Ending a blog post is one of the more ambiguous aspects of article writing, since it seems like something you have to do, but a lot of the time you’re left scratching your head and don’t quite know the right way to end a blog post that can maximize the success of your post in terms of traffic, SEO and monetization.
This article explains a few practical and simple ways to end a blog post, in a way that improves the SEO of your entire blog, while also increasing your product conversion rate, either for your own products or for your affiliates.
How to end a blog post & write a satisfying conclusion
1. Write the ending as a search snippet
One of the best ways to end a blog post is to formulate your final heading in such a way that search engines can pick it up as a featured snippet, like the one below:
Featured snippets automatically give your blog post the nr.1 position in the search results, which can bring in a lot of organic search traffic.
The best approach to make this work is to search the target keyword of your blog post, and see how the current featured snippet (if there is one) is written, and try to copy the style while adding new information.
Here are a few tips to better increase your chance of success and getting the featured snippet:
- Write your ending under an H2 or H3 tag that contains your target keyword.
Example structure:
H2/H3: Is it worth starting a running habit? (keyword: “start a running habit”)
Paragraph: Starting a running habit is super helpful for X,Y,Z reasons etc, etc.
- Try to keep the ending at a maximum of 330 characters. Not words, but characters, including spaces. That’s about the maximum size of a search engine snippet.
- Write the ending as a recap of the main points of the article.
- Wrap the ending in an FAQ schema section (more below).
2. Add an FAQ Schema section
If you’re on WordPress, you can use Gutenberg block packs to introduce an FAQ or Question & Answer block into your article.
These blocks are dressed up in Schema code. Schema is an invisible type of code that wraps up around the text and headings of your blog post, and communicates to search engines that particular text contains an important kind of information and to treat it accordingly.
The example below shows a normal looking text, but also the Schema code that wraps around it:
FAQ Schema codes are super useful, since they communicate to search engines that the text inside is a question followed by an answer.
This can increase your chances of getting a featured snippet, but more usually appears in the “People also ask” section of search results:
You can also use an FAQ section to introduce information that wasn’t useful enough to be present in the main article, but still helpful for some readers in certain situations.
Here’s how to end your blog post with an FAQ section, if you’re on WordPress:
You will need a Gutenberg FAQ block, these are included in Gutenberg block plugins such as:
Once you’ve installed these, go to your WordPress text editor and add a new block. Search for “FAQ” and they’ll be listed in your block list.
All you have to do next is follow the instructions for each block type, and fill in the fields as required.
3. Add sources and references
If your blog is more scientific in nature, ending your posts with a list of sources and references is very beneficial as a way to build trust and establish you as an authority in the field.
A very good example of a blog listing its sources is waitbutwhy.com, as exemplified below:
Another very good example is healthline.com:
Another benefit to adding a sources list is that it gives you an excellent location to place outgoing links, and outgoing links are a huge help to SEO (especially links to high quality sites) and improve your blog’s standing in Google’s search results.
4. Recommend products or services
Almost every kind of blog post you can think of can be used as a way to recommend a product or service, regardless of the topic.
Sure, it may seem very salesy and pushy, but think of it this way: a search engine user ends up on your blog post because they have a problem, and many problems can be solved with the right product or service.
This approach is super common, especially for companies that rely on their blogs to build up a sales channel.
It works really well in these cases because they’re not intrusive and mesh really well with the reader’s problem.
So consider ending your blog post with product or service recommendation you think might help the reader, and which can increase your affiliate revenue.
5. End the article with a lead magnet
Lead magnets is a marketing term for a free product or service that can only be accessed if the user provides their contact details such as email or phone number.
Below are a few examples:
Example 1:
Example 2:
Lead magnets usually come in the form of pop-ups, however they can also be attached within an article as paragraphs.
If your blog relies on email lists or other forms of contact as a way to build a connection with readers, then using lead magnets will massively improve how fast you can build up an email list, and in turn help with your blogging objectives.
6. Add a “Further reading” list
If your blog has lots of articles around tightly connected subjects (for instance you have 10 blog posts about recipes with asparagus), then one way to end your articles is to create a “Further reading” list that links to other articles in your blog that use asparagus and that readers might find useful.
This helps in quite a few ways. The most important being that users stay on your site longer and visit more pages. If your blog is monetized through ads, more pageviews = more ads = more revenue.
A similar logic applies to affiliate sales, since your readers might across a page that convinces them to purchase a product through your affiliate links.
For blogs that are in the service industry (for example a lawyer’s firm having their own blog), a visitor that reads 2-3 pages has a higher chance to be convinced than a visitor who only reads 1 page.
The bigger win though is that a “Further reading” list helps with your SEO, since you’re essentially doing interlinking across your blog and building internal links.
There’s a lot to talk about the subject of internal links, but they are overall a massive help to SEO and an important thing to consider as a blogger.
7. Add an infinite scroll
A different approach is to not give your blog posts ending sections at all, and instead “stitch” them together at the beginning and end, so that as readers scroll down they’ll seamlessly transition from one blog post to another.
Many websites do this, and for good reason. If your blog posts have subjects that are tightly connected, this makes it a lot easier for readers to stay a long time on your site, since they can just casually scroll through 2-3 closely related articles without having to click another link and wait for the page to load.
One website that does this is healthline.com:
Adding an infinite scroll feature is pretty simple, and if you’re using WordPress all you have to do is install and configure a plugin.
Here’s a more in-depth resource on how to implement infinite scroll on WordPress.