Internet Marketing

A popular example of a call-to-actions (CTA) is “Click here”, however this particular primitive and simple CTA is fast depreciating, as in essence it does not fulfil in terms of driving conversions and it lacks the basic requirements of using CTAs effectively.

Here are a few tips for using CTAs effectively, to push visitors through your site and on to specified landing pages:

1. The action to be taken.
Keep it simple. Clearly display what to do and what to expect for doing it. Remember not to overload visitors with too much information. Also avoid ambiguous CTAs. Studies show a call to action should consist of a clear and concise descriptive action.

2. The presentation and execution of the CTA.
Like any every other type of advertising, it is first impressions that make the biggest impact. Use the following techniques to advertise effectively.

• Utilise eye-catching image CTAs by using attractive and colourful buttons to execute the call to action.
• Utilise formatting in anchor text CTAs by using bolder or larger fonts to emphasise the call to action.
• Utilise advertising space and position CTAs by generously sprinkling CTA links in the header, footer and body of the page as an alternative path to the same landing page as readers scan and jump around the page when they read.

3. Ensure the conversion process is easily completed within a few clicks.
Make it simple, this way readers know exactly where to click to initialise the conversion process and are less likely to navigate away, effectively losing a conversation.

Conclusions
Adding more CTAs and using CTAs that are more clear and obvious will be more effective in driving conversions. Make it easy for the reader to understand, not just where but why to click through and what they can expect on the other side. Address your readers’ interests to see your CTR increase.

Vipul
SEO Programmer

Google last week announced that they will once again begin accepting gambling-related ads through their Adwords advertising scheme.

The news won’t be too much of a surprise to many in the internet marketing community – Yahoo and MSN have both only just announced the same for their paid advertising services, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Adcenter respectively, so it was unlikely Google would let its competitors take all the revenue for such a profitable market.

Companies and individuals in the gambling industry are picking up on this now and a quick search for any gambling-related keywords will show a whole array of sponsored listings on the results page.

These first few weeks may prove not to be the best time to compete in the sponsored listings, as the inevitable rush as the news filters out will likely inflate the advertising costs for many of the sought after keywords.

Having said that, with gambling being such a lucrative industry the organic rankings are near impossible to compete in for the smaller companies. Therefore the sponsored listings may be the only way many gambling sites see to gain high quality traffic, and the high prices in advertising will not be much of a deterrent when forecasting the possible returns on investment.

Rik
Head Of Web Development