13 Common Mistakes Marketers Make With Calls-to-Action Buttons

1) Overselling and Under-Delivering


Your call-to-action sets certain expectations with your visitor -- the language you use tells them what they're going to get if they redeem your offer. The thing is, sometimes calls-to-action promise the sun and the moon to ensure they capture a click, but then don't actually deliver on those high-falutin' promises. Let's take a random CTA from HubSpot's website as an example:







This call-to-action to subscribe to our blog promises the visitor that he or she will receive email updates of HubSpot blog content, and that content will cover all inbound marketing topics like SEO, blogging, social media, and the other topics listed in the copy above. You know what would really grind our visitors' gears? If they don't end up getting what that call-to-action promises. If we aren't able to live up to our end of the bargain -- let's say we stop writing about social media, for example -- it's crucial to remove that promise from the CTA copy so we aren't accused of pulling the ol' bait and switch and losing the trust of our audience.


2) Using Different Language in Your CTA and Landing Page


You know what's just as bad as pulling the ol' bait and switch described in mistake number one? Having your visitors think you did ... when you really didn't. This sort of confusion happens when the copy in your call-to-action appears to say something totally different than the copy on your landing page, leading visitors to believe that filling out your landing page form will not truly yield the offer your call-to-action promised. For example, see this CTA that offers the visitor a free webinar and report on the state of inbound marketing in 2012?


It works because it's followed by a landing page that uses those exact same words, phrases, and even image so the visitor enjoys a consistent experience from CTA to landing page.





3) Blending In


Really great designers are able to make calls-to-action that have the same visual appeal as the rest of your website -- sometimes even the exact same skin. The problem with this is that the CTAs are so well designed, they blend in with the other elements on the page and your visitor doesn't even notice them. Whether you're using a text or visual CTA, make sure it really "pops" out at you. With text CTAs, this means using a different color for hyperlinks so it's clear to readers that the text is clickable and an action can be taken. For visual CTAs, this means you should use a color that starkly contrasts the rest of your page. So if you have a white and blue background, for example, you should use red or orange call-to-action buttons so your visitors can easily identify where to go to redeem your offer.


4) Making it Hard to Find


It's not enough to be bold in color; you have to be big, too! That means your call-to-action is big enough to be seen clearly so visitors aren't left hunting for your button -- or not even realizing there is a button to click in the first place. And remember that a giant call-to-action means nothing if it appears below the fold (meaning visitors have to scroll down on the page to see it). Before publishing a new page or sending a new email, test different browsers and email clients to ensure the CTA appears above the fold for everyone.


5) Using Vague, Passive Language


It's not that your visitors are dumb ... they're not! They're just really busy, and multi-tasking their butts off. That means they don't have time to read through vague language and figure out what you want them to do. It's up to you to tell them exactly what you want them to do by using strong, active language. Take a look at this advertisement from the Discovery Channel,

What am I supposed to do with dead sea scrolls? Well, if I go all the way to the bottom right of the ad, there's some very small text that tells me I'm supposed to buy tickets to see the exhibit. The problem is, most eyes will only glance at the large, headline copy at the top of this ad, and be left wondering what action they're meant to perform. Adding in a verb like "view," "explore," or "visit" would make it much clearer for visitors that they have the opportunity to actually interact with these scrolls.

6) Not Conveying Value

It's easy to narrow down your offer -- you're promoting an ebook about SEO, a kit about mobile marketing, or a free trial of your software. What's not easy is identifying and conveying the value of that offer -- or what I like to call the "so what?" If you can't explain to a visitor why your offer is going to help them in some way, why would they click through to redeem it? Take a look at this call-to-action for an ebook about, well, calls-to-action.

Instead of simply directing visitors to download the free ebook about calls-to-action, the copy called out in orange above explains why the content therein is valuable -- readers will learn how to direct better traffic to their offers, and generate more leads for their business!


7) Being Too Wordy


Like I mentioned in mistake number 5, your readers are busy and have their attention split between many tasks. So the quicker you can get to the point, the better your click-through rate will be. In fact, HubSpot Social Media Scientist Dan Zarrella conducted some research to determine the ideal length of a press release headline to get people clicking, and found that the sweet spot was between 90 and 150 characters. Use this as a guide when crafting your own CTA headlines, and remove extraneous words from your copy that don't help clarify meaning or convey value for your visitors.


