Living like a normal human on earth everyday we come across a lot of text. Some of it is read, some of it is ignored and some of it just passes our eyes unnoticed. If we start to observe closely, we can distinguish between the text which we read, the text which we ignore and the text which goes unnoticed.
Starting with the text that is read. You look at an article’s heading. You find it interesting. So, you click and you read. That is how it goes. The article in the end might or might not have been useful to you. Considering it being read, you read it.
Talking about the text that we ignore is the one which goes through our eyes and we blatantly ignore. The reason for this ignorance is generally disinterest. Obviously, everyone can’t be interested in reading “How to cook Chicken”.
Then there is this third kind of text on the internet. It simply crosses our eyes and we fail to take notice of it. What can be the reason? Well, it is not actually invisible but might just be a case of a cheesy CTA design.
CTAs are meant to catch clicks and generate leads. Any CTA copy falling in the second or the third category will cause disappointment. And when we talk of examples of such CTA copies, Read more is one.
If the Read More CTA is a conversion killer, why is everyone using it?
This is the first question which most of the people have on their mind when they hear this. True that marketers have been using the Read More CTA for quite a while now. Does it mean you should use it too? Let us look at it in a different and clearer way.
A Read more CTA is quite simple. No doubts in that. Keeping the CTA simple is a good idea. But apart from being simple and straightforward, a “Read More” means work. And for the matter of fact, “work” is the last thing anyone wants to indulge in.
To make your CTA really perform for you, you need to offer the users something that truly interests them. Also, if a visitor on your website prefers visual content over written text, the Read More CTA will totally turn the user down. That is how you will lose leads and hence sales.
Also, if we talk about targeting a particular niche, the audience will obviously vary. Along with the audience will vary the interests and behaviours. A Read more might be useful for a website like Goodreads. It anyway receives visitors who are read books and are curious to know more about those books.
Targeting an audience which wants a quicker solution or is usually busy, you will have to filter the “Read More” CTA out. Instead using something more creative and appealing will help. It’s just that your Calls-to-action mustn’t ask the user to do any work. The more work these buttons ask for, less likely will be the user to click-through.
What is the solution?
When you are to target an audience which just cares about facts and you are hardly interested to convert in (as if that will ever happen), you won’t need to worry too much about the use of words.
You can use words like Read more for an audience which would be interested in reading more facts. Although, there still can be better alternatives, a Read more CTA won’t be the worst to use.
Targeting a specific group of users having specific interests will be different. Using Read more for such an audience will be a vague invitation. Users on your website might be looking for watching an explainer video or be wanting to get a free Ebook or a copy of your whitepaper.
Using a Read more will be a very simple, general and unspecific approach in such cases.
Find out what they want
The purpose of a CTA campaign is to tempt the users to click-through. Do you know what really tempts your users? Do you know their specific interests? If you don’t, can you find out? And if you can, how specific can you be with that?
The questions above are just for you to ask to your own self. If you search the internet with the keyword “how to make a 1000$ blog in 6 months” and reach a website which has a content that is satisfying you, wouldn’t you want to “Boost your Search Traffic in 7 Days”? I guess you would.
Considering the paragraph above, “how to make a 1000$ blog in 6 months is the keyword that you searched for. It might have landed you on a webpage with a similar title. “Boost your Search Traffic in 7 Days” is an example of CTA here.
Users looking forward to building a 1000$ blog in 6 months would be interested in boosting search traffic to their blog in 7 days. And then? They will click through. Fill the details and Join. What else does a lead mean?
A simple Read more would never get any attention in this situation, would it?
So what can you use?
As discussed in the section above a vague approach while writing the CTA copy will not really help. To write a CTA which really converts, you would need to be a little more specific. Being specific here means to be specific about your users’ needs.
If you are working in a niche and targeting a specific audience, you should be aware of what actually will make them click. If it doesn’t strike your head quick, give it a thought maybe. Brainstorming about this will be a good idea if that helps you reach a conclusion.
The plan is to be specific. You have to serve the visitors with what they want. Anything more or less than that might make them bounce. For example if you are aiming to sell a product to an audience which does not take interest in reading text blocks, using “Read more” will be a bad idea. Instead you can use the following:
- View more
- Learn more
- Find out more
- Get this article Free
It’s just about giving them what they want and as we mentioned above, work is the last thing anyone wants.
Also, mentioned above were some alternatives for a specific type of audience. One can always find other better alternatives of Read more. A few of those are mentioned below.
- See Full _____ (i.e. Article, Infographic)
- See What Happens Next
- Get My [Insert Offer Type]!
- Find My _____ (i.e. eBook, Plan, Article)
- Explore More
- Find Out More
- See More _____ (i.e. Options, Info, Product Type)
- Discover More
- View My _____ (i.e. Whitepaper, Webinar)
- Show Me More
- Tell Me More
- Get More Info
Alternatives mentioned above might not be all, but are tempting for sure. Lead generation is an art which needs to be practiced. You can’t really master it without brainstorming. And everytime you think the CTA and the whole design through, you will find something better and something worse.
Figuring out the better will guide you further.
Final words
One of the most common CTA copy text is Read More. Still the credibility of it is under doubts for the impression that it gives. Finding a Read More button will turn off any user who is not inclined towards reading text for information.
With visual content gaining more and more popularity on the web, reading more will hardly attract clicks.