Steps To Create An Effective Call To Action
Create An Effective Call To Action
Sometimes, small tweaks make a world of difference and can impact your conversions in a big way. Consider your landing pages, newsletters, Ads – what’s common amongst them? What can you tweak in a few minutes that’ll up your conversions by 30% or more? Your CTA. Simple as that.
1. Find A Prominent Place For Your CTA
Busy people tend to just glance at the top portion of a web page, get what they want, and move on. They seldom scroll down below the page fold, unless they are intent on something. So place your CTA above the fold, and also below the fold so both the scanners and the real leads will see it.
2. Make It Sound Urgent
When you want to catch the attention of busy online browsers, you need to make your promotion sound urgent. By telling them to take action right now without wasting another second, you’ll be conveying a sense of deep urgency. For example, “Click Now” conveys urgency while “Click Here” does not. You get the point.
3. Keep It Large
People will miss out on your CTA if it is in the same size as the rest of your content. So make it large, as large as you can while keeping within the aesthetics of your page or Ad. You want even the most distracted user to notice the CTA. However, be sure to test various sizes and keep the one converts best.
4. Align CTA With Copy
Your CTA is only an extension of your copy when you look at it. The CTA pushes readers to take action on what the copy is promoting – a product, a freebie, interesting news, whatever. So make sure the CTA aligns with the copy, especially to the name of the thing that you’re promoting.
5. Make Your USP Clear
Your users may not be very clear as to whether they have already bought or downloaded whatever it is that your CTA promotes. This can happen if your value proposition is ambiguous. Make sure they clearly understand the benefits of clicking your CTA with a brief description. The benefits could be time-savings, additional discounts before goods get over and so on.
6. Create A Contrasting Design
There’s no need for your CTA to blend in with your website’s design – you won’t gain any eyeballs through that. Even if you stick to the same style sheet, your CTA must pop out of the design and hit people in the eye. So if the rest of your page or Ad is in blues and yellows, let the CTA be a bold, shiny red.
7. Include Alt Text
If a web browser has trouble displaying images, it’s likely people won’t see your CTA. Use Image Alt Text to display a text message in the CTA’s place so people know what they’re looking at. There’s another benefit – search engines can read Alt Text – so don’t miss out on this free SEO benefit.
8. Do Thorough A/B Testing
Even if you’re sure you’ve followed all the right industry tips with regard to your CTA, don’t stop playing with it. Test the position, the color, the placement, the copy, the design, and everything else and watch the conversions.
9. Tailor Your CTAs For Different Audiences
Here’s another thing you can do – you can tailor your CTAs to match different audience segments to get more bang for your buck. Make your visitors see the CTA you want them to see, and let your customers see the one that you want them to see.
10. Play With The Wording
Even with urgent-sounding second-person verbs, there are verbs that convert better than others. Consider “Buy Now” and “Click To Purchase”. Which sounds more forceful? Also, it helps to keep your CTA wording short, so people can quickly scan it and do what you want them to do – click it.
11. Stick To The Same Offer
Use the same words for your offer everywhere – on your landing page, your Ad, and your CTA, to keep users inflow. For example, if you’re promising a discount in your landing page offer, don’t use the word
‘Free’ in your CTA. That sort of thing is misleading and should be avoided.
12. Use Second Person Verbs
Use only positive, strong second-person verbs that encourage and motivate the user to take action – the stronger, the better. For example, “Click Now!” sounds quite strong and assertive, when compared to “Know More”. Your CTA should not cajole and flirt, but rather, empower readers to take immediate action, whether the outcome is more knowledge, a purchase, or a freebie.
13. Make The CTA Button Look Clickable
Ok, so now your CTA button is large, brightly colored, and very visible. Most people will realize they need to click it. Still, there’ll be a few very busy users who’ll pass your CTA by, unless you add some ‘click me now’ features to it. We’re talking about some sort of contouring, shading, or 3D kind of effects that’ll make the CTA pop out of the page a bit.