8) Not Leveraging Numbers


One creative way to alleviate wordiness is by using numbers. I've said it before on this blog -- just as a picture's worth a thousand words, sometimes, so is a data point when you're trying to convey a concept within a constrained character limit. For example, our blog subscription call-to-action leverages numbers and the power of social proof with the sentence, "Join 57,702 others and subscribe now!" Or, one could use numbers to set expectations like we do in our 15 Business Blogging Mistakes ebook call-to-action -- reiterating that the ebook will provide 15 steps lets the visitor know just how in-depth this offer will be.


9) Misaligning CTAs With the Visitor's Stage in the Sales Cycle


Here's the thing ... if someone's on your pricing page, they're probably a bit further along in the sales process than if they're checking out your blog content. It would be a huge miss if the call-to-action on your pricing page was something as low-commitment as an ebook download! Instead, make sure you're offering something that's more purchase-oriented, like a free trial, a coupon, or the opportunity to speak with a salesperson. If you need a refresher on which offers align with which stages in the sales cycle, take a peek at this table we created!


10) Having Competing CTAs on Landing Pages

Calls-to-action are one of those things in marketing where more is not always better. To get a visitor to convert on your landing pages, you need to provide the utmost focus. So while calls-to-action are important, having more than one on your landing page will cause some serious distraction and harm your landing page conversion rates.

So if you, say, send a visitor to a landing page that asks him or her to redeem your complimentary guide to high fashion unicorn hair styles, you can imagine why they might get confused if on that same landing page you also prompt them to redeem a complimentary consultation with a unicorn groomer. Having a competing call-to-action of this nature will take away from the impact of the landing page.

11) Having No Secondary CTAs

But all of this doesn't mean you shouldn't have some secondary calls-to-action in other parts of your marketing! Here's the thing ... your visitors might not be ready to click your primary CTA and fill out a form. But they may be ready to subscribe to your blog, follow you on Twitter, or like you on Facebook. We just started applying this principle to our very own blog, in fact. Take a look at the two calls-to-action in the bottom of our blog posts:

The 15 Business Blogging Mistakes ebook is our primary call-to-action, but we supplement it with a secondary call-to-action below that gives visitors that aren't interested in the ebook another option -- subscribing to our blog! Neglecting to include secondary calls-to-action on your blog articles, thank-you pages, and in email copy is a lost opportunity to engage with visitors and leads in more diverse ways than just collecting information about them to beef up their lead record.

12) Forgetting to Put CTAs on Just About Every Single Marketing Thing You Do

You know that every email and blog post should have a call-to-action. But did you know there are plenty of other places in your marketing materials that you can make use of CTAs? If not, you're guilty of this mistake -- and seriously missing out on some lead generation opportunities. We've written an entire blog post outlining important places to put CTAs in your marketing, but here are just a few: your Twitter background, in LinkedIn Answers, within your public presentations, and in your marketing videos.
Was your mind just blown at the lead generation potential? We sure hope so.

13) Not Testing and Iterating

Despite everything in this blog post, there's one thing every marketer knows -- the truth is in the numbers. That means you should make it a common practice to test the design, placement, and copy of your calls-to-action to find what combination performs best for you. The thing is, the tips in this post are all best practices that dictate how most businesses find success with their CTAs. But there are always exceptions to the rule! See what tweaks you can make to your own calls-to-action that will improve your click-through rate, even if those changes flout conventions.

How does Google view font replacement?

How does Google find Copy content from world wide web .

                         Answered by Matt Cutts

Thanks And Regards 

After announcing Webmaster Tools spring cleaning earlier this quarter, it’s time to do the job. There are a few changes coming along: an updated navigation, revamped dashboard, and a compact view for the home page site-list.
We’ve regrouped the features in Webmaster Tools to create an improved navigation structure (shown on the left-hand side of the above image). We distinguished the following groups: Configuration, Health, Traffic and Optimization. Each group represents a related set of functionality:

    Configuration: Things you configure and generally don’t change very often.
    Health: Where you look to make sure things are OK.
    Traffic: Where you go to understand how your site is doing in Google search, who’s linking to you; where you can explore the data about your site.
    Optimization: Where you can find ideas to enhance your site, which enables us to better understand and represent your site in Search and other services.


