To achieve maximum effectiveness, primary calls-to-action (e.g., add to basket) are usually placed at the top of web pages. Yet, it is equally important to include calls-to-action at the bottom of the pages, too.
You might lose customers who have not selected a call-to-action from the top and will just exit for lack of further push from you. Such calls-to-action are determined by the goals you have set for the site or page.
They may consist of links to the following:
1. Contact details
Contact information should be seen at the bottom of every single page of your website if this is what you want your users to do. Your email address and phone number, along with a short, friendly message like “We’d love to hear from you” can produce more results than a curtly worded “Fill up the form to make an enquiry”.
2. Registering or Signing Up
If getting users to register or sign up (e.g. for a newsletter or an event) is your site’s main objective, place an appropriate call-to-action at the bottom of the page that follows your sales message. If you exerted time and effort to write killer copy, you must end it with a call-to-action so the user knows what the next step is: sign up.
3. Related Products or Services
The user may not find your main products or services to his liking. As he scrolls down without making any action, display images or descriptions of other products or services at the bottom of the page so he’ll have other options to purchase instead of leaving the site with his needs unmet.
4. Social networking bookmarking services
Social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and Digg store web pages and recommend them to other users. Placing a link at the page bottom to these sites will automatically add your web page to users’ bookmarks on that site if they click on the link. The list of users’ bookmarks is open to the public, making other users and search engines aware of the existence of your site.
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How funny:
“Related links: No related links.”
No call to action.
I see more and more of this happening, multiple calls to action on the page is a good thing. Remind the visitor of what you’d like for them to do while at your site.
It would be good to see some data backing this up. I mean, theoretically we could put calls to action on the top, left, bottom left and bottom right of all pages, but that doesn’t mean any more people will click them. I’m not convinced people would prefer to leave the site than scroll up to the button they probably saw when they arrived at the page, and is probably in the place they’d expect to find it anyway.
You got me! I confess…
busy building a new membership site
this one has had to take a back seat for a bit….