If your website has strong imagery, smooth navigation and well-written copy, you’re halfway to getting your next customer. But if you’ve forgotten your call to action, you’re missing a trick.
Let’s take a step back. What’s your goal when a customer visits your website? Find out about your product’s benefits? Subscribe to your corporate newsletter? Give you their feedback? Buy something?
Now ask yourself another question. Does your website tell visitors exactly how to do the things you want them to do? If you want to translate their good intentions into action – and sales – you’re going to have to spell it out for them. This is your ‘call to action’.
Pick up on the power of suggestion
It sounds dramatic, but it’s really quite straightforward. You just need to give your visitors a clear idea of what they should do once they’ve landed on your site.
Here are a few examples of simple calls to action:
- “Order now before 18th December for guaranteed delivery before Christmas”
- “Click here to sign up to our free newsletter”
- “Enter our prize draw”
- “Add to your basket”
Don’t take anything for granted
You may think your website makes it obvious what readers should do when they visit it. There’s a link at the bottom of your product page that takes clients to your order form, so they’ll just click on it, right? Not quite. You need to tell your reader what to do, how to do it, and, above all, persuade them to do it now.
Building up to the call to action
Never forget your foreplay. You can’t just go straight to the call to action with no build-up. Most readers will see straight through this ploy and will resent it. Work up to it by emphasising the benefits of your product or service and giving them powerful reasons to take the next step. Make sure your reader knows how your product can save them money, save them time, or improve their life in some other way that they can’t afford to miss out on.
Drill down to the detail
Don’t be afraid to make your call to action pretty detailed. In fact, if you want your reader to take action, concrete detail will spell it out for them, leaving them in no doubt whatsoever over what they should do next. They’ve come to your site because they want something from you: make them feel totally secure about the way forward, otherwise they may not take it. This is not a case of patronising the reader; it’s just about being clear.
A carefully constructed call to action is one of the most crucial elements of your website. Get it wrong, and you let sales slip through your fingers. Get it right, and you convert prospects to customers and enquiries to sales.
