We talk a lot about having calls to action (CTAs) on your website to make your site more effective. But those CTAs have to be effective or you won’t notice any results from them. Calls to action aren’t just limited to ecommerce sites. Every site can make use of them to increase conversions no matter what your ultimate goal. Some examples are getting volunteers, getting a form filled out, or signing a petition.
Why Are Calls to Action So Important?
- They provide direction and next steps to your visitors – CTAs literally tell your website visitor what they need to do next in your sales process.
- They provide trackable ways to measure your site’s effectiveness – Most analytics tools have a way to track how many clicks each link is getting.
- They give each page of your site a focus – Each page of your site should be focusing on a new product/service, or focus on moving the user to the next stage of the buying process.
Improve Your Existing Calls to Action
1. Make your CTAs More Effective
These are not effective calls to action:
- Click Here
- Read More
- View More
In the truest sense of a call to action, these do qualify. They tell someone what to do next. But they don’t tell them why they should do it. Here are ways to improve these lame ducks:
- Click here to start saving 50% on your medical insurance!
- Read more about how you can improve your reading speed by 200%!
- View more ways you can use our strength-band system to lose weight!
(As a bonus, when you use keywords in your links you’ll be improving your web site’s search engine optimization too!)
2. Action and Urgency
Using action words will kick up your calls to action even more:
- Buy
- Download
- Try
- Donate
- Register
Use these kinds of action words in combination with text that gives a sense of urgency:
- This Special Offer Expires March 30th.
- Early bird registration closes in ten days and seating is limited.
- Order today and get a FREE gift.
By combining action with urgency, we increase the likelyhood of registration.
3. Don’t have too many
If having one CTA is good, then two is better right? Not always. Giving users too many options results in confusion and frequently reduces sales.
In this example it's unlcear which step I should do first.
4. Line of Sight
As we discussed in our recent website conversion improvement series, you need to put CTAs where they will be seen: Upper left or center of the page, above the fold (usually).
Are you ready to start improving your website’s effectiveness?
Call us today for a free consultation: 877-619-4WEB! 
About the author: Jeune Ortiz is VP of Marketing and Creative Director at future-ink. With more than 20 years of experience in graphic design and marketing, Jeune brings extensive knowledge and creativity to each website and internet marketing solution to grow your business.
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