5 Writing Tips to Drive Your Readers to Action

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Think about this for a moment: what, exactly, is the purpose of a blog post? If you're thinking increased traffic, audience exposure, and authority & brand building, you're wrong.

Those are just side benefits a blog post brings and channels through which the real purpose is achieved: more sales. Growing a business's bottom line is the essential goal of practically every marketing strategy you employ.

So when you keep that purpose in mind, one thing quickly becomes clear -- for a blog post to actually be valuable and accomplish its purpose, the readers of the post must be driven into action; they must end up converting. If that conversion is not the actual purchase of a product, it should at least be something that brings them one step closer in the sales cycle, such as signing up to a mailing list or requesting a quote.

But driving your readers to action isn't as easy as it looks. To help you learn how, though, here are 5 time-tested writing tips that help you convert your blog post traffic.

1. Link to the Conversion Page

You really can't expect your readers to convert if you don't provide a channel through which they are to enter the sales cycle. By linking to your conversion page once in every post, you ensure that all your readers at least know where to go if they want to buy the product and how to get there. Repeat readers especially will be made very much aware of the conversion page.

Remember to link as naturally as possible. The link to the conversion page must be relevant to its context within the blog post. Artificial links will get you nowhere; instead, they might drive visitors away from your blog.

2. End with a Strong Call to Action

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After your readers finish your blog post, they're subconsciously wondering what next steps they should take. Should they leave your blog? Read another post? How about answering the call to action at the end of the post?

Nowadays, I see quite a few blogs using this strategy to elicit more conversions from their readers. An end of post CTA can go a long way towards getting more people to your conversion page. Keep in mind, though, that the call to action should be:

• brief (no more than 2 sentences, max)
• slightly humorous (provided that a bit of humor befits the personality and voice of the blog you've built up) -- a little laughter will loosen your readers up and also increase the likelihood of them going through with it
• relevant to the post you just wrote (try to use a custom CTA for each post so you can tailor it to the title and topic of each one)

3. Write for Your Niche

One of the most important writing tips to drive your readers to action is writing for your niche. Sometimes, bloggers try to reach too wide of an audience by being as general as possible, but that's the wrong way to go about a blog post. What you should be doing is writing as specifically as possible so that the blog post is laser targeted to your niche and your desired audience.

So what if you lose out on a bit of SEO and social media traffic? The resulting increase in conversions will be more than worth it, especially when you consider that the quality of each lead you gain will also be much higher as each conversion is likely to be much more similar to your ideal customer profile.

4. Be Conversational

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These days, the major reason why people buy goods from local grocers when supermarkets are very convenient and cost-effective is because they know the grocers. In essence, the more your customers know you, the more they'll buy from you.

That's why any blogger worth his salt knows that by being conversational in a blog post (using personal pronouns and an informal tone) you'll be able to connect with your readers and they in turn will get to know you and your business better.

Guess what that translates into? Yep -- increased conversions. The more they know you, the more likely that they'll do what you say and take action on your recommendations and CTAs.

5. Constantly Remind Your Visitors of Your Product

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you've read several posts from a specific blog over the course of a week or two, but then you suddenly realize that you have no idea what the company behind the blog actually does?

I've been in that position more times than I can count. I enjoy a blog immensely and constantly read from it, but because the blogger never mentions the actual business or what they do in the posts, I don't know what they do and there's virtually no chance of me converting.

Don't make that mistake: subtly remind your visitors of your product/service and how it benefits customers within the post. From all the writing tips, this might be the most important.

How will you implement these 5 writing tips in your blog posts to drive your readers to action? Let us know in the comments!