Resource pages can be turned into an incredibly valuable asset. And yet, a lot of the websites that use them do this quite poorly, without any prior thought being poured into their creation.

If you are asking yourself whether you need a resource center on your site, the answer to that question is Yes, with a capital Y.

They provide additional information, and they are a great way to entice users to stay on your pages longer. They can offer some true value to your audience, helping you stand out and be memorable.

Here are five tips on designing compelling resource pages that you can later leverage into conversions:

Select a Few Key Topics

Resource pages don’t have to be endless. You don’t necessarily have to keep adding to them, and you can stick to just a few of the most valuable topics you find will benefit your readers and potential customers the most.

You can find these topics via a third party research tool like Ahrefs or SEMRush. Look for phrases and questions people need answered when dealing with your line of products or services.

You can also turn to the “People also ask” section of Google Search. You can even select the topics yourself, based on your understanding of your work and the industry you operate in.

Source: lfacapsulefillers.com

Here’s an example from LFA Capsule Fillers – their resource page features only four articles, but all of them are relevant to their products and would be of interest to potential customers.

Expand Your Resources Significantly

Naturally, you can choose to go down the completely opposite route, and provide extensive resources on a wide range of topics.

These topics still need to be in line with your brand, your message, the solutions you provide, and the interests of your target audience. Nonetheless, you can certainly find plenty of room to expand, given a little clever research.

Adding a help section that is specific to your own products or services is also a great way to expand your resources.

This is what Aura does, and does well. Their resources essentially consist of a help section, encompassing guides, how-tos, and FAQs. There’s also a blog section that deals with all kinds of topics that would be of interest to their ecommerce audience.

Source: goaura.com

Write Some Amazing Copy

Your blog posts can be more casual and don’t always need to be exceptionally researched and written – you can allow yourself some personal or evocative posts every once in a while. Your resource pages, however, need to go above and beyond.

A resource page needs to:

• provide clear, reliable, and useful information
• list the sources this information comes from so your readers can be sure it is of value to them
• be easy to get the jist of without having to read the entire page, if a visitor so chooses
• be formatted well to improve readability
• have plenty of visuals not only to help make it more engaging, but also to back your points up – charts and graphs are always useful to have
• provide a clear CTA that instructs your audience what to do and where to go if they have decided to reach for the solutions you offer to solve their problems

SalesLoft does this really well with all of their resources, whether they’re ebooks or customer success stories. All of them have a clear point, and the takeaway is always easy to spot and definitely worth your reading time.

Make Conversions Easy

One of the purposes of resource pages is to get visitors to sign up for your email list and allow you to send them future emails that will promote your business.

We tend to do this by offering gated content – asking for an email in return for a valuable piece of content.

When reaching for the email signup and download form, make sure it’s very easy for someone to convert. Don’t ask for a bunch of data right upfront, like where did you hear about us, and what is the size of your business, and what are the main challenges you face. You can ask all of those questions later. All you need to focus on now is to get that email.

Source: assuresign.com

AssureSign does this exceptionally well with all of their resources. The form you need to fill out is short and requires only the most basic of data, so you don’t have to spend too much time filing it in, and you will gain access to the resource that has sparked your interest in no time.

And in Case You Are Not Too Resourceful

If you are now feeling a bit hesitant and unsure where to start, or if you feel like you don’t have the expertise to compile a resource page that will appeal to your audience, you can do something plenty of bloggers do very successfully – link to other’s resources.

This won’t work in case you are a business. But if your business is blogging, you can build a resource page based around the tools, apps, podcasts, blogs, and other sources you yourself use. Show your audience the stuff that has helped you take your blogging business to where it is today.

Of course, you can also base your resource page on a guide to making it in blogging – which is something you certainly know a fair bit about.

To Sum It Up

Resource pages are an incredibly useful marketing tool that can take your content strategy up several notches. Try to invest a fair amount of research and resources in them, and they are likely to pay you back manifold.

If you notice that there is not sufficient interest in a certain resource page you’ve built, consider running an A/B test on it and see if you can lay it out differently. If you come to determine you need to work with a different topic, you can always turn the original resource page into a series of posts and keep it on your blog. Th\t way, no effort will be wasted.