Improve Your Website's Calls-to-Action in 4 Easy Steps

Almost every website has a goal (an action that they want their visitor to take) and no matter what the goal, whether it is to get more leads, increase RSS subscribers or just to boost sales, a call-to-action should be used to encourage your visitors to take that action.

Whether your call-to-action is a text link, a button or any other graphic or copy, optimizing them for effectiveness can have a huge impact on how many people actually do what your call-to-action asks them to do. 

Okay, you understand that effective calls-to-action are important, but how can you improve them?

1. Create a sense of urgency. What is one of the best things you can do to encourage people to act on your call-to-action? Make them feel like they need to do it right away or else they are going to miss out on a valuable opportunity.
2. Tell them what you want them to do. Make your calls-to-action as specific as possible. By avoiding generalities and specifying exactly what you want your visitors to do, whether it is to click, download or sign-up, you can enhance the chance that they will do what you want them to. 
3. Make them impossible to miss. One of the worst things you can do when creating a call-to-action is to let it blend into the background. If your calls-to-action are text links, make sure they are underlined and a different color than the rest of your text, and if they are buttons, make sure the buttons are large and colorful so they stand out and that they are clickable. Oh, and don’t forget to keep them above the fold. People hate scrolling, and if they have to scroll down to see your calls-to-action you are going to miss out on a lot of conversions. 
4. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, test!  Implementing the ideas above and then testing them to see what works best is one of the easiest ways to improve your calls-to-action.  Making the changes, and then never measuring their success against your old ones, doesn’t help you get a better understanding of what works, and what doesn’t for your business. Every organization is different and what works for one, may not be ideal for another. Test to see what works for you and then use that information to your advantage when creating calls-to-action.

Posted by Amberlie Denny at June 7, 2010 8:30 AM

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