It’s a well known fact that internet users are impatient and will not take the time to “figure out” your website. Most of us have an objective to achieve when we’re researching businesses or products online and more often than not we only have a few minutes to do it.
As a business you may be doing a tremendous job with your internet marketing and driving traffic to your site, but what’s happening to that traffic when they get to you? Your analytics program can help shed some light on some important statistics about this such as length of session (how long a visitor stays on your site on average), and conversions (people who take a predetermined action on your site such as completing a signup form, or signing up for your newsletter).
There are many factors that can influence these two metrics. “Calls to Action” are the point of our discussion today. As I mentioned earlier, visitors don’t have the time or desire to “figure out” your website. They have an objective to achieve and little time to do it. So, make it easy for them! Take the time to figure out what visitors to your site are most interested in finding out, and doing.
In our case, visitors are interested in finding out how we can help them with their internet marketing, and how their site shapes up against our experts opinions. If we were not great internet marketers, we’d probably just have a home page that talks about us, and only have a contact form on our “Contact Us” page. We’d probably not have a good conversion rate either, and many people would bounce off our home page because they did not easily find what they were looking for. Instead, we have a strong call to action placed in the top left column on every page our website called “Free Website Performance Report”. We also include a link to our privacy statement right there to ensure people are assured their information is safe. By doing so we’ve clearly met the visitors needs up front making it easy for them to complete their objective – find a reputable Internet Marketing firm and find out what condition their site is in.
Ask yourself these questions about your site:
- What do visitors to my site need to accomplish?
- What do I want visitors on my site to do?
- Can they do these right from my home page?
Now that you’ve answered these questions take the time to write out some clear calls to action that address these needs directly. It may require forms on your site, or just textual calls to action to draw visitors into other parts of your site. Either way make it easy for them. After you’ve made your changes start reviewing your analytics and monitor the results! We’re confident you’ll see a marked improvement!