Let me ask you a question: aside from your heading and opening paragraph, what’s the most important part of your blog post? Not sure? Yes, It’s your blog post conclusion isn’t it?
Yes? Your conclusion influences whether your visitors click the back button and leave your site or stick around and read more content, share your post and possibly buy your product.Below are ten of the best conclusion strategies, complete with compelling conclusion examples of each strategy for an example article entitled: “How to make $5,000 a month from SEO” that will help to:
- Decrease your bounce rate (increasing page views and therefore ad revenue).
- Increase mailing list signups (allowing you to directly promote your products/services to your readers).
- Bring back repeat visitors (allowing you to build a stronger relationship with your readers).
- Promote your own product or service directly to blog visitors.
- Increase social shares (bringing more potential readers and customers to your blog).
Here are a few of the best conclusion examples strategies, complete with examples of each strategy for an example article entitled: “How to make $5,000 a month from SEO”.
#1 – Emphasize your key point
Your blog post might have a lot of different points and in an ideal world, you’d probably hope that your readers hang on to every word you say and take action immediately, correct? Nice idea. Unfortunately, very few readers will actually do this. Emphasizing your key point ensures that at the very least, readers leave your site with a clear idea of the message that you were ultimately trying to get across. Don’t just repeat what you’ve already said and rehash content though. You need to find an engaging way to sum up your post that’s really going to hit home.
Here’s an example:
It’s extremely unlikely that you’re going to make $5,000 a month from SEO overnight, but with hard work and a bit of perseverance, it’s easily doable for most people within two or three months.
Remember, you only need twenty $250/month clients, ten $500/month clients, or five $1,000/month clients to hit your $5,000/month target.”
#2 – Ask your readers a question
If I asked you a question face-to-face, you’d respond verbally. If you ask your readers a question, a verbal response is impossible, so where do they respond? The answer: in your comments section.
Your comments section does a couple of extremely important things: it adds long-tail keywords to your blog posts and keeps your content fresh (great for SEO) and also gives visitors an opportunity to get directly involved with your blog (often making them feel more personally involved with you, your content and your brand – perfect!). Asking a question (or multiple questions) at the end of your post will encourage a direct response from your readers.
Here’s an example:
- Do you think making $5,000/month from SEO is doable by following the guide above? Are there any other tips you’ve personally found helpful when trying to acquire high-paying clients?
- Tell us in the comments below; we’d love to know anything we missed.”
Note: Don’t ask more than 2 – 3 questions; no one likes to be bombarded with questions. It’s confusing!
#3 – Give your readers bulleted points or tips
Lists are perhaps the most efficient way to communicate information. They’re clear, concise, and easily digestible. Perfect for summarizing the key points of your blog post. They’re also great for including additional information that wasn’t included within the main body of the blog post. You just need to make sure that any extra information is still related to the post and offers something of value to your readers. It’s usually best to limit your bulleted summary to just a few points (no more than 3 – 4 ideally). Any more will just serve as an added headache for the reader. Remember, the whole point is to summarize key points and tips, not recreate your entire blog post as a bulleted list.
Here’s an example:
- Building a $5,000/month SEO business is easily achievable within three months or less.
- You only need five $1,000/month clients to hit your target.
- Once you have clients, your income is recurrent every month.”
#4 – Tell your reader what action to take
Most great blog posts will be jam-packed with actionable advice and ideas. The problem? Most blog posts aren’t written in a hierarchical manner. This means that readers will have a very little clue (aside from the natural repetition of the most important points throughout your post) which piece of advice is the most important and which action they should prioritize. The solution to this problem is simple: you have to actually tell them! This is called a call-to-action (CTA). But, you need to do this in a persuasive manner, otherwise, they simply won’t bother doing it and yes, you guessed it, they won’t bother visiting your blog again (goodbye ad revenue!).
Here’s an example:
- So, how do you actually get started building your $5,000/month Search Engine Optimization empire?
- Go to Google and search for local businesses in your area.
- Go to page 2.
Give each business a call and explain the benefits of being on page 1 and how you can help them get there.”
#5 – Link to another related and useful post
If a visitor has reached the end of your blog post, it means two things: they found enough value in your content to stick around ’til the end (well done for writing such an engaging post!) and more importantly, they’re now going to click away from your blog post. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to leave your blog entirely. Your readers will be looking for somewhere to click when they reach the end of your post. The problem is that the “back” button or the link to Facebook on their favorites bar usually wins the battle. You need to give them a compelling reason to stick around by linking to another related and useful post that they might want to read.
