If you’re looking to turn your blog into consistent monthly revenue, understanding how to increase a conversion rate is key.
So what exactly is conversion rate? Conversion rate is the percentage of your readers who become engaged with your content, are connected with what they’re looking for, and turn into a buyer. It’s all about connecting with your audience and persuading them to take action.
When you can do this consistently, this means not only are you helping your audience find what they’re looking for, but you’re creating revenue from your website. This is the secret sauce to a thriving business.
In this post, I’m going to cover how to increase a conversion rate by following a simple, yet engaging blog post structure when writing posts. It’s all about lowering your bounce rate keeping your readers connected and interested.
How to Increase a Conversion Rate with an Engaging Blog Post Structure
The first goal is to keep the reader’s eyes on your page. Too many times a reader is greeted by a page that instantly makes them lose interest and hit the back button. But did you know there is an engaging blog post structure you can apply to your content to keep your readers engaged and connected? There is, and it’s simple to put into practice.
When you focus on creating a great user experience for your audience. you’ll find conversions skyrocketing and this adds dollar signs to your bottom line.
Watch the following video and dig into how to improve your conversion rate and lower your bounce rate. Learning how to write a blog takes practice. Follow these simple steps that focus on your reader’s user experience, and you’ll be swimming in traffic and conversions in no time.
What is Bounce Rate? What’s a Good Bounce Rate for a Website?
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of people who visit your site and then leave (bounce) without visiting any other part of your site. A high bounce rate is not a good thing. So, the key to keeping your audience engaged is to present to them right away the value of the content ahead.
An excellent bounce rate is anywhere from 25-40%. This means only 25-40% of your readers leave without visiting another part of your website. An average bounce rate is anywhere from 41-55%. A below average bounce rate is 56-70%, with anything above 70% being considered poor.
You don’t want over half your readers leaving right when they get to your site. This means all that great content you’re writing and all the great links you’ve made are going completely unnoticed. For this reason, we structure our content for maximum engagement immediately as our readers arrive.
Keeping Your Audience Engaged: The APP Method for Writing a Blog Post
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you: the APP method. This simple approach is proven in helping keep those eyes on your content longer.
More time on the page means higher chance of conversions. Higher conversions mean consistent revenue. And if you’re an affiliate marketer, then this is equivalent of holding the golden ticket.
You only have a few seconds to grab your audience’s attention. So it’s important to make the “above the fold” content that much more attention grabbing.
What is Above the Fold Content?
Above the fold content is that content that you see immediately upon arriving at a website without scrolling down. Have you ever gotten to a website and been greeted by a wall of text? Never greet your reader with a wall of text! They’ll be hitting the back button before your images even load.
First impressions are everything. So taking the extra time to create engaging content that greets your audience above the fold is important. The APP method is like a template for this greeting area. It gives you the perfect blog post structure that grabs attention and welcomes your readers to the rest of your content.
The APP Method, Part 1: Agree
You need to catch your reader’s attention right out of the gate. When a reader takes a look at a blog post and reads something they agree with they tend to read on.
Remember, they’ve found your post through a search. This means you need to address that question and prove that your content is the answer they’re looking for.
If you start off the post with something off topic, or start with a tangeant, the reader could easily bounce before you make your point.
For this reason, make your point fast and make your point agreeable. Don’t beat around the bush. Hit them with a solid point they’re going to agree with.
Take this article as an example. The very first sentence reads, “If you’re looking to turn your blog into consistent monthly revenue, understanding how to increase a conversion rate is key.”
Any reader finding this article is obviously searching for how to increase their conversion rate. This opening statement is direct, to the point, and 100% on topic. It then takes the reader immediately to the second critical part of the APP method, the promise.
The APP Method, Part 2: Promise
With the “promise” portion of the APP method, you are promising on the delivery of the answer your reader is searching for. This is crucial.
Your first few sentences grab their attention, and then they read on for confirmation. If it’s not there to their liking (guess what?)… bounce!
So be clear in the delivery of your promise. Again, no beating around the bush. No storytelling just yet. The first seconds when your reader gets to your site are crucial.
If you don’t grab your reader’s attention in the first 15 seconds they’re going bye bye!
Give them clear confirmation that they’ve found their answer in those few seconds on the page, and they’re sticking around. At the beginning of this article, I’m promising to show the “secret sauce” to a thriving blog by showing you exactly how to connect with your reader.
The APP Method, Part 3: Preview
The preview tells the reader why they need to scroll down for more. You’ve found common ground with them, made statements of fact confirming you have the answer to their question, and now you’re assuring them you’re about to deliver.
