Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [119]
Remove Bland Imperatives
Imperative sentences are commands, and no one likes being told what to do. Anyone who has children knows the first question after being told what to do: “why?”
Through my own testing, I tend to see that users simply ignore bland imperative sentences in calls to action. However, when the imperative is replaced with an assertion (see Chapter 7) or an invitation, the visitor looks more favorably upon the action that you want them to take. For example, replacing the word submit with sign up or subscribe is much more inviting. Simply changing a few words in your content can result in a much broader appeal and a better draw for visitors. In a test on the site Which Test Won? (a wonderful usability resource at http://whichtestwon.com/test-4-results?pollid=4), the Cabot Heritage Foundation improved its subscription rate by testing two calls to action:
Send My Free Report
Start My Free Subscription
Cabot replaced the original text (Send My Free Report) with the second version (Start My Free Subscription), and the conversion rate dropped by 23 percent. The choice of a few words, which may seem innocuous, can significantly affect your business. Using words that describe the action and the benefit can make a call to action more inviting, more accessible, and friendlier to your audience.
Using the visitor’s intention to reinforce the call to action is a particularly powerful presentation. The popular blog-software provider, WordPress.org, uses this because the page presents the call to action as a bold blue link that says Download WordPress 3.0 (see Figure 11-13). The primary action meets with the purpose of the website and the expectations of the visitor.
Figure 11-13: WordPress.org: call to action link label
Don’t Focus on RSS
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a web-feed technology that marketers, journalists, technophiles, and news junkies absolutely love. However, the broader audience has no idea what RSS is, means, or even looks like. To the rest of us, RSS is a means of sending information from one source to many sources. This information can be displayed on another website, a news feed, or a news website and can be displayed in any customized format. Marketers like RSS technology as a means of allowing readers to subscribe to content.
However, the broader population has very little idea what RSS is. In a 2008 report, Forrester found that only 11 percent of consumers used RSS (What’s Holding RSS Back? Katz, 2008). However, half of online marketers used RSS. Even the RSS icon (Figure 11-14) is used as a conversion point on thousands of websites—sometimes by itself and sometimes with “What is RSS?” text. Either way, it is unfamiliar to the greater population of Internet users. Yet, thousands of websites rely on this icon to promote their website or blog.
©iStockphoto.com/[Angelhell].
Figure 11-14: RSS icon
This is a simple example of how online technology far exceeds the abilities of the average consumer base. Marketers and programmers are far out front in the technological race and the applications, but the larger consumer market is still far behind in adopting, understanding, and applying these technologies.
If your audience can’t recognize the RSS symbol or has no idea what a reader is, don’t waste time in explaining these objects and functions. (If the visitor doesn’t have an RSS reader already, they’ll need to get one in order to subscribe. If a visitor is not using a reader already, what do you think the chances are of retaining a visitor when they subscribe with an unfamiliar technology?)
Diminishing RSS
As of late 2010, ComScore shows that readers accessing website content via RSS feeds has been dropping significantly. Google Reader’s visits are down 27 percent, and Bloglines (another RSS reader) has dropped 71 percent over the past few years.
There are a few reasons for this drop. The first can simply be summed up in only a short sentence. My parents don’t understand RSS. I’ve explained it, and I’ve demonstrated it, but they don’t get it. Now, they are both very highly educated