Imagine you’re riding your bike in a race. Think of it as one of those wine country races. The other cyclists are not paying attention. Suddenly, you realize you’ve blown a tire. You need to pull to the side of the road. You have two options: signal or swerve.

Scratch that. There should be no way in hell you’d swerve without using a hand signal. It would be super dangerous. You’ve got to use a hand signal (or get clobbered by drunk cyclists).

In blogging, calls to action (CTAs) are your hand signals. You’ll suffer without them.

Trust me, I know. Too many of my clients don’t include CTA strategies in their blogs. Fortunately, those that work with me on content strategy overcome this issue.

In the world of sustainability blogs, we can sometimes get bogged down in educating our audiences when in fact, we need to be focusing on engaging them and minimizing that value-action gap.

But it can be hard to come up with an effective CTA. That’s why I decided to write this post.

No CTA means no clicks

After you attract readers to your blog, you’ll need to get them to continue clicking around your site. For this, you’ll need to ask them to take action. Calls to action, even more so than menu options, are the gateways people pass through to engage on a site.

So a new reader has landed on your page. Maybe they found your blog post via Google search. They wanted to know how to select sustainable coffee. Great!

They read your post, brainstorm the tips and tricks and think about how to shop for coffee. You can’t just assume they’ll click through to your product pages. Even if the page is listed right there in your main menu, they probably won’t. But why not?

Here are a few reasons they might not:

This is not their top priority
Their attention span is limited
No one asked

If the reason is the third option, you can easily fix the problem with a few CTAs. Without those “hand signals” guiding your readers to take action on your page, they probably won’t take action.

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Choose a clear, relevant message

You can’t know exactly when readers will need reminders. And you can’t read their minds, but you can make educated guesses. Your aim is to seize that split second of opportunity when they’re ripe to make a decision.

A few things to keep in mind:

Most internet readers are scanners
Readers often search for the main ideas
Not everything you write is going to engage everyone

I try to estimate at what point a reader might start to get bored and insert something to break up the text. It might be a “bucket brigade” or it might be an image. CTAs are another great way to give your reader a mental break. They can also choose whether or not they’re ready to move on from your post.

Choose a discreet action for your reader to take. Here are a few ideas:

Read related blog posts
Tweet a quote from the post
Shop a product that relates to the content
Download a guide that expands on the content
Join a new mailing list for similar great content

The best CTAs link directly to the material of the post and extend it to other opportunities. Using unrelated CTAs will only confuse and distract the reader.

Keep your messaging clear by using the imperative verb tense. These are direct commands that unambiguously signal the reader what to do.

If you want to decorate your verbs with some other encouragement, add a sense of urgency with words like now, today, immediate and instant. Or if you want to give them a boost of self-confidence, put words in their head like, “Yes! Send it.” or “Sure! Sign me up.”

However, if you want to aim for something more creative, find unique verbs and aims that match your brand’s voice or ask a question and tell your readers to answer in the comments.

Location is everything

Businesses know that location is everything. The same goes for websites. This is why people spend so much money researching where viewers’ eyes go when they scan a web layout.

However, within reason, there are a few tried and true placements that work, so people continue to use them.

Here are some ideas for CTA placement:

A subtle call-out in the middle of a post
A visually attractive design in the sidebar
A big banner before the reader reaches the post
A series of different CTAs at the end of a post (let them choose)

Try out a range of different locations for your CTAs. Aim for a balance of attention-grabbing minus the irritating disruption.

Design can make or break your strategy

The better CTAs look, the more your readers will enjoy having them there. Good design can make almost any message palatable.

This is why you need to have a strong brand identity from the start. Your color scheme, fonts and graphics should all subtly reinforce your brand and its mission.

Calls to action that incorporate graphic design can (and should) take up space.

However, you can also choose the alternative of sprinkling some CTAs into your text. If you don’t have a designer on hand, bolded or italicized text can still work wonders. Remember to use the strategic placement and relevance factor to increase your chances. Bullet points can also make CTAs stand out visually on the page.

Don’t expect one and done

The best approach to CTAs is to sprinkle as many as possible without the reader noticing. Readers are used to seeing CTAs in the content they read online.

Experiment until you get it right

If you’re set up for A/B testing, great. Choose two formats and compare their effectiveness. If your results depend on the audience, then segment your site for different types of viewers.

The point is to choose a well-designed format, test its impact and tweak it over time. Don’t fly blind when it comes to improving your best chance at getting more clicks.

Learn more

Why your sustainability blog needs a call to action strategy