You can use your preview to introduce a tease. You’ve gotten past the crucial first seconds, and now, more than likely, they’re staying for a few minutes. To ensure this, tease to what’s coming below the scroll.
In my preview portion at the beginning of this article, I tell the reader how they’re going to learn about an engaging blog post structure that highly reduces bounce rate.
Don’t forget to include an image above the fold! An appealing image that greets your reader is a must!
Content is king, but aesthetics are very important to creating a good user experience. You want your reader to feel like he or she is walking into something interesting and engaging, right? Don’t forget to include relevant images in all your posts to greet your audience!
How to Improve Bounce Rate Further? Embed Video in Your Posts!
Readers. Love. Video. They just can’t resist hitting the play button and sitting back and watching. By its very nature, an embedded, relevant video will improve your bounce rate greatly.
Video causes your reader to stay awhile. When your video is appealing, it subconsciously tells your audience that your content (and links) are worth exploring further.
And if you’re creating your own videos, this also allows for your personality to shine through. Instead of just words on a screen, you’re now a voice and even a coach helping your reader with the topic at hand.
Are you starting to see the correlation between bounce rate, building traffic to your blog, and conversions? Readers who stay translate to readers who return. Building a successful website is all about building with the user in mind.
Final Thoughts
Learning how to increase a conversion rate using the right blog post structure is the foundation to creating a successful affiliate marketing blog. Take a look at your website with the eyes of a new visitor as often as you can. Think of what works for you when you visit a website for the first time, and pay attention to the things that make you click out of one.
Focus your attention on creating the best user experience possible and all the other things fall into place. A great user experience leads to improved bounce rate. A good bounce rate leads to more and more traffic. Traffic leads to conversions, and consistent conversions lead to consistent monthly revenue.
If you’ve found this site, you’re likely trying to put the pieces together to build an online business of your own. Check out my top recommendation for anyone looking to get started in affiliate marketing. The training is thorough, and I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with it.
Feedback, Follow, and Subscribe!
I hope you enjoyed this article! Please follow me on Instagram and YouTube! If you have any questions at all, leave them in the comments section below. I always respond, and I look forward to connecting with you!
I recently heard of the words “affiliate marketing”. I heard bloggers are making good money from advertisers so I decided to delve into it and open a blog. Reading your articles tells me that I still definitely have a long way to go. There are lots of things you talk about that I haven’t heard before. Thank God I am seeing these awesome and enlightening article here now and am learning a lot that will help me succeed in blogging. Thanks.
Every little bit counts. Put these strategies into practice with the user experience as your focus and you’ll be creating quality content that converts in no time. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
I’m saving this article to refer back to later. Your information is quite helpful! I consider myself a good writer, but struggle with increasing my number of readers. For affiliate marketing to work, I know I need to increase my reach. I see several good points in your article that I plan to try. Do you have any suggestions on reaching more? Have you any suggestions for getting true backlinks? I appreciate any help you can offer.
Backlinks come with time. It’s just a matter of continually putting out quality content. When more and more people are finding their answers in your content, more and more begin to link to you. The real key is creating content with the user in mind, that’s all. Thanks so much for the comment!
Hey, thank you so much for this article. I have to admit I struggle with my conversion rate, but that is because I’m building a lot of educational content and not much promotional content! Thus my bounce rate is high because what happens is people click on my posts from Google looking for an answer to a question, they find it, and boom, they bounce. That’s when the bounce rate isn’t bad, exactly. You’re supposed to answer people’s questions and problems and many people bounce after they learn what they came to learn.
That’s the downside to my niche, unfortunately. It’s more about philanthropy than revenue at this stage since I set out to try to save the world of cats by trying to educate people on homeless cats and advocate for barn cat adoption for feral cats instead of breeding their barn cats. So what am I doing? Not converting, I’ll tell you that much. My IG is going fabulous, my few fans are excellent and stick around, but I need to add more ‘sales’ posts and not so much “How to” posts.
I’m NOT good at sales posts and I’m looking for a way to help the user experience and conversion rate. I’ve had sales and it’s awesome, but it’s not a huge conversion rate and usually just one of the random products I’ve linked to from Amazon that I use in one of my How-To posts.
So thanks so much for this!!! I’m going to have to try this formula out and see if my conversion rate goes up. (It’s definitely going to help if I do a promotional post, of course). I’ll try it for a few posts. See how it improves as I’m sure it’s going to improve somewhat at least. Thanks again!
