Corporate Blogging For Dummies®

Chapter 13. Directing Your Readers through Calls-to-Action

In This Chapter

• Defining a call-to-action

• Designing calls-to-action

• Testing and measuring call-to-action performance

• Improving your calls-to-action click-through rate

Acall-to-action is a general term for a page item that directs the user's attention to initiate an action. A call-to-action can be something as simple as a link on a page or, more typically, is a bold image that directs the user to click to engage with the blog further. Developing great calls-to-action can significantly impact a blog's performance on click-through rates and conversion rates.

Understanding Why You Need Calls-to-Action

Many blogs leave out calls-to-action altogether and simply rely on the reader to poke around and find ways to contact or make a purchase. At issue is that business blogs often compare themselves to the traditional blog. A traditional blog is a journal-style publication whose goal is to attract as many people as possible. It's all about the numbers. Visitors come to a traditional blog to be entertained or learn from the content and often are discouraged by too many advertisements.

Your business blog is different. The purpose of the business blog is to educate and compel visitors to connect with your company and make a purchase, to deepen their relationship with the company by buying additional products or services, or to improve their overall customer experience so they are retained as a customer.

Your blogging strategy should have three ...