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Call Your Readers to ACTION [Day 23: 31DBBB]

Posted: 28 Apr 2009 03:50 AM PDT

Today’s task in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge is another writing oriented one - it’s to write a post that contains some kind of a ‘Call to Action’.

While this type of post might not be one that you’ll use all of the time it is a handy style of post to have in your tool belt of blogging techniques as in the life of most blogs there are times that you want your readers to go beyond just ‘reading’ and to take some kind of action.

The types of actions this might include could be many and include:

Implementing something that you’ve written about
Subscribing to your RSS feed or an email newsletter
Buying an Affiliate Product
Writing a Comment
Voting in a Poll
Making a Donation to a Charity
Voting for you on a social bookmarking site
Buying a product that you’ve developed
Visiting another site
Hiring you for some service that you offer
To read something else you’ve written on your blog
Visiting your business site

The list could go on… and on….

Some of the ‘actions’ that you’ll want to call people to do are things that will benefit your blog and others are things that are just about applying the types of things you’re writing about (and of course some will benefit both you and your reader).

The ‘Problem’ of Passive Readers

While the above list might seem like a list of fairly simple things to get readers to do the reality is that most blog readers are fairly passive. Looking at my own blogs I’d estimate that less than 1% actually make comments and that the vast majority of those who come to my blogs leave without ‘doing’ anything.

Talking to other bloggers I get the feeling that I’m not the only one with passive readers. How about you… would you like to have a more active and interactive readership?

How do we snap readers out of passivity?

Learning how to call your readers to ‘action’ is not something that happens over night. There are some techniques that I can point you to that will help - but the best way to learn how to do it is to practice your calls to action and see what works best for you.

Hence… today’s task - to write a ‘Call to Action’ post.

Before you attempt today’s task I would highly recommend that you read my recent post - 12 Tips to SNAP Readers out of Passivity.

It contains some useful tips and techniques that will help you in today’s task. Once you’ve read it all you need to do before writing your post is to choose the action that you want your readers to take.

If you’ve not done this type of thing before choose something simple and achievable (eg. getting readers to comment or subscribing to your feed). Another option might be to write about a book that you’ve read and recommend and call people to action to buy it at Amazon with an affiliate link.

Really the action that you’ll want to call people to will depend upon the goals of your blog.

Once you’ve written your post I’d love to hear how you go with it.