If you have a moment, please take time to familiarize yourself with the new Webmaster Tools navigation. Some features were slightly renamed, such as HTML Suggestions became HTML Improvements, however the functionality remains the same.

Hoping you’ll find the new navigation useful, we also think you’ll like the new Dashboard. At the top of the Dashboard you can see recent, important, prioritized messages regarding your site. Just below that, you’ll find another section which provides a brief summary of the current status of your site. There are three widgets displayed: Crawl Errors, Search Queries and Sitemaps, each representing a different navigation group: Health, Traffic and Optimization (respectively). We know your time is valuable. With the new Dashboard, we've surfaced more messages and charts to let you see how your site is doing at a glance. Take a quick look before diving into the details.

Finally, those of you who manage a large number of sites can choose to view your site-list in a 'Compact' layout, without the large site-preview thumbnails. Don't worry, if you want the more expanded layout you can always switch back.

Does Google consider SEO to be spam? | SEO spam News

Answered By Matt Cutt 

Another step to reward high-quality sites

Google has said before that search engine optimization, or SEO, can be positive and constructive—and we're not the only ones. Effective search engine optimization can make a site more crawlable and make individual pages more accessible and easier to find. Search engine optimization includes things as simple as keyword research to ensure that the right words are on the page, not just industry jargon that normal people will never type.

“White hat” search engine optimizers often improve the usability of a site, help create great content, or make sites faster, which is good for both users and search engines. Good search engine optimization can also mean good marketing: thinking about creative ways to make a site more compelling, which can help with search engines as well as social media. The net result of making a great site is often greater awareness of that site on the web, which can translate into more people linking to or visiting a site.

The opposite of “white hat” SEO is something called “black hat webspam” (we say “webspam” to distinguish it from email spam). In the pursuit of higher rankings or traffic, a few sites use techniques that don’t benefit users, where the intent is to look for shortcuts or loopholes that would rank pages higher than they deserve to be ranked. We see all sorts of webspam techniques every day, from keyword stuffing to link schemes that attempt to propel sites higher in rankings.

The goal of many of our ranking changes is to help searchers find sites that provide a great user experience and fulfill their information needs. We also want the “good guys” making great sites for users, not just algorithms, to see their effort rewarded. To that end we’ve launched Panda changesthat successfully returned higher-quality sites in search results. And earlier this year we launched apage layout algorithm that reduces rankings for sites that don’t make much content available “above the fold.”

In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can't divulge specific signals because we don't want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.
 

Thanks and Regards 

Feedback on our recent algorithm update ("Penguin")

Penguin! Google Fights Back Against Spam

If your website has been affected by Google’s Penguin update, and you have not resorted to any of the SEO methods that would have been unacceptable by Google, firstly check that you do not have incoming links from suspicious websites.

If you are confident you have been penalised by mistake, you can contact Google’s web spam team to request the review of your ranking using this form.

Why my website efficted by Google Penguin ???????

Because...........Your website contain "black hat SEO” include the following methods  

Keyword stuffing – including lots of keywords within the content, usually at the expense of readability, so that search engine spiders are tricked into thinking the website’s content is particularly relevant

Hidden text – sometimes website owners place white text, packed with keywords, on white background, which means search engines see it, but users don’t. This technique is often used to carry out keyword stuffing without impacting the quality of the written content presented to users, and also in order to optimise websites for popular topics which have nothing to do with what the website is actually about.

Cloaking – showing one page to users and another to search engines based on the IP address. This is achieved by the IP addresses of search engines being interpreted as if they were from their own country.

Article spinning – re-using popular articles multiples of times by simply restructuring the content and replacing a portion of words with synonyms. This technique is penalised when used for re-jigging plagiarised articles.

Buying links – in SEO it’s always been important to have links from relevant and/or reputable websites to build up your reputation in Google’s eyes. However, it is important how you acquire those precious incoming links. Google is all about the relevant content and natural links, whereby people link to your website because it provides great content, not because you paid them to.

