What’s Your Call to Action?

The first deadly mistake made with home page design is not being clear on your website’s purpose. Because of this, many home pages have either too many calls to action or none at all.

When someone lands on your home page, landing page, squeeze page … whatever, they need to quickly and easily understand the point of being there or they will leave.

They may not like the call to action and leave anyway … but that’s O.K. because when that happens you just avoided working with someone who isn’t your ideal client.

Here are a few common calls to action you can have on your home page. Determine what you want your visitors to do and then make that one call to action the most prominent feature on the home page.

Buy Something
Do you want your visitor to land on your page, desire what you have to offer and plunk down the necessary funds to grab it? Then you need to focus the page on getting the sale. All copy on that page needs to have this one goal in mind: convincing the visitor to buy or leave.

Opt In
Do you want your home page to grow your list? Then you need to focus the page on collecting the name and email address of the visitor. And you need to convince him or her that it will be worth the while. Some opt-in pages are simple … they have a compelling headline naming the key benefit of the opt-in bonus, maybe a sentence or two to clarify the headline and an opt-in form. Others are more complex, using video or audio components to entice the opt in. I’ve even visited squeeze pages that required the visitor to sit through a 10-min (or longer) video before the opt-in form even appears! Which strategy you use depends on the purpose of your list-building efforts.

Engage
Do you want to create a community or gain insight or feedback from your visitors? Then you need to focus the page on engagement. Encourage the visitor to post to the forum, leave a comment, complete a survey … whatever interaction you want them to engage in. These are trickier because people are generally lazy by nature. But, tap into something they are passionate about that you’ve got them hooked.

Want to know what all five deadly mistakes are? Grab a copy of my new book, Home Sweet Home Page: The 5 Deadly Mistakes Authors, Speakers and Coaches Make with Their Website’s Home Page and How To Fix Them! at www.homesweethomepagebook.com. Stop by the website between March 15 and 19, 2010, to join the launch and housewarming party, and download a plethora of free gifts!