Dustin Curtis has written a great article on the use of split testing and how he used it to find out what text at the bottom of each of his posts generated the biggest click through to his twitter page - starting with basic statements such as 'I'm on Twitter' through to strong commands, like 'You should follow me on twitter' all the way up to explicit call-outs: 'You should follow me on twitter here'.
It's not that surprising that the stronger the command the higher the clickthrough rate (from 4.7% for the basic statement to 10.09% to the strong command). However, more interesting is that by adding the literal call-out ('here'), click-through rates increased by a further 27%, to 12.81%. This is a pretty big jump.
Many developers and designers view literal call-outs like this as ugly and unnecessary from a user experience point of view, and that it should be replaced by easy visual cues such as link colours, underlines etc. However, as Dustin's article clearly shows, these aren't enough by themselves to really drive action - telling people explicitly where to click, in words, will drive more engagement. It could be that for the vast majority of people, words are much more inherently understood that visual cues (unlike designers, who are more likely to think visually).
This is also a great example of how simple A/B split testing (read the original article for his methodology) can increase click-through rates by 173%. This is a huge number, especially if you're running a commercial website or application that can translate those clicks to users and revenue, and shows the huge importance of carrying out proper split tests on any major call to action (something that lots of people talk about, but that few really carry out).
So, it may not be pretty, but more important is what works. You should follow me on twitter here.
It's not that surprising that the stronger the command the higher the clickthrough rate (from 4.7% for the basic statement to 10.09% to the strong command). However, more interesting is that by adding the literal call-out ('here'), click-through rates increased by a further 27%, to 12.81%. This is a pretty big jump.
Many developers and designers view literal call-outs like this as ugly and unnecessary from a user experience point of view, and that it should be replaced by easy visual cues such as link colours, underlines etc. However, as Dustin's article clearly shows, these aren't enough by themselves to really drive action - telling people explicitly where to click, in words, will drive more engagement. It could be that for the vast majority of people, words are much more inherently understood that visual cues (unlike designers, who are more likely to think visually).
This is also a great example of how simple A/B split testing (read the original article for his methodology) can increase click-through rates by 173%. This is a huge number, especially if you're running a commercial website or application that can translate those clicks to users and revenue, and shows the huge importance of carrying out proper split tests on any major call to action (something that lots of people talk about, but that few really carry out).
So, it may not be pretty, but more important is what works. You should follow me on twitter here.
