What Do You Want Your Blog Readers To Do?

"Gordon Bryan" "The Great Gordino"After writing a series of articles recently giving tips on creating content for your blog, in this article I want to turn to what you want your visitors to do when they read that content…

That may sound like a silly question, that it’s obvious what you want them to do – you want your readers to enjoy your content, maybe hang around and read some of your other posts, right?

Hmm, well yes, but that’s not enough.

With the vast swathes of content and distraction hitting us online, a lot of visitors will read your content and then…click away.

However much they enjoy what you’ve written, however good their intentions might be to keep in touch or read more, their action will be that click away unless you tell them to do something there and then while they’re on your blog!

Not only do you need to tell them, you need to make it clear how they do it, with a clear call to action.

A clear call to action.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that your blog readers are too stupid to make their own decisions, that they can’t work things out for themselves! What I am saying is that you want your readers to do something while at your blog, even if it is ‘only’ to keep in touch, so it makes sense to direct them to that action.

The action might be to visit your website or social network profile. It might be to click a link promoting a product, either your own product or someone else’s product paying you a commission for any sales.

It might be to click adverts on your blog, or it might be to sign up to email updates. By the way, signing up to email updates is probably the single most important action you can get your readers to take, because that will allow you to contact them again.

Yes, people’s email inboxes are inundated, but if you think your email will get lost in there, imagine how much more lost your little blog will get in your reader’s online world! If you set up your email responder properly, readers will look forward to those emails, and check for them.

So, with all these different possible actions, what do I mean by the clear call to action..?

Well, it means telling them without leaving them simply to find out for themselves! That can come in different forms.

It may be in the shape of a pop up. A pop up is a box that appears over the screen to grab the attention. They are hated by many people, but research has shown that they work, and while that’s still the case we’ll still be seeing them, er, pop up!

The call to action might be simply a link at the bottom of an article. It doesn’t have to be ‘in your face’ to be clear.

Simply asking someone to share your article, or to leave a comment, or to click a link to read more, can be an extremely effective call to action, because it’s still clear while seeming less aggressive.

Of course, if you ask someone to share your article, make sure you have your sharing buttons set up right there – if you suggest they click a link, make sure the link is there, and working!

So, think about your blog. Visit other blogs in the same field and see what their call to action is, and if they have one at all. Then think about your own blog again, and ask yourself if it has a proper call to action – do you know what you want your readers to do, and are you telling them?

‘Til Next Time,
Health & Happiness,
Gordon
P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for email updates via the box at top right of any page.
P.P.S. Here’s one of my articles about creating content – Here’s How To Reuse Content Already On Your Blog!

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