A call to action (CTA) is a simple instruction presented to a visitor to your website to encourage them to take some kind of action.
Before you invest a lot of money in having a website professionally designed for you, it’s really important to know what your primary call to action will be. The whole point of your website is to convert visitors into clients. The last thing you want is for a visitor to leave your website without doing what you want them to do. Having a clear call to action can help with conversions.
Some examples of a call to action are:
- Learn more
- Download your freebie
- Fill out your contact form
- Book a call
- Buy a product
- Sign up for your newsletter
- Share your blog post
- Follow you on Facebook
- Promote an event
A call to action should be very simple and very clear. It should include a verb that clearly directs the visitor on what they should do next such as click, call, download or register.
Now you may be asking yourself, where should I put a call to action?
The answer is you should have a call to action on every single page of your website! That way visitors will have no question as to what to do. You want to make it as simple as possible for them. And, generally don’t have more than one call to action on each page. Confusion will often cause a visitor to take no action.
It takes some work for CTAs to be effective. You can’t just place them anywhere on your page and hope to get conversions. You really need to think carefully about the color you’re using, the wording you’re using and the placement.
Some things to consider are:
- CTAs need to be spotted easily. This can be achieved by using one color only for CTA’s. An example of this can be found on the website I designed for Designs by Kyong where we used a deep coral color.
- Visitors need to know instantly what to do
- CTAs can’t be hard to read
- A call to action should be simple and clear – not confusing
The goal of a call to action is to prompt a visitor to your website to take action at the right time on the right page.
CTAs need to be well designed, well written and well placed in order to be successful. The goal is to move a visitor from the consideration stage to the decision-making stage.
Website’s can have multiple CTAs but don’t go crazy. I think it’s best to have one primary call to action on your website and secondary CTAs depending on the page. Where you place your call to action is almost as important as what you say in it.
CTAs are delicate – there’s a fine line between guiding and bothering. If your copy is compelling and visitors see the value in your offer, they will take the next step. A pop up asking them to sign up for your newsletter when they don’t know you and they’ve only been on your site for two seconds is going to annoy them.
When deciding where to place a call to action, you should map out how a visitor will flow through your website. That will help you to figure out the best place for a call to action. It may take a bit of testing to find out the best placement, copy, colors, fonts and design. But, it’s worth it.
Having an effective call to action will convert visitors to customers and isn’t that the goal of your website after all?
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