Some Best Practices on Creating and Optimizing CTAs for Internet Marketing
What is a call-to-action?
A call-to-action (CTA) is an image or text enticing and persuading visitors to take action such as subscribing to a newsletter, viewing a webinar or requesting a product demo. The goal of a call-to-action is to twofold; to drive traffic to a landing page in order to collect visitors’ contact information and provide people with a valuable marketing offer. Clicking on a CTA to a landing page highlights the process of lead generation. To increase visitor-to-lead conversion opportunities, create several calls-to-action and distribute them across your web presence. Well-designed CTAs result in more leads and conversions for your website.
How to write an effective call-to-action?
Before writing a call-to-action, determine your objective and the message you want to convey. Do you want to generate a lead or do you want to generate a sale? What do you want your subscribers to do, and why should they do it? Your business should aim to nurture all prospects and the messaging of your CTAs must be clear, specific and action oriented. To increase visitor-to-lead opportunities, consider the different places, stages of your sales cycle and your different target personas or types of visitors. Determine your primary goal for new visitors to your page and craft and optimize your calls-to-action around each message. Remember, the more CTAs you build, the more opportunities you create to convert visitors to leads.
Best Practices
Below are some best practices for writing great calls-to-action:
- Keep your CTAs clear and simple; let users know exactly what you are asking of them.
- Create urgency. Use phrases such as “buy now” or “click here” to encourage readers to respond immediately.
- Use relevant images to draw user attention to your CTAs. Include images of the offer to get more traffic to your landing page.
- Position, position, position! Make sure your visitors can see your CTAs without scrolling down the page. Place your CTA buttons in prominent positions, above the fold of a webpage so users will likely notice the CTA button and take action.
- Numbers are a great way to break through the clutter. Use data and statistics to convey a strong message and increase total views.
- Include testimonials to motivate visitors to take the next step and visit your landing page.
- Create a road map. What do you want your visitors to do next? Will they need to complete another step? Ensure your CTAs guide your visitors to the next step or action. If there is no road map for them to follow, they will lose interest and leave your website.
- Align your CTAs with the content of the page and stage of the sales cycle.
- Create a mix of CTAs. The more CTAs you build, the more opportunities you create to convert visitors into leads.
- Include CTAs in your Product/Services pages, About Us pages and Contact Us pages to help visitors understand what to do next.
A call-to-action button should provide value to your visitors. Make sure your CTAs are clear and be specific. Create urgency and make your CTAs engaging and action-oriented. Go beyond the generic “Click here,” and compel your readers to perform a conversion. Test your CTA buttons to ensure visitors will arrive on a landing page that reflects proper messaging. Get creative and think of ways to engage with visitors further, making their stay on your website worthwhile. Keep it simple and clear!
Design your CTAs with different personas. Consider who the end-user will be and determine what tools to use to guide your visitors to take immediate action. Test and measure your CTAs. Evaluate the click-through rate of every call-to-action used. Measure the effectiveness of each medium of communication (email, website or social media update) as different CTAs will perform in different ways. Remember to use a variety of keywords or phrases to convey value in your messages and win trust with your visitors.
Do you give enough attention to your calls-to-action? What techniques do you use to create effective calls-to-action and keep your visitors engaged?
