CTA = Call to Action. What does it mean exactly and what place does it have on your blog?
A CTA is an icon/button that tells the prospect to take another action; hence the name. It's a tactic used to convert web/blog visitors into leads. An example is right here on this blog page, check out the buttons on the right sidebar of the screen.
We've been testing and measuring the effectiveness of our blog CTA's recently at Compendium and here's what we've found.
1. Educational actions i.e. Whitepapers and Webinars are proving most effective. We've seen a 50% lift on conversions when we focus on blogging research as opposed to demo language.
2. Newsletter sign up forms work! We just added ours last week, and are still in testing mode, but its on track to be the highest converting yet.
We've found there are no blog secrets. As with any online marketing program it's about testing, tracking and measuring tactics to come up with a win-win result. And, just like our Compendium clients, we're learning and developing best practices along the way.
I'll leave you with perhaps the most important piece of info we've taking away from all of our blog CTA testing. When blogging for SEO you're blogging to get found in search and be the result your prospects are searching for.
Searching - the root word for Researching. Keep that in mind as you place CTA's on your blog. Chances are you're intercepting eyeballs that are in research mode and didn't even intend to find your site in the first place. So, make sure to give these folks material that fits their needs.