How to Fight Google Penguin | Google Penguin Matt Cutt | Google New Algorithm

                Change your Strategy for Organic Link Building ??? 

                                                           Answer By Matt Cutt

Google Penguin Creates Mass Unemployment in India | Loss of Google Penguin Update | Google Panda 3.6

Today internet workers protested outside Google Mumbai. Google’s recent algorithm change (called Penguin) has created widespread unemployment in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.  The Penguin update effected low quality SEO/link building services, much of  which was being outsourced by the US.   It is estimated that 80% of the worlds link building was carried out in India, many of the top SEO firms in the UK and Europe outsourcing work here.   They are now having to change the way they work and find new solutions, many not having the knowledge themselves.

One US Digital Marketing agency stated:

“90% of our business was outsourced to India, we assumed they had the knowledge to keep Google happy but we were wrong”

One Indian ‘SEO Expert’, Steve Patel,  used to work 15 hour per day ‘spinning’ content and uploading it to a large network of sites for US/UK clients. His youngest son, Ashwad (6yrs), had also been taught how to link build.  ”Ashwad was getting very good on programmes like Xrummer, but now his future is in jeopardy”

Matt Cutts (head of Google webspam team) is expected to address the angry crowds tomorrow via video link from Google HQ.  He is expected to offer them support and ask them to watch some of his Webmaster Tools videos on how to link build the Google way.

“If you see a funny picture post it on your blog…you can get a lot of links very quickly”

Google’s New Policy is Very UnGoogle

Google’s new privacy policy has just come into effect, and caused quite a bit of fuss in the process. Online privacy has become a hot topic lately, so it was inevitable that any changes Google made to how it treats user data would come under the microscope.
If you look closely enough, you’ll see that Google’s new policy is actually very unGoogle.
What’s the new policy? 
On the face of it, the policy is innocuous enough. Google says they are merely amalgamating their 60 or so individual privacy policies (one for each product) into one simplified, streamlined policy that covers all of their properties: from the search engine to YouTube via Gmail and AdWords.
However, this amalgamation also means that they can now trade data between these products in a way they’ve previously been unable to. Most controversially, they can now feed more data into the AdWords and AdSense packages that comprise 97% of Google’s revenue.
Why is it UnGoogle?
Although to a certain extent the trade off between data and free services has always been made clear, the new privacy policy is actually very opaque.
On the eve of the policy coming into effect, French regulators CNIL, on behalf of the EU, declared the policy to be “unlawful” as well as calling it unfair. The reason being that the policy doesn’t go into enough detail about what data the company will collect on its users, and how that will be shared amongst its various products.
And although users are given the option of opting out of data tracking (see below), this is arguably not made sufficiently clear, or instructions on how to do so given sufficient prominence.
The EU statement also pointed out that given the lack of information in the policy on what data will be collected and how, Google’s actual practices come into question. By not providing enough information, we are left to only guess at what goes on behind the scenes, which may involve further contravention of European data protection legislation.
Given that Google has managed to climb its way to official Web Overlord status without too many eyelids being batted thanks to a benign reputation, this shadiness over data protection and privacy is alarming. The company’s famed motto – “don’t be evil” is looking a little smudged these days; as is its reputation for being a champion of openness and transparency online – key to the brand’s success.
This blurring of privacy lines could be incredibly damaging for Google. Following the announcement of the new policy, and in the wake of numerous anti-trust suits brought against the company in both Europe and America over privacy issues related to Google’s data collection for its Street View service, Microsoft have launched a hard hitting ad campaign openly criticising Google on privacy issues in a bid to win users over to Bing.
What can you do about it?
You can opt out of data tracking. From your Google account, go to www.google.com/history and hit ‘pause’. If your only option is ‘turn on web history’ you’re already in the clear.
However, unlike the new privacy policy, this doesn’t cover you for every Google product. You may also wish to switch off viewing history in YouTube  and opt out of personalised adverts .
It should be noted that these are strictly opt out and only apparent to those determined to look for them.
What do you think? Is Google’s new policy UnGoogle? Is it time to switch to Bing?