If blogging for business holds one overarching purpose (to generate revenue), your blog’s call-to-action (CTA) needs to be on point.
CTAs are supposed to do exactly what the name implies — spur action. So the question is, are your CTAs working?
How Do I Know If My CTAs Are Working?
Mostly, blog CTAs that aren’t being clicked on aren’t doing their job. They aren’t causing the reader to act.
Now, there is an exception to this rule. Sometimes, a reader will click the CTA, get to a landing page and then drop off the face of the earth. This indicates that the offer on the landing page:
- Wasn’t what they expected or,
- Didn’t hold enough value for them to exchange their information.
But that’s a blog for another day!
Why Aren’t My CTAs Working?
If you’ve followed the best practices for CTA creation, you might be stumped as to why readers aren’t following through. There are a lot of reasonable answers to this question. The simplest (and often overlooked) answer is that your CTA doesn’t line up with where your reader is in the buyer’s journey.
If a blog on “Why Is My Cat Not Eating?” has the CTA “Select A Pet Funeral Home,” the author has really jumped the gun — and probably scared the bejeezus out of pet owners. A more appropriate CTA would be, “Chat With A Vet Online.”
Bottom line, you have to meet your audience where they are, not rush them to where you want them to be.
