Web Pitfall #4: No Calls to Action

Oct 16 2008

This is important, though a lot of entrepreneurs don’t exactly know what it means. Here’s an explanation: when you get someone to your home page, you need to lead them in a direction. You need to tell them what you want them to do now that they are here… Sign up for a free consultation, get our white paper, buy our widget, join our newsletter, read our blog, learn about our new service, etc. Don’t be afraid to tell people where you want them to go and make it loud and clear.

Sometimes when we show a design concept that has a large call to action, the business owner will ask why we’re drawing attention to something that is already available through the main navigation. Here’s the answer… Web sites tend to have a lot of pages. Most SMB web sites (not counting e-commerce) tend to run from about 12-25 pages in our experience. All those pages are available in some fashion through the main navigation. But it’s very likely that only two or three are REALLY important.

Use your home page and available space on throughout the site to drive traffic to the important pages; don’t leave it up to chance that your audience will find that info on their own as they stumble through the rest of your site. When you tell people loud and clear how to get to the good content on your site, they will appreciate it. Their visit will be more productive if they can come to your home page and immediately find what they are looking for. Strong calls to action also increase the odds that a new visitor becomes profitable for you.