulary, the punctuation?

      Thanks in advance for anyone who attempts to shed some light on my troubled mind!
      Best,
      Lefteris

      1. 1) When it starts making about $500-$1000/month, is when I start CRO.
        2) I personally use in-house writers.
        3) Good question. Impossible to say. Whatever we think is quality content doesn’t really matter. It’s what the algo thinks, and who knows what a 1 and 0 parser things is a good read.

    29. Nice article, Matt. I’ve already updated my content with some of these tricks.

      My problem is, I am doing foreign SEO, the niche is big home appliances, and people are coming from words “best tumble dryers”, etc..

      However, in the last few days, I got about 500+ clicks and 0 conversions.

      There’s still some space for optimization, but I think the website isn’t so bad. And I’d expect at least a few conversions.

      Don’t you have an idea what the problem could be? Maybe niche?

      Thanks

    30. This is a great post Matt
      I am hiring some writers on Upwork and I had followed your guideline, but it’s hard to find a good writer that can write a perfect article like on your site 🙂
      Could you please recommend some place to find US writers, Matt!

    31. Very informative article and really proves the power of CRO especially on a site getting the same traffic. Lets say I have a site that’s been generating a certain amount, what are the first steps of a CRO “plan”?

      1. Install heatmaps and figure out which CTA gets the most clicks. Then split test it.

        Or split test your intro paragraphs.

    32. Dude I am having a question…

      The visitors that come on our page by typing products name in google.

      what type of intent they are having? Which sale cycle they are present in?

      Also tell when is your course going to be released dude?

      have you included cro in depth there ?

        1. Thanks Matt.

          Will look forward for your course.

          I can sense great value there related to seo and content optimization stuffs.

    33. Hey Matt… brilliant work on it! When we do start to understand the client journey, things get easier and targeted (thus more conversion)…

      As a test guy, have you ever tested those plugins that redirects the visitor to another page (i.e. the sales page itself or another conversion page) when he tries to go back or have the intention to exit the page? If you had, how was the results, worth using it? If you not, what are your thoughts about it?

      Thanks!

    34. With how many articles do you typically on average start when you make your affiliate sites? Like how many pages in total your affiliate sites contains?

        1. Thanks for the reply Matt, and after let’s say 6-12 months, how much your money sites contain the average in total content/articles? Do you think for most affiliate websites 50-100 articles on the site are more than enough to not consider your site as thin or trigger panda algo?

          1. It completely depends on the success of the site and the amount of content in that niche. If a site takes off, I’ll go all out on keyword research and grow that site to whatever size it takes to cover every topic. That could be 40 pages or 400.

            And also, size of the site does not have anything to do with Panda.

    35. Hey Matt,

      Great content as always. Thank you. I have one question about content that everyone seems to answer differently. For article word count, does the article or the entire content on the web page (comments, sidebar etc.) counts? And the same question about the keywords. Do they count only in the article itself or everywhere on the webpage? I seem to find opinions that says two different things and decided to ask you.

      Thank you in advance. Have a great day. 🙂

      1. Word count is defined by body content. That said, density takes in to account all the content on the page.

        1. I got it. Thank you. I have one more question that is again about keyword density. In your evergreen on page seo pdf you mention that not only the whole keyword matters but the individual words in the whole keyword and you give suggested density. My question is if you follow the density strictly on those numbers or you just take the keyword density from the first one ranking ( i am talking both about the whole keyword and the individual words in it). And also do you take as example the first ranker or you average the first 5, like you suggested for other strategies. Thank you in advance.

          Have a great day and happy holidays. 🙂

          1. I don’t look at others when it comes to onsite, except in matters of word length. I find more of then than not that people rank despite their onsite seo.

            1. Great. Thank you very much. I have just one more little question. In the on-page guide you give certain numbers for keyword density and it is said that they are for 500 words article. If the article is 1500 words do you 3x those numbers?

      2. Dear Matt, very informative article, as a writer I like SEO that pay for quality text.
        The problem is, that on f.e. on upwork clients offer 1 cent/word and expect top content.
        Can you give your readers an idea, what good content might cost.
        Thanks, Chris

      3. Awesome guide on conversion Matt, I love your case studies too & they’re very informative and answers most of our questions.

        Keep up the Great Work 🙂

      4. hay Matt
        this is awesome article. it is hard to find a good article like this. i m very happy today.thank u so much for this article.
        and keep it up 🙂

      5. Hi Matt,

        I love the idea of experimenting but find the CRO tools daunting and expensive.

        Optimizely is too expensive if you have a small website.

        What simple and cheap CRO tool would you recommend for a newbie tester? I could still afford a couple hundred per month.

        1. The Heatmap for WordPress plugin by HeatMap, Inc allows heatmap tracking for 5 pages for free. That should be enough to test what is getting the most clicks. For example, you can track the click rate for a CTA button for a set period of time. Then you can make a change to the CTA button, and track its click rate for the same period of time. You then compare the click rate before and after the change to see if the change is worth it.

          This way of testing may not be as efficient and clean as A/B Testing but it’s a good start if you are small and on a budget.

      Comments are closed.