Website Design Works When It Calls For Action!

Engagement, realtime, share and buzz! The onDemand search criteria for today’s online generation. You would think the social net would rule by now! Nope! Wizzy websites that leave you mystified as to what they want you to do are still everywhere on the web!

Eyecatching pages, happy headlines, news feeds, blogs, sparky vids – yep, some websites have the lot and you are staying to have a look round! A triumph of winning website design you might think, drawing high visitor traffic. But check the analytics and a different picture might emerge of site behaviour. Who are the visitors and what did they do on each page, what were they looking for and did they find it – were they converted?

In other words, what is the object of your website and is it actively telling visitors what action to take every step of the way?

Without the ‘calls for action’ visible everywhere on site pages, all your online marketing campaigns and paid search PPC ads, all your attention to SEO keywords and link building strategies will be wasted – just because visitors arrive at your site and become confused as to why they should continue!

Once they have been to your ‘About Us’ page, checked out your blog, read your latest news, and scrolled through your services, clients and recent work, they might just quickly click the contact page at the very, very end! But they’re less bothered to fill it out by now and already clicking to another site – without doing anything further at your site!

In today’s savvy, social media frenzy of instant interaction, this type of website is already out-of-date! It’s not working because visitors expect to see and read immediately – on any page they land – what your brand identity really means for them and how to get the search benefit now! Not only that, they want to share the goodies with others in their social network, so RSS, Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, needs to be visibly seen alongside all content.

Remember – marketing strategies are not just devised to bring visitors to your site, they continue once they arrive. Make it absolutely clear and obvious on every single page, your visible ‘call for more information’, the click ‘to subscribe’, or ‘to find out more’. Crucially, their ability to contact you at very step of the way by email, telephone, social media or business network, must not be just left to the one Contact page with its not very inviting CMS form!

Incredibly, there are still websites where a single phone number only is listed on the contact page with a link at the bottom in extremely small font type. Some corporate web sites still think they don’t need to include their phone number at all! You must leave your entered enquiry with them and they will respond shortly!

The ‘calls for action’ are everything if you want your website to not only grab attention and compel visitors to stay, but also actively perform by doing what is required of your visitor. In today’s mobile internet world, your follow up must be quick! Engagement is expected with the answer to visitor’s problems or object of their search. Act now!