Does your website have a strong call to action? What do you want your visitors to do once they visit your site? If you’ve never heard of a “call to action”, or CTA, it’s usually a button that prompts the user to take some form of action. Generally, this is presented with a CTA such as, Buy Now, Subscribe Now, Sign Up, etc. Having a strong call to action is arguably one of the most important parts of your website. To further improve your website’s CTA and user experience, be sure to keep the following principles in mind.
Direction
A strong call to action adds direction to your website. If a user visits your website and there is no clear direction, they will wander around the presented content and eventually leave. Conversely, if you have too many different CTAs on your website, the user may not really know what to click on. The idea is to keep a narrow/strong direction for your CTAs, placing each user in your ideal sales funnel.
Placement
Placement of your call to action is important as well. It’s best to place your main CTA, “above the fold”. Above the fold is an old newspaper term that described content appearing on the top half of the front page of the newspaper. This term has carried over into the world of internet marketing as the content visible upon page load. It’s prime real estate and your strong call to action gives them immediate direction.
Other locations on your website for a call to action may include, the end of a blog post/article, in the side-bar, further down below the fold, and more. The more focus you place on your sales funnel, the more conversions you will see.
Design
The design of your call to action is important as well and should have branded consistency. The design should “pop” with color, outline, or anything that helps it stand out. Your design of choice should also be used with consistency across your website, emails, landing pages, etc. One important thing to mention is the use of white space, which is blank space on the page. Be sure your call to action has adequate white space to give more weight to the action.
Clear Copy
Along with clear presentation, your call to action needs clear, actionable text. Using simple words such as submit, next, or download, lack the necessary clarity. What exactly is the user submitting or clicking next to? This starts to conjure up feelings of uncertainty and avoidance. Instead, tell the user what they need to know. Examples may include, Subscribe Now, Get a Free Demo, Add to Cart, and other actionable verbs. Give the user clear, actionable copy and you’re sure to see higher conversions.
Clear Benefit
Demonstrating a clear benefit is also important when creating your call to action. What does the user get by clicking on the call to action? This is what they refer to as a, “lead magnet”. A lead magnet is basically an incentive you provide your potential buyers in return for their contact information. This is the beginning of your sales funnel and will eventually lead to more sales. An additional technique you can try is to offer value, risk free. Examples would include a money back guarantee, free trial, or anything that removes risk.
Examples of good calls to action:
Officevibe did a good job here targeting each of their markets, team managers and HR leaders. Although those are more secondary CTAs, starting your free trial is very clear and prominent at the top right corner of the page. It’s an actionable CTA that reduces risk by offering a free trial.
Here, Netflix did a great job with their call to action by incorporating a number of the principles I mentioned above. There is plenty of space around the CTA and the bright red color helps it pop against the darker background. They offer a free month subscription, completely reducing risk and the text used is very clear and actionable.
Treehouse is another website that displays a clear benefit and call to action. From the text on the left side, you see what you get from the website. On the right side, you see the required information along with the CTA to claim your free trial. It pops well against the light background, has great branding, and instills trust by offering value for free.
Better CTAs for higher conversion rates
Many people don’t give much thought to buttons on their website, but as you can see, it makes the difference. To recap, here’s what you want to accomplish when improving your websites call to action:
- Give the user a clear direction
- Place your CTA in a clear & visible location
- Give your button a branded, high contrast value presentation
- Give clear, actionable text
- Tell the user what their benefit is by taking action
- Reduce their risk as much as possible
Take these steps to improve not only your website’s call to action, but the overall user experience. The result will be happier customers and higher conversion rates…a win win! What are your thoughts, have you had success by improving your website’s call to action?
