This might even be the most important thing for any website at all, is you don’t have a clear call to action.
Examples of Calls to Action
Can you imagine a scenario where you would ask people to come to your front door, you let them ring the doorbell, you’d open the door and you’d say, “Hello Customer!” and close the door in their face?
No, you’d say, “Come on in, buy my stuff.”
Right? That’s a call to action. You need to ask (call) your customers to do something (to action).
“Come inside, buy this thing”
“Download this now”
“Call today to save 15%”
“Add our special event to your calendar now”
“Like our Facebook page”
“Share this video”
Etc…
These are all calls to action. If your website does not have a call to action, you’re literally slamming the door of your website, the proverbial front door of your business, in your customers’ faces. Don’t do that.
Where does your website fit in?
If you look at your website right now, can you see a clear button that asks your customers to do something? This can be something like “Buy Now!” or “Sign Up for our Course” or “Schedule a Call”. If you can’t find a button on your homepage that says, “Do this thing,” your website might be broken.
If you’re thinking, “Well, I do have a call to action.” Well, maybe you do. The problem is it may lack clarity. Be honest with yourself.
Let’s pretend that you’re a mechanic, and you want people to come into your shop to get an oil change. You could say, “Come in today for an oil change.” That’s pretty clear.
But if you said something like, “Oil changes are important,” that’s a fact, but it’s not a call to action. You’re not telling your customers what to do.
You are probably thinking, “Ah, but I do have a call to action. “It’s so much better than, ‘Oil is good.'”
You have a button that says, “Learn More.”
Don’t say “Learn More”
Learn more what? That is such a passive thing to request of your customer. If you can solve a person’s problem, you have a moral obligation to tell the person. Asking them to become Alger educated about your business is a waste of their time and they won’t do it! Think about how this sounds. Instead of telling your customer (the person with their wallet out ready to pay you to solve their problem) to “learn more”… instead tell them exactly what you want them to do. What do you want me to do? You want me to come in and get my oil changed, so just say, “Get an oil change today.” “Click here to schedule your oil change” “schedule your oil change in less than 15 seconds”. That is much more compelling than. “Learn more”.
If this all seems too daunting, Do Good Media is happy to help. For less than $500 we offer a website audit package, where we will go over your website and detail all the necessary changes to get your website running smooth and effectively.
You’ve got this button. You need that button to stand out. When I go to your website, the first thing I see needs to pop out, because it’s a high-contrast color. It’s not any other color on your website, it has to stand out. As a customer, I have to see it and immediately know, that’s the thing they want me to push.
What to do now?
So you’ve heard this and you’re thinking, “Well, what should I do?”
Here’s what you can do. Do a quick test on your own website. Pull up your website in a web browser: Do you see a clear call to action?
If not, make that change today. If making a change is daunting and you don’t really want to mess with it, then just call Do Good Media. We’d love to build you a website that works.
- Have a button on your website that makes your customers do something
- Make the action clear. Don’t tell anyone to “Learn More”… it’s too passive.
- Make the button high contrast – it needs to catch the eye and STAND OUT