The majority of visitors to your website will never show their face. They won’t comment, send you a tweet, follow you on Facebook, Google+, download your free ebook or sign up for your newsletter. But if you check your Google Analytics you’ll see that they are there.
The silent majority are the visitors who account for the majority of your page views; they arrive at your site via Google search or Twitter and (often) quickly disappear but many stick around to check out your About page or your Services page.
Whether you’re getting regular lurkers who don’t make themselves known or fly-by-nights who don’t stop to linger, you need to work hard to get these visitors involved in your site; they are invaluable to the success of your online marketing and ultimately your business.
At the end of the day you need to convert the visitors into customers. But to do this, along with great product or services, you need powerful call to actions.
A call to action is copy and/or graphics that urge the reader, listener, or viewer to take an immediate action such as: “Sign Up Now,” “Contact Us,” or “Click Here.”
The success of your call to action does not rely on hocus-pocus; instead it relies on a number of key tactics.
Make it visible
Do not underestimate the importance of actually ensuring your call to action can be seen by visitors to your site. Ideally put a call to action above the fold. This is a graphic design concept that refers to placing an important action you want the visitor to take on the part of a page that’s visible without scrolling.
Your key call-to-action should be as visible as possible.
Although designers love to have everything looking pretty and peachy, I’ve often found that sign-up forms in stronger, clashing colors perform better than forms that perfectly match the site design.
Make it Simple
Don’t confuse visitors. Keep your call-to-actions as simple as possible. For example, on this page we made for Internationella Engelska Gymnasiet we included videos because the most important thing for the school was to show prospective students other students on the programme. We also included a contact form at the end of the page, inviting prospective students to get in touch.
On my own site I’ve stripped the sidebar right down, keeping widgets to a minimum, making the “Subscribe in iTunes” and “Free Marketing Tips” newsletter the key call-to-actions.
I also took social share buttons off the front page and made them smaller than previously on blog post pages.
Give something away
One of the best ways of getting the silent majority to follow a call to action is to dangle a carrot in front of them by offering something for nothing. Be good to your customers.
Ebooks have been used by a lot of businesses and consultants to build an email list. In exchange for sharing their email address the visitor gets an ebook. People that opt-in in this way are then targeted with email marketing, which continues to be one of the most successful forms of online marketing.
With the proliferation of tablet PCs and iPads making it easier to read digital texts well-produced ebooks could potentially be even more useful way of connecting with visitors to your website.
Get to Know Your Visitors
The benefit of knowing more of your visitors, say, through email lists or connecting on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook, is that you can target them more easily with your online marketing. There’s a reason, for example, why Amazon always shows you stuff you could be interested in on the basis of your previous visits and product searches. Because they know you, they can tempt you with knew products.
The other benefit is that if you genuinely help visitors who stop by your site, whether its with the problems and issues they have or just help them spend the bazillion kronor they were itching to get rid of (!), they’ll also recommend you to their friends and colleagues.
Do you have any suggestions that you can add? If so, please add them to the comment section below.
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