Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 0 Have you invested a great deal of time and money into your website but it’s not creating any sales? The goal for many individuals and businesses is to earn passive income from their websites. It’s possible that you’re making certain content marketing mistakes that are keeping your site from meeting its sales potential. Let’s change that by exploring effective content marketing strategies that will help your site make more sales. Focus on building trust Google defines websites that deal with selling products, health, finances, and other major topics as ‘Your Money or Your Life’ type of content. When people buy from a website, there’s potential for real risk such as losing their money, getting harmful content, or having their data misused. Google recognizes this and penalizes sites that use spammy content marketing tactics like keyword stuffing. You need to build trust for your audience and search engines too by creating content that showcases your authenticity. Do the following: Write high-quality content that’s well-researched, accurate, and informative Publish content regularly as infrequent blog posts and social media posts signal a company that isn’t active Ask your audience for feedback and reviews. And then share such content on your website Use a blog SEO and writing checklist to help you create relevant content that offers real value. When you build trust and make it clear that your website is safe enough for a person to enter their card details into, you’ll start to see an increase in sales. Make the checkout process easier While this tip has more to do with web design, content marketing also plays a role in making online purchases easier. Here are a few tips: Add descriptive text to your buttons. Instead of having purchase buttons say just ‘Buy’ or ‘Checkout’, it may be better for yours to say ‘Complete your purchase’. It depends on your industry and audience. So test and research the best text for your shopping cart buttons Use simple language in your product pages and provide information like shipping, delivery charges, and more on the same page When a product purchase is done, don’t just leave your buyers hanging. Create a thank you page for users where they can read content that helps them with their new purchase. If you’re selling an online course, redirect users to the course page. And you can also send a follow-up email with information on what to do after buying from you Simple content marketing tactics like these build up trust after your buyer has made a purchase. They make the purchasing process easier and also direct your customers to do something right away. Focus on providing solutions You may think that to make more sales, your content marketing should focus on getting customers to buy. But this type of ‘push’ marketing often puts people off. Instead, focus on ‘pull’ marketing and create blog posts that help people without any direct request asking people to buy from you. For example, in my business, we help people create optin popups for their websites. But most of our blog posts revolve around helping people learn how to create conversions. Such content brings a lot of traffic to our website. And as people learn more about building leads, they become interested in our product and eventually decide to buy from us. Educate your audience One reason why people may not be buying from your website is that they don’t know what to do with your products and services. They don’t understand the benefits your product creates or how to generate them for their own offerings. Make customer education an important part of your marketing. We’ve created a ‘University’ where we teach people how to drive conversions and build leads. When customers know how to use our products well, they’ll see positive results and also stay with us for a long time. You can teach your customers how to achieve their goals with your products by making educational content. Create YouTube videos, make blog posts, write articles, and even create an online course that people can follow. Knowledgable customers will buy from you and create a higher lifetime value. Offer a free trial People risk putting money into a product that might not be good for them when they buy something. And this risk keeps people from even trying out a product. To overcome this, give people a free trial of your product for a week or 30 days. If you like, you can also ask people to buy but get a 30-day money-back guarantee if they aren’t happy. Such measures reduce risk and customers feel more comfortable completing their purchases. Conclusion Any website has the potential to drive sales and generate income. However, you do need to follow specific best practices in content marketing to make that happen. I’ve shared some powerful tips that you can apply to create more customers. Tinker with them or try them all and you’ll since a boost in sales and conversions. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article was written for Business 2 Community by Thomas Griffin.Learn how to publish your content on B2C Author: Thomas Griffin Follow @jthomasgriffin Thomas is the president and co-founder of OptinMonster and TrustPulse, the leading conversion optimization sites. … View full profile ›More by this author:How to Blend Online and Offline Communications5 Key Reasons Your Social Media Strategy Is Not Succeeding4 Critical Steps in Your Customer Acquisition Journey