RedGage

Write a post that contains some kind of a call to action
This kind of post must not occur frequently on your blog as it will lose its importance but it is important tool to use to spark some kind of reaction from your bloggers. As in the life of most blogs there are times where you want your readers to go beyond reading and take some kind of action. 

This might include many types of actions, such as:

The list could go on … and on… Some of the actions that you’ll want to call people to do will benefit your blog while others will be about applying the ideas 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 fairly simple things to encourage readers to do, the reality is that most blog readers are 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 have the feeling that I’m only one of many 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 won’t happen 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 is to write a call to action post.

If you’ve not done this type of thing before, choose a task that’s simple and achievable (for example, persuading readers to comment or subscribe to your feed). Another option might be to write about a book that you have read and would 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 went with it.

1. Relevancy is Key—ask readers to DO perform an action that is relevant to your blog's topic. This might sound a little obvious but I've seen a lot of bloggers throw posts into the mix that call people to do tasks that are unrelated to their normal blogging. The more relevant the call the more chance that people will respond.

2. Build a Culture of Action—one of the aspects I've noticed about building interactive blogs is that it often takes time. When I first start a blog, it’s usual that’s there’s only a few comments (if any), hardly anyone votes in polls, nobody responds to affiliate invitations, you catch my drift. However, in time it’s possible to build up reader activity on your blog.
My recommendation is to start with simple calls that encourage your readers to start interacting with you and DOING something—comments, answering questions, participating in polls, and so on. In time, once readers’ start taking ownership you can try other stronger calls to action.

3. Break Through with Humor—this will only apply to some blogs but I've seen a number of bloggers have readers participating by asking them to do something a little light-hearted and humorous. For example, some of the bloggers in our forum area ran a mini competition inviting readers to submit a caption for a funny photo and had some good results.

4. Set Homework—one of the reasons that this challenge has been working so well with my own readers on OMWGA (that'd be you) is that I've worked hard to make every day in the series practical with its own task. I've tried to include ways for people to take the teaching in the posts and apply them in practice straight away. Readers seem to be appreciating this, as they not only learn the theory but are able to bed it down in an experience with the homework task.