What action would you take if you saw a button on a website with an instruction that read “Click to Win a Car NOW!” Chances are you’ll click the button right away to find out what your new set of wheels is. However, instead of getting the information about your ride, the web page is asking for your information to qualify for a raffle to win a new car.
Whether you felt disappointed or not, the button did its job. It called on you to act. And you followed the command to click on the button and ended up on the contest page. If you decided not to give your information, it wouldn’t matter as much to the business because for sure others did.
Imagine if 100 clicked on the button every day. Even if only 20% signed up for the raffle, that’s 20 leads generated per day. In one month, the website would have gathered 600 fresh leads.
And if the business can convert 20% of the 600 leads into sales – that’s 120 new sales for the month!
Now, what if that was your business website?
That’s what an effective Call-to-Action or CTA does. It has the power to compel website visitors to do what you want them to do. A powerful CTA can create opportunities for your business to hit its goal.
What Is A CTA?
Check the “Promotions” section of your email. How many newsletters did you subscribe to?
Can you recall the number of online classes you signed up for? If you go over your “Downloads” folder, you might find a few PDF e-books or research papers that you availed for free.
These acts are a result of coming across effective CTAs that were powerful enough to compel you to subscribe to newsletters, sign up for online classes, and download e-books.
A CTA is a command or a specific instruction that you want website visitors to take as a step toward accomplishing a specific goal.
And that is the keyword right there – “command”.
The average attention span of a person is 8.25 seconds. That’s not much time to reel him in hook, line, and sinker. Your CTA must be strong enough that the site visitor won’t second-guess your instruction.
A weak CTA or one that sounds unsure will show the exit door to the site user. He’ll just click out of your website and visit another one.
If the current CTAs on your website aren’t delivering results, it’s not because CTAs don’t work. It’s because you have weak CTAs.
In this article, we’ll show you how to design a CTA button that is strong enough to improve the conversion rate of your website. Before we go into the details…did you know that there are different types of CTAs and that you can have more than one?
What Are The Types Of CTA?
In our previous example, the CTA button took the site visitor to the contest landing page. On an e-commerce website, the CTA button might take the site visitor to the product information page or the shopping portal itself.
Whatever your objective is, there’s a CTA to help you accomplish it.
There are 5 types of CTAs to consider for your website.
1. Home Page CTA
When you click on a URL on the search results page, you’ll likely end up on the Home Page. The first thing you’ll see is a phrase that tells you what the website is all about, how it can help you, and why clicking on its URL was the right decision.
That phrase is called the Brand Value Proposition or BVP – a statement that summarizes the overall value of the website for its customers.
- What is the website all about?
- How can the website help you?
- Why you clicked on the right URL.
A powerful CTA goes hand-in-hand with a well-crafted BVP that immediately resonates with the site visitor. If the message of your BVP rings loud and clear to the user, that’s half the battle done.
The BVP is the hook. It’s up to the CTA line to reel the site user in.
2. Campaign CTA
A campaign CTA is designed to support a marketing activity that the website is promoting.
Here are examples of campaign CTAs:
- “Buy Now to Get a Free Item”
- “Subscribe Today and Get 50% Off Your First Purchase”
- “Free Trial! Sign Up Now”
- “Order Right Now and Delivery Charge Is On Us”
- “Click Here For Your Free Gift”
For sure, you’ve seen campaign CTAs appear as pop-ups on websites. But they can also show up on the sidebar, on a floating bar, or on a slide-inbox.
3. Text CTA
A text CTA is a button that is added to a newsletter. Sometimes the text CTA appears as a clickable phrase. When you click on the CTA, it will take you to its destination landing page.
When is a text CTA used?
- To learn more about the subject matter indicated in the email.
- To access a resource such as a PDF that’s relevant to the subject matter of the email or of interest to the newsletter subscriber.
- To avail of a special promo or discount.
- To avail of limited-time-only access to premium content.