Even when your posts are educational and not promotional, bounce rate is important to keep low. Few people find a great answer to their question and just leave. Most will click around and look for more answers when the content is that inviting. This is where video and internal links come in handy. Draw your audience in and they won’t be so quick to want to hit that back button. Thanks for the comment!
Wow! There is a lot of great information here.
All of the subsections are easy to read, follow, and understand. Some terms like bounce rate were something that I didn’t even know much about til now.
Thank you for this article and keep up the great work!
-Joseph
Thank you! And thanks for chiming in!
This is a brilliant article! So many people are trying to find the “secret sauce” to unlock a sustainable income from an online blog/site. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, I would presume that 65-70% of people (if not more) are now looking for ways to make money online. I completely agree that you must grasp the reader’s attention from the beginning (our school teachers always told us to begin our essays with an “attention getter.”), otherwise, they’ll throw up the “peace” sign. Haha I have bookmarked your page and will definitely share this article with my friends and family. God bless you!
Thanks so much! I really appreciate it!
Hey Eric, thanks for sharing this informative blog post and video. I had never heard of the APP method before but it makes sense. It’s important to grab the reader’s attention (that can be somewhat easy) but the other 2 P’s, I think are the hardest for writers to do. I’ve read a lot of posts that the writer did not follow through on their promise and went on a tangent. But by doing the promise then preview it keeps the post totally inline and on track. Just by following the APP method a writer will improve their content.
Agreed! Thanks for the comment!
Great post Eric. I started my affiliate marketing site about a year ago, but still struggle with bounce rate and hence conversions. My traffic has gotten a pretty good bump during the Covid-19 lockdown, but it’s also been frustrating to feel like I’m missing out on an opportunity that the increased traffic presents. The APP method makes so much sense – and yet as I read this I realized that my posts don’t always adhere to those principles. I’m bookmarking this so I can remind myself to stick with the APP method going forward and hopefully make my posts sharper and more effective. Anyway, thanks for this, and I look forward to reading more.
Great comment! I think as long as we keep it in the front of our mind, that’s what’s important. Maybe not all of my posts fit the APP layout perfectly, but it’s all about keeping with the overall message to the reader. Thanks for the comment!
I really enjoyed reading this article, and watching the video. You are so right, people love watching videos.
I’ve learned much, hopefully I’ll correctly put it in practice.
Thank you for this great article.
Keep the great work
People love videos! Thanks for the comment!
Hi, Eric, what you have explained in this article makes total sense for me.
I have a few questions about Youtube videos:
1) Is it ok to embed other people’s videos on our blog posts?
2) Is it crucial to make my own videos for success (is it possible to earn revenue without doing video marketing)?
I appreciate your feedback!
Best Wishes,
Natalie
The great thing about YouTube is that if you can see the share button, then that means the author is ok with you sharing it! And yes, it’s totally fine to embed someone else’s video inside your post if it’s relevant. One thing to keep in mind is if the video directs the person viewing it to go somewhere else (like signing up for a service, etc.). This could potentially take away from your ability to enroll the user into whatever you’re trying to promote. So just keep that in mind.
I really enjoy creating YouTube videos, but it’s not crucial to make your own. Although I would say the connection you get with the audience really does make a difference. Try creating a YouTube tutorial that’s just a screencast at first. Your face doesn’t even have to come out. That’s how I got my start and then I eventually jumped in front of the camera. 🙂 Thanks for the questions!
Greetings Eric!
A fine post! Very helpful too. I will be using your technique out to see how much difference it makes for me.
I am sure it will be an improvement over what is already happening!
Thanks for sharing and helping!
John
Every little bit helps. Always keep your focus on your target audience’s user experience and the rest falls into place. Thanks for the comment!
Hey…. I’m so grateful for this post, it was so clear, you have really helped me alot with this article….. Most people believe that once they post their content, traffic will just flow in and convert automatically, but this is just a nice way to see that you must first sell the visitors in reading the content before making sales. Thank you so much
It’s all about user experience. When you focus on that and answering the question at hand, everything else falls into play. Answer directly, get to the point, and your readers will thank you. Thanks for the comment!
I absolutely agree with you. Lowering the bounce rate is a big deal to increase the conversation rate.
This App method represents the idea pretty well. Definitely you need to engage your audience to avoid bounce rate, and for this, you have to create genuine content, it should be a helpful one. “Promise” is of two types, (1) About delivering the best review, (2) About the quality of the product.
