The primary purposes of all online marketing efforts are to attract customers, generate leads and increase sales. Your company blog, website, and social media pages may have excellent content but they are of no use if there aren’t any calls to action telling potential customers and leads what to do next and how to connect with you and your company.
If you have clear calls-to-action, the visitors to your website or blog can sign up for your newsletters, connect with you on social networks, etc. with greater ease. So how do you create eye-catching calls-to-action and landing pages, and what are the best practices?
Best practices for Calls-to-Action
• To give your calls-to-action maximum visibility and to ensure that visitors do not have to scroll down to view calls-to-action, make sure that there are at least two calls to action above the page fold on your company’s homepage.
• All your blog posts should have at least one call-to-action at the end of each post.
• A few calls-to-action should be present on the sidebar of your blog.
• Make sure that there is at least one call-to-action on the “thank you” page that people see when they download your content.
• Place one call-to-action on every page that has links to the landing page.
• Make the calls-to-action sound urgent. Use words like ‘Call’, ‘Now’, ‘Register’, etc.
Optimize calls-to-action
These tips will help make your calls-to-action stand out from the crowd and be very effective.
• The calls-to-action should clearly describe the benefits that the visitor will obtain and what you are offering.
• Use verbs – tell the visitor what to do. So use impactful words like ‘download’, ‘register’, ‘donate’, ‘buy’, ‘subscribe’, etc.
• Place the calls-to-action where visitors to your web pages can see them instantly. The best place to put them is at the top of the page, right in the middle.
• To ensure that your calls-to-action pop off the page, use contrasting colors. Also, keep the color palette of the rest of the page limited so that the calls-to-action are highlighted.
• The calls-to-action should be in a bigger font so that they stand out from the rest of the text on the website.
• Lastly, make sure that there are only a few calls-to-action on each web page so that the visitor is not overwhelmed and confused about what to do next.
Optimize landing pages
The landing page is the first thing that a potential customer or lead sees when they are directed to your website from external sources. This is why you should pay a little more attention to developing your landing pages. If you’re unsure, you can always make use of professional copywriting services to create effective landing pages and content for your website.
Here are a few tips to create the best possible landing pages.
• Keep the content succinct and to the point – use bullet points.
• Remove navigation links to other pages – calls-to-action and opt-in forms are enough.
• The value and benefits of copywriting created should be displayed and explained clearly.
• Make sure that the landing page re-directs to a “thank you” page after the visitor has submitted the opt-in form.
• Most importantly, the landing page must include at least one relevant image.