Calls To Action - Dealer Dan's Affiliate Bible

One of the biggest factors of running an affiliate website is no doubt search engine optimization. Yet to me the most important factor is visitor optimization, and something I see lacking from a lot of webmasters. I’m planning a series of articles over the next few weeks to help assist you on what to do when a visitor gets to your webpage.

The first article is on calls to action.

A call to action is the term used for when you are trying to get the web visitor to do something on your webpage. For example, if I wrote an article about Affiliate Bible and wanted you to subscribe to the Affiliate Bible RSS Feed it would look something like this:

“To keep updated on new Affiliate Bible articles, you can subscribe to the RSS Feed.”

That is what I would call a convenient call to action. It’s there, it’s helpful for users, but it’s not very encouraging. Webmasters don’t think about calls to action, they think that all they have to do is put a link to something on their website, and people would click.

Yet a more effective call to action would be:

“Updates on Affiliate Bible can be sporadic. Some weeks I’ll write 3-5 articles, then I may go 2 weeks without an update. The best way to keep updated when I write is by subscribing to the RSS Feed.”

That call to action is a lot more likely to get people to interact with it. Rather than just throw a link out there, I’ve provided a reason as to why you should interact with it. I could also add “Click Here!” at the end of that to help reinforce that you should click.

Every time you do a call to action, you should think about why you are doing it. You should be providing a call to action after positively reinforcing the product that you are shilling, because that is more likely to get clicks. For example – what is more likely to get a click?

Or:

“Full Tilt Poker have one of the biggest poker bonuses on the net. This bonus is a 100% match on your first deposit, all the way up to $600! That’s $600 free, just for depositing at Full Tilt Poker. Click here to visit Full Tilt Poker.”

Obviously the second one works better when it comes to a call to action. This was a very basic example, but it’s something I don’t see people doing as much as they should. When you give people a reason to click, provide them with the link to click. I mean if I was writing a review of the Pokerstars Affiliate Program, and in the article I wrote:

“Pokerstars are currently running a hot promotion – every new affiliate wins a free Ipod Touch.”

Are you going to scroll through the whole article looking for a link? Hell no – if you see that text and there isn’t an immediate link there, you are more likely to do a google search for Pokerstars, or visit their website directly. So remember – when you give your visitors a reason to click, always provide them with a link to click.

I also want to clarify something – when I wrote the examples for Full Tilt Poker, I don’t mean that you should mislead your visitor or anything in an attempt to get them to click. Always be honest, even if that means being negative.

However you can actually put a spin on it, and turn it into a positive call to action. I call these personalized calls to action, where you personalize the link to specific visitors. Let’s look at that sample text again:

No-one will be clicking that. But what if we wrote:

“Full Tilt Poker have a 100% to $600 poker bonus. This bonus is hard to clear if you play $2/$4 or below. However if you play $3/$6 or above limit poker, or NL200 and above, then this bonus is a great one to take advantage of. Click here to visit Full Tilt Poker.”

Those types of calls to action are the ones I find most effective. They apply to a specific audience, and make them more likely to click. Players who play $3/$6 and above are more likely to click on that now, because of the way it is presented. Calls to action to specific audiences can really bring the clicks up. Some more examples:

“Full Tilt Poker have been in business since 2004, and are backed by some of the biggest professional poker players. They are also one of the only poker rooms to accept players from the US. Click here, Americans.”

“Full Tilt Poker are very OS friendly, offering their software for both Windows users and Apple users. If you’re a Windows user check out the software here, and for Mac users here is Full Tilts Apple Software.”

Those are actually more advanced calls to action, as they incorporate decisive calls to action, and choice calls to action.

One other call to action – the alternate call to action. When people write honest reviews of poker rooms, including all the negativity, they either try and mention it quickly and move on, or put a positive spin onto it. However providing an alternative call to action is great because it shows the player you actually are looking out for them. For example:

“Full Tilt Poker have a poker bonus that is very hard to clear. If you play $2/$4 or below, it’s not recommended you even bother with this bonus. There are a lot better poker bonuses out there. Cake Poker have a 100% to $600 bonus which clears a lot better than Full Tilts. Click here for our Cake Poker Review, or visit Cake Poker directly.”

In that one I choose to link the visitor to both the review, and the Cake Poker website. That’s a choice call to action, and also caters to two different types of visitors. Some visitors like to read over everything, others just like to skim. It also factors in visitor trust.

If a visitor trusts your website, they will most likely want to read your review. If it is their first time on your website and they don’t know whether to trust you or not, they may want to visit Cake for themselves and see the details of the bonus. Either way, you’ve managed to provide a great call to action for both visitors. There’s other reasons for using a choice call to action, which I’ll go into soon.

The second part of this article will be up in a few days. In it I will go into more detail about some other variants of calls to action, including intrigue, decisive and choice. I’ll also talk about text links versus image links, how link colours can affect conversions, and a few other things.

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This article, as are all articles on AffiliateBible.com, was written by Graeme aka "Dealer Dan". Graeme currently resides in Kingston, Ontario and has been running his own internet marketing business since 1996.

This article was written on October 18, 2009 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.

If you need to contact Graeme, please see his Contact Page. If you are an affiliate manager wanting promoted please see this page.

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