Websites fail to generate business because not enough people are visiting your website, and when they do, your visitors don’t take action.
You can improve how much business your website generates by improving your call-to-action. A call-to-action is a task that you ask your website visitors to perform that benefits both your visitors and your company.
Specific Calls-to-Action
Your call-to-action could request visitors to call you for more information, fill out a registration form, buy something, or refer you to their friends and colleagues using a link. Calls-to-action need to be specific and measurable, otherwise you won’t be able to improve them.
Your calls-to-action might not work for several reasons:
- Not there. You don’t make a call-to-action (i.e. your website leaves visitors to figure out what to do next).
- Vagueness. Visitors don’t understand what you’re offering or why they benefit.
- Laziness. They don’t think the offer is worth taking action.
- Confusion. They don’t understand what they need to do.
- Mistrust. They don’t trust that you will or can fulfill your offer.
- Problems. They can’t take you up on your offer because they get lost, have technical difficulties or can’t find your contact information.
Determining What the Issues Are
Surveys. The most straightforward way to find out if you have one (or more than one) of the issues above is to survey your visitors. Ask them why they chose to do what they did. These surveys can be automated so you don’t have to put a lot of resources into running them.
Behavioral Testing. In-person testing is also useful. We’ve screen captured entire sessions so you can see everything from where they clicked to where they got confused.
Automated Testing. Calls-to-action can also be improved using A-B or multivariate testing. This type of testing compares different pages against each other. The pages may have different calls-to-action, phrasing or offers. The pages with the higher conversion ratios win and the wording on winning pages is used as the standard for the website.
One benefit of automated testing is that it’s unobtrusive, your visitors aren’t interrupted and the information is collected automatically.
Using What You’ve Learned
What you learn from testing your calls-to-action and marketing messages on your website can be re-used in your other marketing and promotional materials, as well as your sales presentations. This re-use is one of the cornerstones of integrated marketing.
By running the surveys and testing above, you’ll improve your calls-to-action and marketing messages. Your marketing will be more agile than your competition and your conversion ratios will improve as well, generating more business for your company.
