Create A Call To Action

If you want your readers to buy something you are promoting or to visit a site you’re affiliated with, you have to tell them that is what you expect them to do. They aren’t going to take action on their own with any kind of consistency, but if you give them a good, polite nudge in the right direction you’ll be surprised at the number of people who actually follow through with the action you’ve suggested.

Asking your visitors to go do something specific is known as a call to action. This is especially important if you are pre-selling a product or service that you are affiliated with through your blog.  Your post will get them interested, the call to action will get them to go take a look at the actual sales page and hopefully, a good number of your readers will buy the product or subscribe to the service, thus making you a few dollars along the way.

A call to action should always point the reader to the page that you want them to get to.  If you’re asking them to buy a book you’ve written, send them to the sales page, not your site’s home page. Likewise, don’t try to oversell a product or service that has an aggressive squeeze (sales) page. Recommend the product and let the sales page do the selling.

Each and every post that you write about a product or service that you are promoting should include a call to action. Let them know why you stand behind this product, show them the benefits of the product and then tell them where to find it for themselves.

Show, Don’t Tell

Instead of focusing on the features of some product or the bullet points of a service, focus on the benefits of that product or service to your readers. Let them know how it can help them achieve their goals or increase their sales.  Make the focus of the article about what the thing does in practice, not just as a list of facts on a page.

By showing your readers what a product can do for them, you make that product more desirable.  If they see that it can help them accomplish what they need to get done or save them time in doing it, it’s a good bet that they’ll go out and get it, or at least come back to your blog when they do decide to purchase. this lends you both credibility and income.

Map Out A Plan of Action

If your post focuses on a product or service that you’re hoping your readers will buy or subscribe to, show them how they can use this product or service in their every day lives.  If they know the benefits and you map out how some or all of the product can work for them, they are more likely to run out and grab their copy.  you’ve already told them how to use it to make their lives easier.

Make sure that they understand how they can leverage what you’re selling in their business or personal lives right now.  Just expounding on how great something is will not necessarily translate into sales.  Showing your readers both the benefits and a concrete example of how they can implement this product in what they are doing gives you a much better chance of success.

This concept applies to posts that are not geared at selling something as well.  If you are writing a post about how you used a spreadsheet to create a better method of tracking your ever-growing widget collection, give your readers an example or a free download. For every idea you give the reader, they should be able to go and implement it in a positive way immediately.

Many people have written ebooks or articles hat are very informative but do not implement a call to action or plan of action in their writing.  This lack of pre-selling ensures that their sales, if any, are low. Giving people a plan they can follow straight away after reading what you wrote would give them that incentive to buy that recommended product from you instead of another affiliate.

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