Optimizing Your Sales Copy

Part Four - Guide to Increasing Online Sales

Now let's talk about another important aspect of your web site design. It might be better to think of this an approach to the design of your web site or an overall them to your site's content. I'm talking about something called action points or calls to action. A call to action is a term that you might hear direct marketers or advertisers use.

I stated earlier that your web site should take people by the hand and walk them through the process of making a purchase. If designed properly your web site can accomplish this task.

Most web sites are designed without ever giving much thought to what the desired outcome of the site should be. Web sites usually end up trying to be all things to everyone, a confusing mish-mash of information which really doesn't accomplish much at all.

Let's use a simple example to illustrate how calls to action can help to define the purpose of a web site as well as walk customers through the buying process.

Imagine that you have a product that you would like to sell online, say….its an mp3 player. You've hooked up with a cheapo wholesaler and you plan to sell these mp3 players for $50 plus shipping. Now, imagine that you have a web site built, it's a simple web site, you are only selling one type of mp3 player

Your web site features a sales sheet, prices, a description of the product, a few photos of the product and shipping quotes. Stop here for a second, before we go any further we should define what the purpose of the site is. The purpose of the site is to sell this mp3 player, right? Right, so far we have a pretty good idea about what type of content the site requires, we put it all together and come up with a pretty good web site based around this one product. We place a link on the sales page to navigate to a purchase form.

This link is in the form of a button which says " Buy This MP3 Player ". Now this " Buy This MP3 Player " button is our call to action, it's the action that we want our website's visitors to take. The whole web site is built to steer visitors to that desired result. The purpose of the site is clear, every bit of information on the site supports the desired outcome.

Now, if all of this sounds rather obvious to you take a minute to think about how many web sites are not designed this way, th8ink about your own web site and which elements of it support or detract from the achieving the desired result. Think about how many web sites skip the all important step of defining the purpose of the site, defining the main call to action.

Have a look around the internet, do a search from some random products and have a look at the web sites that pop up in search results. Try to determine if these sites have given any thought at all as to what calls to action are.

This whole issue of defining calls to action on a web site may seem simple, and obvious, but it isn't. Some sites have several purposes beyond simply selling a product, some sites have multiple calls to action, some address action points based on level of importance.

A simple call to action such as "Buy this MP3 player" can be the subject of a whole lot of scrutiny and analysis. For instance, should the link be placed at the top or bottom of the sales sheet? Should this be a text link or a graphic? What color should this link be? Does the color of the link really matter? How large should this call to action be? Would another version of this call to action be more effective? Would a link that states, " Buy Now" work better?

I could go on and on but I won't, the point is that calls to action are the method used to direct a sale and as such are an important consideration of your web site design and online sales process.

Think about how action points can and should help to define the design and layout of your web site.

What actions do you want your web site visitors to take?

If your site has more than one call to action, which ones are the most important?

How many steps are required of your visitors to reach the desired goal?

Are your web sites actions points clearly defined and planned?

Does the design, content and layout of your web site support your main call to action?

Have you tested a variety of calls to action and determined the most effective version for your product or service?


Part One - Introduction to Online Sales
Part Two - Web Site Usability
Part Three - Defining Calls to Action
Part Four - Optimizing Sales Copy
Part Five - Online Purchasing Behaviors
Part Six - Price Comparison Behavior
Part Seven - Building Online Trust
Part Eight - Understanding Conversion Rates
Part Nine - The Payment Process
Part Ten - After The Sale

Download this Complete Guide in PDF Format