Your website content has the sizzle, sells the steak… but then what? Do you leave your visitors hanging, or do you give them clear directions for the next step? If you’re getting visitors who linger on your site, but then leave before taking the next step, you can improve conversions with a stronger call-to-action.

Don’t assume it’s there
One service provider began getting significantly more emails after adding a call-to-action to his landing page. What did it say? “Contact me,” with a link to an email window. Sometimes, simple works best.
He’d had other links to his email and contact information on other sections of the website, but placing it right below benefit-oriented landing page copy made it easy for people to take the next step immediately after they were sold on his services.

Highlight benefits to improve conversion
One info-product marketer doubled her conversions by highlighting a benefit in her call-to-action. Instead of just saying, “Sign up for my newsletter,” she wrote: “Subscribe and be the first to hear about special deals and events!” She’s still got a call to action (“subscribe,”) but she’s also promising a benefit. Not only that, she’s making people feel special—subscribers won’t just hear about special deals and events, they will be first to hear about them.

Small changes, big results
While clear, optimized content can improve conversion by 69 to 112% or more, according to a study by MarketingExperiments.com, a better call-to-action can improve conversion by 150% or more. Your call-to-action could be the most important words on your website. What does yours say? How can you make it stronger?

Dawn Allcot is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch, a full service content marketing agency serving hundreds of clients and thousands of writers since 2000.

Image from northridgewest.org

Tags: content marketing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Content Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.