Conversion

Conversion is a term given to describe the desired action that the website users take as a result of engaging with the site content. In most cases the conversion means that the website visitors hit the action button, which could be the “add to cart” or “submit” button, but it could also be downloading a file or simply clicking a link.

For the conversion process to happen you need to tailor your website content to serve this purpose, except in the case the desired action is to click on a contextual ad because you are forbidden from encouraging your site visitors to click on those ads by any means. Other than that it is your right, and you are required to encourage your website visitors to take the action that you want them to do.

To make it easier to visualize we’ll take an e-commerce site as an example. The desired action will be simply clicking the add to cart button, and at the end of shopping the desired action is to click on the check-out button.

To encourage your website visitors to buy your products you need to send them your message short and clear: this product will do this to you, and you’ll benefit from it in that way. Depending on your market you need to either emphasize the features or the benefits or both.

To do that there is a formula for a good converting sales copy, which is: eye-catching headline, a sub-header that induces curiosity, simple and clear bullets that describe the benefits and/or the features together with a picture, and a clear call to action.

Depending on the product and the market this copy could be short/long, hard/soft pitching or not pitching at all (just describing the product), with or without graphics, with or without a video, with or without customer reviews/testimonials, and with or without a third party authority validation.

If you are the product owner it’s a good idea to get feed back from your buyers and use that feed back in refining your copy in order to increase your conversion. Affiliates could buy the product and use it, then write about their own personal experience to help other buyers make the decision.

Note: Ethically you should only write what you know is true. But regardless of the ethics thing, it’s a crime to lie about your experience with a certain product, or fake an identity on a blog or a social network, regardless of the purpose. So even if you are not going to make money as an affiliate or product owner, you can not fake an identity and provide content that’s not true. The FTC also requires that you make it clear if you are an affiliate that you will get paid if someone buys the product you are recommending from the link you are providing.

I have personally seen sites raising to the top of search engine results and getting thousands of visitors, and I assume they made a ton of money as affiliates, but because a lie can not keep going those sites lost their rank and got penalized and even banned by advertising networks. So keep it clean if you want it to stay around.

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