You're Wasting Your Time Blogging if You

Don't Use Calls to Action in Your Blog Posts

Every blog post should

contain a call to action

(a CTA).

No CTA = high bounce rate = opportunity lost.

Think of the first-time visitors: what do you want them to do after they finish reading your post?

Do you want them to wander off? No, you want to capture them so that you can contact them again.

Your blog’s bounce rate: does it make you happy?

If this number is above

that's too damn high.

By blogging you’re actually paying people to read your free content. You’ll want to protect your investment by reducing the bounce rate.

At the end of every post you publish there should be a CTA.

In it, you promise your visitors something of value and they give you something in exchange.

Put the CTA at the very end of your blog post.

Don’t bug your readers with popups or CTAs at the beginning of the post.

You need to first prove your worth and give, give, give before you ask for even a smallest commitment.

A reader reaching the end of your post is proof enough of your worth. That’s where you should put a CTA: where it adds value and where it doesn’t annoy.

One CTA per blog post only.

Ask for ten things and you'll get none: every website page should have one and only one purpose. For example, your blog post's purpose can be to get permission to start a relationship with your reader.

Apply the minimalist principle and ask for only one thing, i.e. an email address.

Make the CTA relevant to the blog post content.

If the blog post is about project management, the CTA is about project management too.

Take a look at this example from Hubspot: an article about Twitter has a CTA related to getting more followers on Twitter.

Make your CTA stand the hell out from the rest of the page.

Use size and contrast color for emphasis. Use images, forms, even animated gifs

if you feel adventurous.

You've proven your worth: now drop the shyness!

Make your CTAs clearly visible on mobile devices.

Make your copy sell: write your best value proposition.

It's the text that sells.

Spell it out: what it is exactly that people receive from you in exchange for their email address?

You can offer your exclusive stories about what you’ve learned in your business. Nobody else but you can tell your stories, which makes your value proposition pretty unique.

Automate your CTAs if you can.

Have one or more CTAs ready for inserting into a blog post.

Don't make your CTA ask for sex on a first date.

Ask for their permission to proactively get in touch with them.Ask for a tweet. Offer an instant social media follow button. Ask for an email address.

Don't ask for too much commitment from readers. They are probably not ready to buy anything just yet.

Don't ask for money. Don't ask for a free trial. Don't ask to fill out 20 form fields.

You don't need complicated

tools to create a CTA.

Take a look at the CTA at the bottom of our article.

The tools we used for creating it:

1. Google Slides for drawing a simple ebook cover. 2. Placeit.net to generate the photo of a tablet with the ebook cover.3. Our favorite graphics program to add the text and graphics.

Optimize your CTAs for first-

time visitors.

A small number of first time visitors will subscribe at their first visit. If your content is good, they'll stumble upon your new blog posts in the future and they'll subscribe then.

First-time visitors don't know you. You won't get the chance to get to know them better if you don't at least try to capture them as email subscribers or social media followers.

You need to ask your visitors for a

relationship every time they're visiting your

website.

If they keep coming back, they'll accept your offer

sooner or later.

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Read this content as an article:

https://www.simpfinity.com/blog/ctas/

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10. http://pixabay.com/en/space-station-moon-landing-apollo-15-60615/11. http://pixabay.com/en/argument-conflict-controversy-238529/

Creative Commons photos

12. http://pixabay.com/en/couple-love-together-woman-young-498484/13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Young_(astronaut)#/media/File:John_W.

_Young_on_the_Moon.jpg14. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domesday_Book_-_Bedfordshire_-_page_17.

png15. http://pixabay.com/en/tools-do-it-yourself-hammer-498202/16. http://pixabay.com/en/pioneer-boy-working-wood-shop-744301/17. http://pixabay.com/en/romantic-proposal-sunset-ring-739161/18. http://pixabay.com/en/eighty-80-percent-statistic-money-706881/

Creative Commons photos