The first one is fine to avoid the bounce rate. But what about the second one?
When you are an affiliate marketer you can’t promise with a 100% guarantee of the product quality unless you own the product. But it’s your business so you definitely need to show off promise, right? How do you manage it?
The “Promise” part of this APP method doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the product. It’s a promise that the question or topic posed in the post title is going to be answered or covered. So if they clicked on this post to learn about how to increase a conversion rate, right out of the gate I’m addressing that so they know to continue.
And you don’t have to own any product you’re reviewing. Not at all. Think about all the book reports you’ve ever done. If your teacher tasked you with doing one on the War of 1812, could you tell her, “Can’t do it. Wasn’t there.” lol. Of course not.
Just like with a book report you do all the research you can and report on that. If you’ve used the product, great. But if you haven’t, you can still do a quality review by doing sound research and passing that onto the reader. It would be almost impossible (and very expensive) to go out and buy every single product you review. Thanks for the comment and questions!
I’m very pleased to have read your Article a bounce rate is something I’ve wanted to know about for a while now.how long did it take to learn how to put everything together on your site? It looks very professional and you give excellent advice, I liked it so much I read a few of your other Articles.
I owe all my success to Wealthy Affiliate. 🙂 Just like with everything else, you learn first, and then you learn some more, and then you continue learning. It’s always a learning process, but you build each day and end up with something that you’re proud of. Thanks for the kind words!
Hello, This post really meets me well, I have been running my blog site for the past six months now and I haven’t gotten the traffic i really had in mind. I share my posts to social media, but still that traffic is not forthcoming. This post now has just enlightened me on the steps I need to take in order for me to increase my conversion rather and get the traffic that I do desire.
Traffic comes when you’re consistent. So keep building and sharing. And focus on the user experience first. The rest will fall into place. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Brilliant article to read, found it interesting to the point of commenting on how great a read I actually found it, well done and keep up the good work.
This I have book marked for reference to it in the future!
Thanks Jason
Much appreciated! Thank you!
Great information ?
I have bookmarked this article so I can come back and absorb all the information you have dropped on us.
Thanks
Thanks so much for the comment! I appreciate it!
OMG I just loved loved this very clear post on how to create an appealing reader experience with my blog. You’ve helped me so much with this very clear blog. I loved it and I was engaged from beginning to the end. That means you nailed your own APP very well. I will start implementing it right away. Thank you so much.
Very glad to help! Thanks for the great comment!
Your ‘app’ method is sure to hit home with most online marketers because it is a unique way of describing the first few seconds when someone lands on your page. You only have a short few seconds to capture their attention else they are gone. You must provide an answer to their question or a solution to their problem because if you don’t the next website they go to will. I like the way you included the video to highlight every word that you said.
Most people will stop to watch a video, and those few short minutes will drop your bounce rate, which is a ranking factor. I have learned a lot from your discussion on how to increase conversions. I hope to start using your app method very soon.
Very happy to help 🙂 Glad you enjoyed this.
Such a great read Eric! I think most people believe that once they post their content, traffic will just flow in and convert automatically, but this is such a nice way to see that you must first sell the visitor on reading the content, before you’ll even make a sale. I will definitely keep this in mind when generating my own work!
Thank you.
Very true! Once I learned the ins and outs of writing articles for affiliate marketing I realized there’s a whole science behind building traffic and converting. When you realize this, not only does your online business thrive but your audience will get the great user experience they deserve. Thanks for the comment!
I really enjoyed your post. The video is awesome and it really puts things in a way that i understood. I even learned a few things along the way. I always had a hard time understanding what bounce rate actually was. Now I completely get it now. Thanks for that.
Keeping people on my site and having them convert is what I am personally focusing on. Thanks
Very glad to help you! Another great way to keep your bounce rate down is to embed YouTube video into your posts. You can check out my article on that as well. Thanks for the comment!
Hey Eric! I’m Your Huge Fan and reason is I’m a On-page SEO Expert and i learnd On page Seo from you with your youtube Videos, Blog And Ebooks,
I’ll expect more and more from you as google algorithm changes as you provide more valuable knowledge about SEO.
Thank you so much! Yes, the google algorithm is always updating and changing, and the great thing about that is that no matter how much it changes, keeping your focus on creating the best user experience and quality content for your audience is what keeps you at the top. The ones trying to cheat the system or beat the algorithm are the ones who lose their rankings and have to start from scratch. When you keep your audience and providing quality content as your top focus, you always get rewarded. Thanks so much for the comment and kind words!