Here’s an example:
- Did you enjoy this post? Here’s a couple more you might enjoy:
- The Art of Attracting $10,000/month SEO Clients Easily
- How to Outsource Your SEO Work For Maximum Profit”
#6 – Ask your readers what they want to read next
Your blog only works if you’re writing content that your audience actually wants to read. Remember that. So many blogs are publishing rehashed content that doesn’t offer anything new or even worse, content that their audience simply isn’t interested in reading. Blog posts take a while to write, so you need to know what your readers actually want to read before making the effort to write one. The quickest and simplest way to work this out is to ask them, and the perfect place to do this is at the end of your post(s).
Here’s an example:
- Do you have an idea for a blog post you’d like to see on [YOUR BLOG NAME]?
- If so, I’d love to hear it. Feel free to contact me directly at YOU@YOURDOMAIN.COM and I’ll see what I can do.”
#7 – Tell readers about your next blog post
Now that you’ve got a reader to your blog, you’re going to want them to keep coming back and reading more content. But how exactly do you encourage this behavior? Answer: tease them about your next blog post. Let your readers know that you’ve got some great stuff in the pipeline; stuff they’ll likely be interested in reading. That way, you’ll not only encourage return visitors but you’ll also encourage email and social media subscribers.
Here’s an example:
“Next week, I’ll be posting about how to increase the spending of any SEO client by up to 300% by offering additional related products and services alongside your SEO services. Want to know the best part? You can fully outsource the process within 24 hours.”
Note: You might also choose to be more cryptic and say something like: “I’ll be releasing something big next week; something guaranteed to make you up to 300% extra revenue from your business. Sign up to my newsletter below and you’ll be the first to know when it goes live”
#8 – Ask your readers to share your post
Facebook and Twitter share buttons at the end of blog posts are common; you probably already have them, don’t you? (hint: you should!) Despite this, it’s highly likely that many of your readers won’t even think about sharing your post. Many of them probably won’t even notice that you have them (that’s what happens when readers are so accustomed to seeing social media share buttons on virtually every website they visit). The solution? Let them know you have them by asking them to share your post(s) directly.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing this. Most of your readers will be happy to help you out if they enjoyed reading your post, especially if they think their friends would also be interested in reading it.
Here’s an example:
“If you found this post useful, I’d be eternally grateful if you could help spread the word by tweeting, emailing, or sharing it with a friend on Facebook. Seriously, you’d be doing me a huge favor! Thank you!”
#9 – Ask readers to subscribe to your mailing list
According to research from The Relevancy Group, 66% of people (that’s two-thirds!) check their email multiple times a day. This makes email subscribers perhaps the most valuable asset any webmaster can obtain. With such direct access to your audience, you can market products and services to them, ask for direct feedback, or even just let them know about a new blog post they might want to check out. The possibilities are endless. Typically though, most blogs see extremely low conversions of visitors to email subscribers. Conversion rates under 1% aren’t that uncommon. Directly asking readers to subscribe to your mailing list is a great way to increase this rate and attract more subscribers. Just don’t be pushy or appear overly desperate.
Here’s an example:
If you enjoyed this post and want more of the same, make sure to subscribe to my weekly mailing list. I’ll send you a round-up of the week’s best blog posts and SEO news every week. It’s free! No spam…promise!”
Note: Letting your readers know that it’s totally free and that you promise not to spam them will often increase conversion rates even further.
#10 – Promote and highlight your own product or service
Selling your own products or services to your audience is typically what makes blogging worthwhile. But, while you might have information on your eBook or other product/service in your sidebar, a good chunk of readers probably won’t notice. Highlighting your product/service at the end of your blog post is arguably one of the best conclusion strategies for bloggers like yourself who want to increase sales and ultimately, make more money. Don’t be pushy or too sales-oriented though. The idea is just to make sure your readers know your product or service exists. If they’re interested, they’ll click the link (make sure to include this!) and pay a visit to your landing page.
Here’s an example:
“If you enjoyed this post, don’t forget to check out my book: Building a Profitable SEO Business in 3 Months or Less. It offers a step-by-step blueprint that anyone can use to build a profitable business, guaranteed.”
Note: This one works especially well if your blog post is directly related to the product/service you’re offering.
The Key Takeaway
It’s all about knowing the action you want your visitors to take. When you know this, you’ll be able to figure out which conclusion strategy is the best for your particular blog. Don’t be afraid to experiment with multiple strategies though. It might take a bit of trial and error to figure out which strategy works best for your readers and which strategy best encourages them to take the desired action. For your next blog post, choose one of the strategies above and try it out. If you don’t get the desired results, try a different one for your next post.
Do you have a conclusion strategy tip of your own? If so, please share it in the comments section below.
