At Island Media Management we work on a lot of SEO projects for local Bali based companies and a lot of the time we see two key ingredients missing from their websites.
CTA, or “Call to Action” and “Customer Retention”
I am going to explain what these are and then show you some good examples so that you can start to apply them to your own websites.
Are you ready to learn something new? (apologies if you already know this)
SEO & Call to Action
As I mentioned having a great Call to Action on your website is crucial for any SEO campaign. But what is call to action?
Wikipedia is always a good place to get a definition –
A call to action, or CTA, is a banner, button, or some type of graphic or text on a website meant to prompt a user to click it and continue down a conversion funnel.
I very nice example of a Call to Action is with our very well known Drop box web site. It could not be much clearer, could it?
Sign up….. or Sign in! This is an effective Call to Action.
When your web customers come to your page, are you asking them to do something? Common call to actions could be:
1. Sign up / Sign in 2. Contact us / email us 3. Join our mailing list 4. See this new product
What you use depends on what the overall goal of your page is. If you are a hotel in Bali then perhaps you want to get your customers to “Book now” or “check availability”.
You get the picture? Consider adding a Call to Action on all of your product / landing pages to improve conversion. Google Analytics’s is a great tool to use to check how well your pages are converting. You can set specific goals (pages, images, files, etc) to determine if the people coming to your page ended up where you wanted them to.
SEO & Customer retention
So let’s move onto online customer retention as this is somewhat different to Call to Action.
When we talk about online customer retention we are looking at how we keep the client on your web property as long as possible and engaged with you. There is some debate although the general consensus is that if people are spending more time on your website then search engines are going to assume your site offers better value to the end user, resulting in better search engine rankings. Of course, the more people get to know you and your brand the higher chance you have of conversion, and long term retention of the customer.
If your website has great Call to Action you will still get to a stage when the client needs to go somewhere else!
The are a number of ways that you can keep your clients interested once they have already been through the relevant information on your website:
1. Create a blog – this is a great way for people to get more useful information, rather than product information. A good blog is going to be shared amongst peoples friends and social networks.
2. Direct them to your social networks. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and the rest are all great ways to keep people connected with you and your brand.
3. Sign up for an e-newsletter or an e-brochure. Encouraging people to share their email address in return for a monthly newsletter or useful brochure is an effective way to retain customers. With your email database you can create monthly email campaigns.
Conclusion
Take a look at your site and ask yourself these two questions:
a. On my product pages does my website ask my customers to do something, and is it clear?
b. Does my website also try to divert customers to your blog, social media outlets or email marketing campaigns?
If the answer is no then you may need to get the professionals involved. At Island Media Management we can assess your website and provide information on how you can improve your online presence. If you are a Bali based business then we are always happy to arrange a face to face meeting to discuss your needs, or you are welcome to contact us through email.
