What is a Call to Action?
A Call to Action (CTA) is a marketing term that urges an immediate response from the audience. CTAs are a key element of digital marketing, and especially SEO in Adelaide, allowing your audience to initiate a new marketing relationship with your business. Once your brand has won the hearts and minds of your target audience, CTAs serve as motivation and an opportunity to engage with your brand.
Why is a Call to Action Important for SEO?
Every business needs effective CTAs to improve navigation usability, as they directly impact the user experience and SEO. They advise your audience what to do next, how to take advantage of your offer, and why they should act immediately. A clear and compelling CTA boosts your search engine rankings and increases your conversion rate. While CTAs are necessary, overly complex CTAs negatively impact engagement metrics like click-through and bounce rates and affect your SEO performance.
How to Write a Compelling Call to Action
Compelling CTAs facilitate engagement with your audience and encourage them to take immediate action in fear of missing out. The temptation for your audience is to take the next step and learn more about your product or service, or even make purchases. Creating effective CTAs increases engagement and strengthens customer relationships, fostering trust in your brand. Below are some tips and tricks for creating effective CTAs.
Consider the following guidelines before you begin:
- Refrain from asking for too much information, especially personal information that prospective customers may be hesitant to share.
- Ensure that your CTA provides you with a method to contact your customers.
- Always keep your CTA short.
- Explain to your audience why they should take the desired action and what they are getting in return.
1. Know your target audience:
Before you jump into action, have a clear purpose in mind and understand the needs of your target audience. Identify their pain points, wants, and needs. By understanding what people want to buy, you can meet their expectations by providing solutions that meet their needs. Some factors to take into consideration include:
- Demographics
- Location
- Product or service offered
- Whether they are first-time or repeat customers
2. Be specific about your goals:
Action-oriented, first-person, verb-centric CTAs make it easy for your customer to know what you are trying to accomplish. Ideally, your landing page should always include a CTA, with one good CTA per page. The more personalised your CTA, the more likely it is to resonate with your audience.
3. Determine the number of CTA buttons and their placement:
Developing effective CTAs and knowing where to place them requires extensive market research and skills. CTA buttons generally perform better when placed at the bottom or right of the content. Visitors should not have to retrace their steps to click a button; CTA buttons should appear in the right places that correspond with a user’s experience. As a general rule of thumb, the best way to get conversions is to get them before the last 40%. Research shows users only read 60% of articles before leaving a site.
4. Choose your words carefully:
Creating sales copy is one of the most challenging aspects of CTAs. This step is critical because the words you choose in your CTAs can make or break your marketing effort. Here are a few tips to help you:
- Be clear with your intended message: The last thing you want is to leave your audience feeling confused. Avoid jargon and complex words that might drive your visitors away from your website. Telling customers what you need them to do saves time and improves the experience.
- Emphasise value – have a reason for your visitors to take action: Highlight the benefits and focus on what your site uniquely offers and what your competitors cannot.
5. A/B Testing:
A/B testing, also known as multiverse testing, allows you to compare data from multiple versions of your website to see which version performs better. The tool lets you modify your copy and design to see what works best for your business. You can easily find the right colour, tone, and style of CTAs for your product or service.
Conclusion
Clear language and testing are essential to creating a compelling call to action. CTAs work best when they align with your value proposition and audience needs. Knowing your goals, who your audience is, and how many CTAs you want to place on your page is a great way to balance your CTAs.
