When you drive traffic to your website, you need to have a goal in mind: To get them to do something.
Whether it be to read your blog content, purchase from your online shop, or subscribe to your newsletter, the key to running a successful website is convincing people to take action.
The thing is, you’ll never get people to take action without telling them exactly what to do.
Sure, you might have a beautifully designed website and killer content for people to read, but unless you spell it for them using a call to action, site visitors will visit, and leave.
That’s why today we’re here to help you with creating powerful calls to action that compel people to take action while on your website so you can grow your business and maintain your success.
So, let’s get started.
#1. Know Which Type of Call to Action You Need
Calls to action, typically in the form of buttons on your website, come in three main categories:
- “Buy Now” Buttons. This is the most common type of CTA button used on eCommerce sites. They are placed on landing pages and products pages and encourage people to make a purchase.
- “Subscribe” Buttons. Typically used on registration forms, banners, or popups, these buttons encourage people to subscribe to a website, channel, or newsletter.
- “Learn More” Buttons. These buttons entice people to read more about a specific topic or learn about a product or service. They are usually hiding larger pieces of content and give people a chance to move forward and read on.
Knowing which type of call to action you want to have on your website is the first step in getting people to take a desired action.
#2. Optimize Your Site for Speed and Performance
Next on the list of things to do before creating a compelling call to action button is optimizing your website for speed and performance.
It won’t matter how great your CTA is if people land on your website and have to wait for what seems like forever for your site to load.
In fact, regardless of what you have to offer, if your website doesn’t load within 3 seconds or less, 40% of people will abandon your site without a second thought.
To avoid this and increase your chances of converting site visitors, use a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights to measure and routinely monitor how fast your site loads.
With this tool, you’ll see how fast both your desktop and mobile sites load, receive a speed score to gauge where you stand amongst other websites, and even get suggestions for speeding things up.
In fact, one of the best ways to increase your site’s speed and improve the user experience is to utilize a CDN to deliver site content to people all around the world.
Using servers spread across the globe, a CDN will determine a site visitor’s location and deliver your site’s contents from the server that’s nearest to them.
This reduces latency, speeds content delivery up, and makes your site visitor want to stick around a little longer.
#3. Get Visual
People are visual by nature, and when they see something they like, they’re more likely to take the action you’re asking them to.
For instance, you can use an online tool like OptinMonster to create stunning popup subscribe forms asking people to subscribe to your email list in exchange for a discount in your eCommerce shop.
One way of designing it might be like this:
Or, you might spice things up a bit and make it look like this:
Which one do you think people will be more drawn to?
If you need help creating one-of-a-kind visuals for your calls to action, you can use a free online tool like Canva to help.
This way you can avoid using the same stock images everyone else is using.
This tool is especially helpful if you plan to offer a lead magnet such as an eBook, checklist, or case study to people in exchange for their email address.
It’s also helpful for creating a business logo when trying to get people to buy from you or register on your site.
Pick from their pre-designed templates and customize things like color schemes, fonts, icons, text, and more to create a unique image that draws site visitors in and gets them to clickthrough.
Of course, there are many other web design tools out there to help you with creating images for your call to action landing page or form.
Just remember, the more engaging your call to action landing page or popup/subscribe form is, the better chances you have of boosting conversions and securing more emails or sales.
And last but not least, don’t neglect your product images.
When you’re selling products online from home, and people can’t come into a physical store to check out what you have to offer, they rely on your images to show them what they’re buying.
Not being able to touch and feel, let alone try out a product, makes buying online more difficult and can lead people to abandon their shopping carts at the last minute.
Make sure that whatever you’re selling them is clearly visible, that you highlight the details, and that any variations have an image too.
This will lead to more clicks on the “Buy Now” buttons than ever before.
#4. Use Power Words
Another helpful way to motivate people to take action is to use power words or phrases that excite them.
These words, when used right, evoke strong psychological or emotional responses in people.
This, in turn, urges them to do something such as check out a sale you’re having, sign up for a free online course, or read another blog post related to the one they just read.
For example, instead of saying “Sign Up” or “Buy Now,” you might choose words such as:
- “Get Started Right Now”
- “Sign Up for FREE”
- “Click Here to Buy”
- “See a LIVE Demo Today”
All of these power words instill a sense of urgency in people. They make the case that your site visitors need what you’re offering right now and that the deal is too good to pass up.
If you’re having trouble coming up with some good CTA words, check out this handy list of over 700 power words that any marketer can take advantage of regardless of experience.
#5. Think About Color
Color can have a powerful effect on people’s desire to take action or not.
While you want to brand your landing pages and popup/subscribe forms using your company’s color scheme, it’s also a good idea to take note of the basics behind good color combinations.
Here are some best practices when it comes to the color scheme of your call to action, and the button itself:
- Use contrasting color schemes to catch people’s attention right away
- Make the CTA button large and bold, so people know exactly where to click
- Stay away from washed out colors and those that are too bright, such as neons
- For evergreen calls to action, consider dark text on a light background
- For emotional, more in the moment calls to action, consider the reverse: lighter text on a darker button
And remember, always A/B test your calls to action, regardless of which type you use, just like HubSpot did in this study.
(Image Source: blog.hubspot.com)
After testing two CTA button colors – red and green – they found that red button outperformed the green by 21%, which is huge.
Keep in mind, however, that what works for one business may not work for you.
The only way to tell what your site visitors are more drawn to is to A/B test differences and see how your conversion numbers change.
Final Thoughts on Boosting Your Website’s CTA Conversions
In the end, there’s a lot that goes into whether people will convert when they arrive on your website.
And, since so many factors play into whether someone will click your CTA or not, it’s crucial you stay up to date on the ways to make your CTA stand out, so you don’t fall behind the competition.
Keep in mind that sometimes it’s the simple things that convince people to move through your sales funnel or subscribe, such as site speed or color schemes.
Other times, it will be the sense of urgency you instill in them. After all, no one wants to miss out on a great deal because they didn’t sign up.
No matter what the case may be, you need to be ready for it all if you want to grow your audience, boost conversions, and land more sales for your online business.