Call to Action Links
November 14th, 2007 by MackIf you been around the Internet for 7 or 8 years, you have watched the revolution of call to action links evolve. A call to action link simply request activity from a reader or potential customer. Some of the most basic call to action links we have seen in the past are click here and buy now. From a guest post on copyblogger by Ben Yoskivitz, 5 types of links.
Sales Links: Sales links are used when driving people to buy something or go down a specific path. You’re driving people through a funnel to try something, sign-up or buy something. Those are sales links. And “click here” is a completely logical choice for those types of links. Heck, you might try CLICK HERE! Or “get your free x today!”, because “free” is generally regarded as a very strong motivator.
Most bloggers don’t deal in “sales links” which is why they’re generally turned off by the bland but effective, “click here”.
During the web 2.0 revolution (if you will) call to action links started to take a different course to better serve another purpose, Search Engine Optimization. These days, call to action links are engaged by enticing offers such as earn 50% commission on all sales or free submissions for the month of November. By simply combining the two architectures of both techniques, you can gain a mass amount of click through and SEO benefit.
Targeting your Audience
I have a website that mostly caters to new web users or n00bs. Through mass amounts of testing, we discovered the “click here” and “buy now” techniques generated 28% more clicks than long tail offers. The majority of this audience are new webmasters and looking to create their first site. So, I think studies have shown that the “click here” method can be very affective, but I think the audience is a very important factor.
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By John Clinebell on Nov 14, 2007 | Reply
Hey this is a great post. Hadn’t thought much about targeting calls to action that aggressively with link text anchors.. SEO experts get their heads more or less stuck in the sand when it comes to that kind of stuff, but if those techniques yield 28% more clicks we should use them.
Too bad the search engines don’t let you use them in PPC ads…
By Mack on Nov 14, 2007 | Reply
Yeah it is amazing how the small things escape marketing sometimes. Thanks for the comment John.
Yeah PPC just wouldn’t have this type of technique. Such calls to action draw too much attention.
By Ped on Nov 17, 2007 | Reply
Personally i only go back 3-4 years using the internet, and im still writing articles with “click here” or “buy now” its kind of weird trying to write articles that include a link, in line if you can follow that. But by seeing the results you explain makes me think is it worth changing my ways for SEO purposes ?
By Mack on Nov 17, 2007 | Reply
Well for SEO purposes yes, because the current search architecture such as SERP position are based mostly on the keywords used in your links. So if your link anchor text is only “Click Here”, you are not going to gain any real SEO benefit from that.
Using something like “click here to read my article about apples” will produce the same amount of click through and more possibilities in the search engine pages (SERPS)