Starting A Home Business Successfully | Role Of The Call To Action
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Successfully starting a home business requires that we understand what a crucial
role Calls-To-Action play in click-through, conversions and sales.
It is fine and dandy to create stellar blog posts, correctly SEO’d, with eye candy everywhere to optimize the reader’s visit to the page. Then we find all too often there is no follow through to the landing page designed to convert the reader into a lead then a subscriber.
Have you ever gone online looking for one specific topic only to find yourself somewhere unrelated to your initial search but, none the less, interested in where you landed? Our brain loves to go for the bright shiny lures. Calls-To-Action are the tools that make this happen and understanding their proper use is key to starting a home based business successfully.
What Is A Call-To-Action?
A Call-T0-Action in an image or a text link the prompts visitors to your site to take action, e.g., subscribe to a newsletter, view a video or download an eBook. This in turn drives traffic to you landing page where you collect their email and fulfill your offer.
What Does A Call-To-Action Do?
Calls-To-Action will encourage people to
- Download some content
- Follow the business on social media
- Subscribe to a blog
- Join your newsletter
Where do I place the (CTA’s) in my articles and web pages to make them user friendly?
It is important to spread your (CTA’s) throughout you web page or blog. On the sticky page or home page there should be at least three to target different types of visitors. They can be links or buttons.
The buttons should be big and contrast the colors on your site. A good button size is 225 pixels wide and 45 pixels high.
They should be on all the articles and pages of your blog or website. There is only one cardinal rule about where they should not appear and that is on your landing page. Having them here tends to distract and confuse the visitor.
Use Calls-To-Action to Ensure Starting a Home Business Successfully
Here are some areas to concentrate your efforts in starting a home business successfully by implementing Calls-To-Action around everything you do online or offline.
Start Here!
- Within the content and at the end of your presentations, eBooks or webinars.
- In presentations archive your slides and other material to your website
- On your blog be sure to use them in the Sidebar and the body content. Use both links and buttons, “above the fold” as in a newspaper.
- Every email should include a call-to-action. The subject line is especially important here. I will be covering that specific topic in my next blog. Include a personal (CTA) in your email signatures.
- Never underestimate the power of Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin leaving your (CTA) along with your posted comment.
Not Here!
- Contact us…..Why would someone call you? What is in it for them?
- Click Here…..Sounds too much like a spammer
- Animation….. Are just too busy on the page
Give them more information: For example,
- Be specific… Go to ________Create an account, invite your friends.
- Visit my page ___________, add me to your circles. Comment below that you added me.
- Like my content__________ Press the button is on the upper right corner.
Call to Actions that work:
1) Make your CTA Clear, Concise and Specific.
2) Create Urgency
3) Place the CTA above the fold
4) Make it Engaging and Action-Oriented.
5) Include a Relevant Image
6) Align the CTA with the landing page.
There is one last component which is tracking which one converts. For this there is Google Analytics for one to help you see which location is the king pin!
In starting a small business successfully the Call-To-Action is a bit like location, location, location in real estate. You want to attract your visitors to your offer through staying on your article long enough to get interested and click the Call-to action button!
This article was originally posted by Heather Hansen in Startingahomebusiness.smallbizincubator.com group project blog
To your success,
Pam McKeen