Establish a Clear Call to Action

Think about some websites you love. They’re clear. The information you need is easy to find. Key buttons are front and center, and when you click on them they take you where you thought they would.

Establish a clear call to action

These things seem obvious but can be more difficult to implement when you’re sitting in front of your computer, trying to condense your business into website content. Questions arise such as

  • What should you title each content section?
  • Which content should go where?
  • Do you want to include pricing?
  • Is it worth it to start a blog?
  • How do you get people to take action?

We wish we could give you a hard and fast answer for each situation. But while every website is unique, one strategy works across the board to help generate leads through quality content:

Narrow down your purpose to just one action.

It can be easy to drown in the details of writing your story, honing your tone, or describing your products or services (and that’s not even taking into account making decisions about layout, colors, images, and typography!). But ultimately, you should have one clearly defined goal for your website users. Do you want them to contact you? Make an appointment? Purchase something?

Once you’ve got that in mind, craft all your content to lead your user toward that end. Build a call-to-action (CTA) button for each page of your website or add it to your global sidebar or footer – somewhere it’s easily accessible whenever the user decides they’re ready to act. (Caveat: Adding too many CTAs can confuse the user, so be strategic in your use and frequency.)

Haymakers "consulting groups" page

Haymakers has done an excellent job of providing opportunities to sign up for their newsletter. Nearly every page has an email capture field where you can “Join the conversation.” Some other pages have an additional button as well where users can take more specific actions such as submitting their business to the Haymakers directory, joining a group, or applying to become a mentor. But the primary objective is clear and easy to find sitewide.

Once you’ve established this clear action for your own business, all that’s left to do is to build the funnel. Write the rest of your content geared to engage your user and transform them from casual visitor to your newest customer.