For
some reason, we’ve reduced “conversion” to mean visitor’s opting in to an email
list or buying products from specific pages. Why? Isn’t a “conversion” when
your visitor takes any desired action on your site? Wouldn’t that mean
“sharing” or “leaving a comment” could also be considered a conversion in
addition to subscribing and buying things? We are told, “every page is a
landing page.” We are also told to design landing pages to be unique with a
single intention… yet we force content into our blogs so that it all looks
& feels identical.
As
it is right now, I write a post and hope that people leave comments. I hope
that people share, but without any subtle design cues that there is a preferred
action - design wise, my blog posts lack purpose. On the verge of a website
redesign, these are the thoughts and questions that keep me up at night.
Not
wanting to invest thousands into development without testing my design
theories, I’m using landing pages to test blog designs that are focused on each
conversion type. That way, when it is time to invest in a new blog, I’ll know
exactly what’ll work best.
The
Four Types Of Content Marketing
To
understand my design philosophies, you should first understand how I write.
First and foremost, I am a content marketer. But I’m not one of those “Know,
Trust & Like” content marketers. Marketing – at it’s core – is about
testing creative, measuring results, iterating on successes & learning from
your failures. Being trust worty and honest in your creative are useful tools,
but they’re not the end goal.
No
analytics platform I can think of allows you to measure the amount of “Know”
acquired from a piece of content. However, what we can measure are the
following:
1. Social Shares – (Viral Content)
2. Comments – (Discussion Content)
3. Email Optins – (Lead Content)
4. Sales – (Sales Content)
Since
I’ve started focusing my content to meet one of these four conversion goals,
I’ve experienced a significant lift for the desired conversion. This is likely
because each content type also corresponds with different aspects of the
marketing funnel.
• Viral = Awareness
• Discussion = Consideration
• Leads = Conversion
• Sales = Loyalty
Using
this framework can help you set up quantifiable success metrics around nearly
every piece of content you create, helping you become a better “content
marketer.”
Incorporating
these principles into design (rather than just focusing on the writing) takes
this framework a step further and bakes intention into nearly aspect of your
site, not just on the pages meant to get leads and customers.
DESIGNING FOR VIRAL
CONTENT
If
I engineer a piece of content to get shared, why should I visually package it
the same as every other piece on the blog? Shouldn’t there be a slightly
stronger emphasis on social sharing and does design play a role in that?
Expanding reach is important, so by having the visual packaging of that content
do that for me maximizes my promo efforts. As an example of this in action,
here’s “4 Facebook Advertising Techniques Every Marketer Should Know.” This
page is pure, actionable information, but it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room
for conversation beyond “Great Post!”. Instead, it’s soul purpose is to be
shared, so I wanted to incorporate design elements emphasize that point. Custom
calls to action at the bottom of every article The most blatant example of this
is when you reach the bottom of the article. Rather than use the same “sign up
for updates” email opt in, I’ve included a customized call to action for the
article to be shared.
It’s
important to note that with each “viral” piece, this call to action area will
be customized to break expectations & reduce “ad blindness” Micro-shares
embedded throughout the content. Understanding that the web is becoming more
and more visual, useful screenshots, infographics, and video contain share
buttons with micro calls to action. For instance, here’s a screenshot from the
“How to Target C-Suite Executives” section from the Facebook Advertising article
I was talking about earlier.
Instead
of relying on whatever image you put at the beginning of an article, why not
let all of of the images work together as a promotional team? This is part of
how “Growth Hacker” Dao Nguyen has grown
Buzzfeed & how other growth hackers have accelerate some very popular
ventures. If you wanted to make images easily sharable on your own blog, you
could use a service like Marker.ly to make that happen almost right away.
Oh,
one more thing:
Y
U No Let Me Comment?!
Something
else, which may seem counter intuitive, is that I purposefully did not include
comments at the bottom of the article. This is for a few reasons. First, the
purpose of this article is to be shared and to inform, not pull comments (most
of which would be “Great post!” anyways). Second, from what I’ve experienced,
there is a certain level of attrition that happens with blog comments. Conversation
doesn’t go on forever and there’s a certain “late to the party” vibe that comes
from seeing old comments if you’re visiting a blog for the first time. With
this kind of content, it just makes sense to get rid of them all together. I
would much rather focus on having that piece of content spread, than splitting
the viewer’s attention. But, just in case someone does want to ask a question,
or give some other form of feedback, there is a subtle “If you have any
questions, email me” link before the main call to action.