- To sign up for a membership.
Email marketing is one of the best digital marketing strategies for converting interest into sales. Once a website visitor signs up as a subscriber to your newsletter, you have one foot inside the door because your sales content will land in his inbox.
But whether the site visitor becomes a subscriber or not will depend on the effectiveness of your webpage CTA.
4. In-Text CTA
Blogs can also incorporate a CTA and it appears as a clickable phrase or text. This is an example of an in-text CTA or an anchor text.
The in-text CTA is situated at the end of the blog or within the concluding paragraph because getting this far implies that the reader is interested in the subject matter.
For this reason, the purpose of the in-text CTA is to capitalize on this interest and make it easier for the reader to take the next step.
Let’s say, you’re selling household cleaning products and have just written a blog titled “5 Tips To Get Molds Out Without Professional Help”.
At the end of your blog, you can add a concluding paragraph that states:
“What are you waiting for? The longer molds stay in your home, the greater the risks to your loved ones. Go to our online portal and buy one of our mold-killing products now!”
If the objective of the blog is to generate leads, you can include an in-text CTA that reads as follows:
“Since you got this far, we’re sure you enjoyed our blog! Get more of our content by signing up for our newsletter service.”
5. Social Media CTA
You can also include CTAs in your social media posts. This is a smart strategy because on average, people spend 2 hours and 31 minutes every day on social media.
The CTA appears near the end of the lead-in text. The objective of the social media CTA is to get the person to click on the post and read it.
For example, you decided to post your blog about killing molds with your household products on Facebook. You can create a lead-in text that reads:
“Molds not only look disgusting. They can seriously harm your family. Read our latest blog and find out how to kill molds without hiring expensive pros.
“Don’t put your loved ones at risk!”
Just because your blog appears on someone’s screen, it doesn’t mean he’ll click on it. For the social media CTA to work, you need a catchy, provocative intro that will get the reader’s attention.
The lead-in text has to be short and the CTA must appear within the first 2-3 sentences.
Can you have more than one type of CTA? Yes.
- You can have a CTA on your home page to get visitors to explore your website or to go to your online store.
- You can have campaign CTAs appear as pop-ups to get visitors to think twice about clicking out and instead, sign up for your monthly newsletter or avail of special promos.
- You can include CTAs in the sidebar to get visitors to check out your social media pages.
- You can add a CTA on the blogs that you’ve posted on the website’s blog page.
But in order to generate the results you want, you must take the time to design an effective CTA.
How To Design Effective CTAs That Convert Interest Into Sales
Now, let’s discuss your decision-making process.
What made you click on all of those CTA buttons?
- Was it the ad copy?
- Was it the design of the button?
- Was it the color of the button?
- Was it the location of the CTA?
Or was it all of the above?
Adding a CTA on your webpage isn’t as simple as embedding a red circle with words on it. The reason why many CTA buttons don’t deliver the desired results is that their design is an afterthought.
There’s a thought process behind the design of a CTA button and how it comes out will determine the performance of your website.
Here are 5 tips on how to design an effective CTA that can turn leads into sales.
1. Identify Your Goals
What are your business goals for your website?
Do you want to…
- Build your brand?
- Acquire more followers?
- Improve its sales conversion rate?
- Increase its traffic?
- Improve search engine ranking?
- Improve user experience?
It’s easier to design a CTA when your goals have been identified because now we can zero in on what you want your site visitor to do.
As mentioned in the previous section, you can have more than one CTA on your website. Thus, you can set multiple goals for your website.
The important thing to remember is to create a CTA that’s specific to that goal. A good strategy would be to establish a goal for each web page.
For example, an e-commerce page could have the following goals:
- Home Page – To increase sales; CTA sends visitors to the products page.
- About Us Page – To build relationships with customers; CTA asks visitors to “Like” the business pages of various social media platforms.
