Tweet

SEO Success - Your Call to Action

Written by: Chesa Keane

Article Overview: You have managed to optimize your website, the navigation works and the content is relevant. But what are you asking of your viewer? Without a Call to Action, your website is just a nice place to hang around. Think of the purpose of the website and you will realize that unless you convert that traffic to sales, you've missed the point.

SEO Success - Your Call to Action

As you review your website for the attention the search engines will give it and for its authority content, you need to determine if you have a clear call to action. A call to action on your website simply asks your viewer to do something.

Are you asking the surfer to call you, to buy your product, to engage your services or simply to subscribe to your future communications? Think carefully about what you want next from your website visitors. This is your call to action (CTA).

The purpose of a CTA is to create another contact point for your potential customer. It takes seven encounters on average before your prospect becomes a customer. If you don't ask or create a clear opportunity for your viewer to create a relationship with you and your business, you may not get your additional six contacts for the sale.

Beyond the initial sale, you will want to set up an ongoing relationship with your customer. Business is not built on one sale, but on a continuous business relationship where you customer becomes a return purchaser. To build this loyalty, you must continue to place your name and image in front of your customer. Think of it this way: you spend most of your marketing efforts and dollars to get that first customer. When your customer returns for another purchase, you aren't spending much more in follow-up dollars. With techniques we are going to cover in future SEO SOS lessons, you will see that this cost is minimal and, therefore, yields the greatest return on your marketing dollar.

Some examples of CTAs might be:

- Subscribe to your newsletter. You can send out newsletters chock full of information of value to potential and existing customers. Again, you are reinforcing your image as the authority in your field by offering this information without charge to your subscribers.

- Offer your visitor something for free, a white paper, a list of tips and tricks, a sample, a demo of your product, anything that helps them think of you the next time they want the product or service you offer. Did I say free? Well, not exactly free. The payment is small, however. All you want is their name and email address.

- Perhaps you want them to complete a request for an estimate. Give them a form that is easy to complete and easy to submit. And then, follow up! Too often people set these contact points in place and then forget to respond. So a great idea becomes the means of painting you as an uncaring, unresponsive business. Don't let carelessness hurt you.

- Maybe what you want is a phone call. If so, make sure that you give them an 800 number and a little enticement to call. The next 100 callers get a free report on "How to XXXX", or a pair of movie tickets, or a poster, or something that interests them. Once they make that call, you know what to do.

- Instead of a phone call, perhaps an email contact would better for you. In addition, a good email contact form allows you to collect some additional information that pre-qualifies the prospect or perhaps gives you enough information to get the appropriate person to respond to their inquiry.

Whatever your CTA, the underlying purpose is to create a stream of continued contact points. With each additional contact, you can offer another authority-building offering, a free report, a new product announcement, or a time-based special, or, more importantly, an actual product or service offering.

The important understanding you want to associate with this Call to Action strategy is that you are building relationships. When your prospect and customer begin to think of you as someone who not only knows their industry and business, but as someone who cares to share important and useful information, you have built a loyalty that has immeasurable value.

Remember that if you are going to compete in any industry, you have to develop a relationship with your customer. It is not the first sale that counts, but the ongoing business you have with that customer that makes the difference to your business growth and success.

Copyright (c)2007 TAO Consultants, Inc. All rights reserved.
_____________________________
Chesa Keane has been designing and developing web sites with an eye toward search engine optimization and traffic generation since 1995. TAO Consultants offers online web and SEO courses to help you make the most of your web business and investment at the www.computergoddess.com website.

Related Articles
  A Call to Action for the Sales Force
  Could Your Pre-approach Letters be Missing the Mark?
  Found Your True Calling (To Action)?
  Call Me - How Not to End a Client Letter/eMail
  Make Sure Your Sales Letter Has A Strong Call To Action

Article Tags: business relationship, contact point, continuous business, cta, customer business, customer returns, demo, existing customers, future communications, loyalty, marketing efforts, purchaser, search engines, subscribers, tips and tricks, website visitors



Related Forum Posts
Re: Success - I study success intently, and would like to share: Here's two excellent and nearly identical success-formulas from a couple of the world's masters. FIRST FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Clear, Definite Purpose 3. Committed Decision 4. Take Action In Faith (Bonus Secret Sauce: 5. Repeat Consistently) I made a video about this, but am not allowed to link it yet. Google "Ryze Success Steps" for it. Oh, and this is Napoleon Hill's (Master Of Success Laws)'s Formula. SECOND FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Understand It Is Already Done (Faith) 3. Relax & Allow It To Unfold (Go about your life calmly) This one is courtesy of Abraham-Hicks (inspiration for the movie The Secret). Hope that helps!
Success Strategies - How to get the results you want now? Success Strategies and Action Steps I have used are: The Power of Choice Where you are at this present moment, is exactly perfect from the choices you have made. If you want to be somewhere else, you have to decide clearly what that is (your goal/outcome) and create action steps to achieve this. The Power of Focus The book "The Power of Focus" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt, is one of my treasures in my Entrepreneur Library. If you focus on what you want versus what you do not want, your conscious and sub-conscious mind will direct attention to this. The movie, What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole, explains this in detail about quantum physics and what we create in our lives. The Power of Commitment This is not about commitment to others. The first step is the commitment, your word, you make to yourself. Accountability and responsibility are additional success strategies and ingredients to creating the success, defined by you, that you want. The commitment to others reflects your integrity, your word and the team you work with. Co-workers, clients, yoru family, friends and community. My Success Acronyn in Success Breakthroughs(c) is: S pecific & self-directed U nlimited opportunities & possibilities C reate powerful outcomes C onsistent measureable results E xperience pwoerful transformation S olution and action-oriented S uccessful habits and outcomes Break Through to Powerful LIfestyle & Performance Choices Moira
Re: Blog sells for up to $15 million - Action speaks louder than dream. What are we doing about GT suggestion? We can make this work in 2010
Re: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD...RIGHT NOW!!! - Success = Thinking (Head) + Heart (Feeling / Interest) + Hand (doing/ action). Success - H3 Robert
Advertisement that sales - Plan your marketing programme. It should include commitment to capital resources. If you run a small business, you aren't likely to have a generous enough advertising budget that will allow you to run costly branding or campaign ads. Every advertisement you run must convey to your prospect a solid offer and attractive reasons to act quickly, and result in increased sales and an enhanced image of your company. Good advertising always pays its own way through increased sales and profits, improved cost-effectiveness, reduced selling costs and shortened selling cycles. A useful formula that will help you increase the effectiveness of your advertising efforts is A-I-D-A, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. When creating an advertisement, always remind yourself that it should: (1) capture your prospects' Attention, (2) arouse their Interest in your offer, (3) create their Desire for your product or service, and (4) provide a powerful spur to Action, that is, turn your prospect into buyers. Remember, bad advertising is an unproductive expense, and good advertising is an investment in future profits!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Unspoken Yet Important Rules for Book Proposals

Life, Conflict and Work

Angel Investors Where Are You?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.