WHAT I’M TESTING
Of
course, like with any landing page, this will be an ongoing testing process. Being
one person on a limited budget, this is why I’m using Unbounce to test &
tweak until I know what works best. That way, when I hire a developer to fully
code the blog, I’ll already know what I’ll need to bake into the site to make
it grow without my assistance. With the call to action at the bottom of the
post, I’ll be testing new button images as well as including “Share by email”
“Grab link” “Stumble” & “Reddit” links. With embedded images, I’ll test
adding additional image heavy social networks like Pinterst & Tumblr to the
share options, as well where I position the buttons on the image. I also test
adding share buttons to light-boxed images to
see if that makes any improvement in the virility of that image content.
I
may also experiment by adding a triggered light-box when the visitor gets to
the bottom of the article, similar to what Upworthy does when a video ends.
DESIGNING FOR
DISCUSSION CONTENT
On
the other hand, we have Discussion Content. Discussion content is meant to be
thought provoking, inspiring, bewildering, whatever. The primary point of this
type of content is of course start a conversation. Something I believe is
broken with the typical blog is that you must scroll to the bottom of the post
to leave a comment. When I read a thought-provoking article, it’s individual
lines or thoughts that compel me to comment, not the article as a whole. But to
comment on a single line, I have to highlight the line, scroll down, paste,
leave my thoughts, click submit, wait for the page to reload, then find where I
left off. How incredibly distracting. I’m not the only one who believes this is
a problem either. Forward thinking websites like Medium use a commenting system
that allows visitors to leave their thoughts on individual paragraphs.
Filament.io
(Digital Telepathy‘s incubator) is also working on a project called “Highlite”
that proposes to put comments on the side.
Both
of these are perfectly viable solutions, however, personally, I believe
commenting on individual paragraphs is overkill, and while I really like what “Highlite”
is doing with their sidebar conversation, I wish their comments used persistent
navigation techniques.
With
the discussion content on my site, I’m doing just that. As you scroll down the
page, the comment box floats on the sidebar and follows you as you scroll down
the screen.
My
hypothesis is that by having the comment box be persistent, the visitor can
quickly respond to snippets within the article, without having to be completely
taken away from it. You might also imagine this will improve the overall time
on site for these pages, because there will essentially be two conversations
happening, the one I spark with the article, and the ongoing one visitors have
with each other on the sidebar.
WHAT I’M TESTING
Though
these pages aren’t fully live yet, I’ll test seeing if the sharing of these
pages goes up by adding social icons directly above the comment box. Because
Facebook’s comment box already allows for optional publishing to the social
network, I’ll be interested to see if adding Twitter, Google+ and Reddit
buttons will extend the conversation. Also, in split test versions of this
page, I’ll be using different comment systems, like Disqus & Livefyre to
determine which (if any) will drive better conversation.
WHAT ALL THIS MEANS TO
YOU
So,
you’ve sat here and read all about what I’m doing, but what does this mean for
you?
1. Start thinking about ways your existing
website can start working with you.Whether it’s using Markerly, embedding
tweets, polite light-boxing, or something else entirely – give your blog a
function beyond just being standard packaging for everything you produce.
2. Even if you’re not putting your comments on
the sidebar, you recognize the difference between content intended to be shared
and content meant to be discussed. Stop trying to produce content that tries to
do everything all at once. This concept alone can help you focus on how you
create better content, and can improve your presence overall.
3. Everything is a test. If you’re on a budget,
and don’t have an on call developer, it’s better perform tests in flexible,
lower risk environment (like Unbounce) before investing several thousands of
dollars on development, which may not be fully optimized.
Once
you get the budget, take the best elements from those tests, and work them into
the final design. But for the love of Pete, don’t go into development without
having data to back up your new design choices. Other than that, I’d love to
get your thoughts on everything we’ve discussed here, and how else it could all
work for you. Any ideas or comments on how you can ramp-up your site by testing
your blog design? Are there things in here that you’re already doing, or do you
think I’m just full of crap?
Sound
off in the comments below, and lets see if we can start making a better
internet together.
Click on the related links below and read more.
We can keep you updated on this information, please Subscribe for Free by entering your email address in the space provided.
Do you like this article? Share this article