5 Things You Need to Know About Content Updates to Drive Conversions

Around 72% of marketers claim that content has helped increase engagement.

But how important is it to update content?

It’s critical if you consider Vox Media’s republishing experiment. They changed the headlines, added new information, new ideas and rewrote sections.

The result? 500,000 page views.

Based on your goal, you can be strategic about the updates you make. Let’s take a look at one of the converting blog posts, ‘Best QR Code Generator’, that we’ve dissected later on in the article.

First, let’s get some basics out of the way.

What kind of content can be updated regularly?

Content needn’t necessarily mean only blogs and the content hosted on the website. While these are an integral part of the main content, there are several other forms as well. From guest articles to videos, podcasts and animated videos, content on different platforms can be updated to drive better conversions.

For instance, if you’re trying to leverage Instagram for business, you can refresh your bio, add a link that opens up a grid view of your posts with relevant links or use a tool like Linktree to keep all your links handy.

The idea is to monitor engagement on all channels and update content where you see the potential for improvement.

5 things you need to include in your content updates to drive conversions

1. Update content, but make it varied

Different types of content perform better than others, analyze your customer base, and figure out which content performs best.

You can test out new headlines on social media. Or a new manner of delivery through newsletters. Then apply that to your webpages or blog.

The field of marketing is constantly changing, with brands trying out creative methods to reach potential customers. Updating content needs to go beyond just updating mere textual content.

80% of marketers invest in visual assets for their marketing strategies.

When brands think outside the box and create videos for a topic instead of long-form content, an infographic, a call to action video, a pop-up, or a personalized email, the chances of conversions are higher, due to the varied forms of engagement.

For instance, brands like Evernote have taken a creative spin on how-to tutorials and case studies. These stories not only reviewed their product but also explained how it worked. Combining storytelling with instructions was found to be more engaging and effective.

However, along with using different forms of content, analyzing responses is an essential part of the process. Experimenting with a content form, viewing the analytics behind it to check which strategy works can save time, lead to effective predictions on what customers prefer, and help increase engagement.

That is precisely what Beaconstac tried to achieve with their now high performing blog post. Other results that rank for the keyword, best QR Code Generator are listicles. They decided to go a different route and write a detailed guide instead that helps potential customers understand how to choose the best one.

2. Have a basic checklist for content updates

Brands analyze all possible ways to grow sales. But the easiest and perhaps most cost-effective way is to update content.

Find where users spend time on your website or blog. You can also use heatmaps to know the exact section where most users linger to insert high performing CTAs.

You should also analyze the search intent and if the content is relevant, and keywords that drive the most traffic and clicks.
Once you complete your analysis, create a checklist so that you don’t miss out on anything.

An ideal checklist would have prerequisites of characteristics observed in content that performs well. Checking whether the keywords match what your target audience may be looking for, if the headline is eye-catching, or makes readers want to read the article or piece of content can help assess the performance.
With brand identity as a way to stand out from the crowd, having a unified brand voice can assist with creating consistent content.

While the bigger picture lies in the information and the content, smaller elements should not be overlooked. On-page SEO elements such as meta description, links within the post, image descriptions, and so on require updating over time. This helps the content stay relevant to the topic and is picked up better by search engines.
Circling back to our blog post, here’s an example of a basic checklist that I follow:

• Is the title and meta description optimized for SEO and readers?
• Have the alt titles for images been added?
• Have the non-performing CTAs been changed?
• Have I added new ideas?
• Have I added the latest updates from the industry?
• Have I included keyphrases from Search Console?
• Have I removed or added relevant links?
• Have I added internal links to this blog post?
• Is the blog post optimized for mobile?

This allows us to keep track of all the changes we make and understand if it affects us positively or negatively.

3. Update design along with content

The user experience matters. A lot.
Since Google announced the arrival of Core Web Vitals, websites have been scurrying to fix their URLs to comply with the prerequisites.
Apart from what Google suggests you can do, you can also ensure you make it easy for readers to find the right information, fast.
A great example of this is Brian Dean’s articles on Backlinko. Since his content spans several pages, he adds jump tags and chapters to make it easy to navigate.

Source: Backlinko

Besides your target audience visiting your website for specific information, the portrayal of the content plays a crucial role.
The goal is to keep users engaged for longer to reduce the overall bounce rate.

Effective design helps make content easier to understand, highlights the required content, and delivers it in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Adding elements of technology to these designs can significantly influence the experience of the user.
With Beaconstac’s blog post, they’ve kept things simple. Since they know what CTAs work best for them, they’ve added these in the first fold of the post.

Another example of how website redesigns can make a difference, The Art Institute of Chicago redesigned its website, which changed the old “usable” version into a newer, responsive website with higher usability and readability. Redesigns require an elaborate process, but they help in rebranding and boosting conversions in the long run.

4. Personalize content when you can

When personalized marketing is the need of the hour, spammy, monotonous emails can be replaced with more personalized, memorable emails that customers can associate the brand with. About 80% of consumers reportedly make purchases from brands that provide personalized experiences.

For instance, for a brand specializing in beauty and healthcare products, providing discounts and coupons could be an effective way to generate conversions and engage existing customers.
With an email outlining the product, a custom QR code can be added along with it, with a CTA “Scan to avail discount” that takes users to the app to complete their purchase.

You can also look to Google Optimize to personalize your content. Split A/B testing with headlines, CTA positions and keywords will help you tailor your content. You can also set up parameters that let you show a completely different page to users on a specific flow.

5. Leveraging Structured Data

An update on your content can also include structured data. Structured data is a way to describe your site to search engines. This requires a few lines of code added to the content to help search engines understand the category.

There are different types of schemas that you can use to implement structured data.

For example, there is an article schema that lets Google know that a specific URL contains an article.

You can also add a First Published and Last Updated Date that Google picks up when displaying SERP results.

You can also add schemas like the FAQ schema, which helps readers see frequently asked questions even before they click on the blog post. You can include links in the answers to get users to click on your preferred landing pages.

The FAQ schema also ultimately results in having a SERP result occupying more space, which can help draw attention to your post.

A rulebook to ace content updates

Using these 5 tips, you will be able to increase your clicks by 60x in the last 12 months.

When updating content, make sure you plan and make a note of the changes to measure the effect of each of these changes.

With regular content updates, brands can stay relevant and rank for the topics that matter to them and ultimately convert potential leads into customers.