How to choose the best call-to-action for your blog posts

You want your blog to be successful and you know call-to-actions are crucial, but what call-to-action is best for your blog? Many bloggers struggle with this question. There are many call-to-actions that can work well on blogs, and it’s important to choose the right one for your particular post.

Let’s go over some things to consider when deciding on the right call-to-action for your blog post. First, let’s define call-to-action (CTA) for our purposes here.

What is a call-to-action?

A call-to-action is any sort of offer you make to the visitors on your blog. Usually, this is an offer to either buy a product or sign up for your email list. The call-to-action is ultimately about converting your readers into customers and subscribers.

Many blogs fail to include a call-to-action at all. They publish posts that provide good information but never ask the visitor to do anything. This, my friends, is a big mistake and missed opportunity for both you and your reader.

Why calls-to-action are crucial

If you fail to capture the lead or customer with a call-to-action on this visit, chances are slim you will be able to get them to return to your site. And for the reader, without a call-to-action, they have no clear path to follow to solve their problem on their own. They are likely to go elsewhere in search of the next step or a better guide.

Your job as their guide, is to lead them on an intentional journey — the customer journey.

Calls-to-action should be relevant to the customer journey stage

When choosing your CTA, consider where this person is in their customer journey. They are reading this particular post — what is the next logical step for them to do once they have finished reading it? I find thinking about it like a real live conversation helps — if I were explaining this post content to them in person, what would I suggest they do next? Whatever that is, think of an offer related to that next step and make that your CTA.

It helps to understand who is reading this post and why. What are their goals? What do they need or want to learn about in order to achieve those goals? No one really wants more information. They want the transformation they will achieve if they apply the information they are consuming.

Blog post calls-to-action should have a low barrier to entry

Capturing the lead with these kinds of offers gives you the ability to follow up and nurture these people over time. As you build a relationship by sharing more content, you build trust, authority and credibility with them. By allowing this relationship to build over time, you will be better able to successfully promote and sell your other higher-priced offers to them when the time is right for them.

Context is key

The more closely related your call-to-action is to the topic of your blog, the better it will perform. If you’re writing a post about how hard it can be to find the right fitness routine, don’t ask people to get on a call with you where you will “give them the keys” to fitness success. Instead, offer them something new to try like a yoga or dance aerobics video routine. If your post is about learning to play the guitar, maybe your offer would be a free ebook on how to read chord diagrams.

It is entirely likely that you will need to create multiple offers and lead magnets — at least one for EACH topic you write about. You may not be able to offer the same call-to-action for all of your posts, but you will find some CTAs will work better than others depending on what topic it is.

This may be time-consuming on the front end, but it’s well worth it when you’re able to convert a high percentage of new blog visitors into email subscribers.

Make your calls-to-action clear and concise

If you want people to take some sort of action after reading one of your blog posts, there are two main things that need to happen:

1. You need to make it easy for them. The call-to-action should be both clear and concise and should let people know exactly what you want them to do.
2. You also need to make it worth their while. Tell them why it is important for them to act. People take in information through a “what’s in it for me?” filter. For example: “sign up for our newsletter and get the scoop on new cocktail recipes before it’s published” is better than “sign up for our newsletter.”

For call-to-actions to be successful, they should meet both criteria, but that doesn’t mean that you have to use call-to action that do BOTH of these things every time.

Calling you to action!

To sum it all up, if you want your content to be successful, it’s important for there to be a clear call-to-action at the end of each piece. Calls-to-action are requests that encourage people to take an action after reading something. CTAs should always tie back into what was discussed in the blog post and they should offer some benefit (like free advice) or perk (a discount) or a low-cost product.

Content creators often think of calls-to-action after they’ve already written their blog post. And sometimes, they don’t even bother with a call-to-action at all! But it is important to remember to include them so you don’t miss the opportunity to convert a visitor to a lead or a lead to a customer. Afterall, isn’t that why we are all creating content in the first place?

Have you seen success using this approach? Have any tips of your own to share?
Let us know below!