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DQ News: Creating Killer Calls to Action

Whether you’re looking for leads from your website or clicks from your Tweets, having a good, solid call to action is key.

A call to action is messaging that encourages the reader to do something: click, call, buy or download. Without using the appropriate wording, visitors to your site may be left not feeling the urgency you want them to, and they may leave. It’s important to catch them while they’re in the mode to do something further. Invite them to download your free whitepaper, sign up for a free trial, subscribe to your email newsletter or call for a complimentary consultation.

Your call to action should be:

• Short
• Easy to understand
• Urgent (“now!”)
• Highly visible on the page
• Encouraging people to click a link
• Throughout your site

Here are some great (and not so great) examples of calls to action from Boagworld. You can also use savings as a call to action, such as “Save 40 percent when you spend $50 today.” Remember to use wording that will appeal to people: What do your visitors want to do? Save? Learn more? Get something free?

Try not to bombard your visitors with too many choices for what to do next. For example, if they have the option to click, download and buy, they may be overwhelmed and leave. Instead, choose one call to action for each page. On the product description page, focus on a buying call to action. On the homepage, offer a free download. On Twitter, the call to action would focus on clicking your link.

And speaking of calls to action on Twitter and social media, you want to give people a reason to follow you, as this post from 10,000 Words explains. Prove your presence on social media is useful to them. It could be as simple as “Please RT” after an interesting blog post, or “Share your thoughts on this” after a poignant question. Engage readers with your call to action.

Experiment to see what call to action verbiage gets the best results. Consider doing an a/b test page using different calls to action. Whichever one gets more clicks is the winner.

From Small Business Trends

Creating Killer Calls to Action

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