- Blog Page – To enhance brand reputation; CTA seeks to get visitors to sign up for monthly newsletter services.
- Products Page – To boost sales; CTAs pop up and offer special discounts to customers.
Now that you’ve identified your goals, it’s time to figure out how to word them into CTAs that will resonate with your target market.
2. Know Your Target Market
Knowing your target market will help you craft the messaging of your CTAs and how to best organize them on your website.
Not all customers react to content in the same manner. Some might be more impulsive. Others take a cautious approach and prefer to conduct further research before making a decision.
For example, there are customers who aren’t enticed easily by sales promos even if there are giveaways attached to the CTA. This type of customer might want to learn more about your products and how they’re performing in the market.
Thus, the journey from prospective customer to paying customer might take longer than for someone who’s impulsive.
You should have a CTA on the home page that takes the site visitor to the Products Description page where he can get comprehensive information about your products and come across testimonials, reviews, and ratings.
3. Follow the ABCD Rule
Be Assertive, Bold, Confident, and Decisive when composing your CTAs. Think of the CTA not just as a Call-to-Action but more of a Command-to-Act.
What’s the difference?
With a “Call”, there’s an implied option to NOT answer your call. But a command is a forceful instruction. You’re Arnold Schwarzenegger telling the site user “C’mon! Do it! Do it now!”
Like Arnold, your CTA has to be strong and powerful. For examples of strong CTAs, go back to the section “What Are The Types Of CTA?”
Here are examples of weak CTAs:
- Click Here
- Book Your Appointment
- Contact Us
- Download Our PDF
- Sign Up For Our Newsletter
These CTAs are weak because they read vague, indecisive, and there’s no sense of urgency and passion.
“Click Here”. Why?
“Book Your Appointment”. Why?
“Contact Us”. For what?
“Download Our PDF”. What for?
“Sign Up For Our Newsletter”. And if I don’t, what will happen?
These types of CTAs raise more questions than provide answers. As such, weak CTAs will underperform and not deliver results.
4. Lead-Off With Verbs
Because these are calls to action, you must lead off your statements with the use of verbs. The first word of your CTA must tell the website visitor what to do.
But don’t just use any verb. Choose power verbs such as those listed below:
- Buy
- Sign Up
- Get
- Unlock
- Subscribe
- Save
- Double
- Fast
- Grow
- Start
- Create
- View
- Join
- Shop
- Explore
- Discover
- Enter
- Try
- Order
Every second is an opportunity and you don’t want to waste it. Power verbs will trigger the action you wish the site user to take.
5. The Design of the CTA Button Must be Eye-Catching and Highly-Visible
For site visitors to click on your CTA, the button’s design must be eye-catching and it must be located in an area of the page where it can be quickly seen.
Here are a few helpful tips to come up with an obvious CTA button:
- Place the button in an area with white space.
- The color must clearly contrast with the background.
- The button must be large enough to be seen.
- Enclose the CTA inside a frame to make it stand out.
- Add other graphics such as an arrow, a lightbulb, or stars to draw more attention.
- Make sure the CTA button is optimized for mobile devices.
Lastly, run beta tests on your CTA button to know for sure that site users “get it”. The CTA must be easily understood, contain all the information the site visitor needs to know, and be visually appealing to the target audience.
Conclusion
Designing an effective CTA isn’t rocket science. It’s about tapping into the inner salesman in you, growing out of your insecurities, grabbing the site user by his collar, and telling him what you want him to do.
The site user won’t be put off by hard-selling tactics when it comes to the CTA. On the contrary, he’ll thank you for making the decision-making process more manageable.
An effective CTA embodies your passion for your business, its products, and services. If you believe in the value of your products and why it’s the best and only option for your target market, then breathe that conviction into your CTA.
We know what we’re talking about when it comes to website design and CTAs. Give us a call or drop us an email and we’ll get your website designed with CTAs that will make it convert like a well-oiled machine.
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