I have lost count of the times when teaching a blogging seminar that one of the audiences tells me you are not allowed to sell in a blog post. Then they wonder loudly why their blog doesn’t generate leads. Another moan I hear is how no one shares their content. My response is, “Did you ask the reader to share?”
Did you ask the reader to do something or did you just sign your name and wander off?

An effective call to action is the key – it’s the start of a relationship, and to the ideal reader it is not “selling”. Although a good call to action can be used to sell from a blog post and it would not offend the reader if done with a certain Je ne sais quoi. You know your audience best and you can train them with your calls to action.

There are blog posts that are thinly veiled adverts from the company writing them, and there are business blogs that aim to educate the customer. We must remember an educated customer is a customer that will buy on value rather than price. That potential customer needs some guidance on what to do.

Your reader is looking for the call to action.

Trust me they are.

Your reader can be all fired up, all educated and they need to be guided on what to do next. It needs to be an unconscious thought, a natural “next step” after reading the post. Your call to action needs to speak loud and clear to your ideal reader. So how do we create and effective call to action on our blog?

We create urgency
Use a number
Indicate the specific action
Use images
Make the call to action clickable – people love to click!
Use colour and contrasts to make the call to action stand out
Position – pay attention to where the call to action is. It does not have to be in the post itself, it can be in the sidebar, in the header or in the caption under an image.
Then test, test, test, test until you have it perfected your call to action for your target market

So how does it work on For Bloggers, By Bloggers?

call to action on blogs

By adding some additional words to the Feedburner subscription box we also have the urgency part – Subscribe so you don’t miss a thing or Have us delivered directly to your inbox so you don’t miss out starts to create the urgency that encourages more people to click through and subscribe.

Depending on your blog’s settings you can have your call to action in multiple places but you will need to be consistent in your message.  Be gentle -If you offer multiple calls to action your reader could be overwhelmed and do nothing. If you have never used a call to action in your blog posts, start going through your archives and adding some.

Test which ones work. You know what posts are highly traffic’d, if they are converting for you, great. If they are not, tweak the call to action until it works.

What are the best calls to action that you have seen? Share them in the comments and let us know how they worked for you.

Sarah.

PS The call to action for this post? There are some terrific things coming your way from the contributors of this blog, subscribe now so you don’t miss out. You need to be the first to know, it’s going to make a significant impact to the way you blog. Top right of the sidebar, and subscribe by email.