Impressive Call-to-Action Practices You Can’t Ignore

If your website’s body content is the fishing line, then your call-to-action (CTA) is your hook. To catch big fish, you’ll need a strong hook, and this is where you can draw inspiration for your next amazing call-to-action!

Brevity is Key: Our suggestion is to stick to four words or less. Any more than that and your call-to-action button might look too overwhelming. It’s best to replace longwinded phrases with stronger action verbs. See the examples below!

Use Strong Action Verbs: Rather than having your CTA button say, “Newsletter,” or “Subscribe,” use powerful action words like, “Sign up Today!” or “Upgrade Your Inbox!” The general tone of your CTA should be exciting, motivating, and convincing. The most unproductive CTAs are the ones that don’t evoke any yearnings within the consumer. Promote what they would be missing out on if they didn’t sign up, and use compelling verbs to drive your point home!

Give an Incentive: As genius as your 3-4 words may be, your call-to-action will be much more effective if it also came with an irresistible incentive. Remember that we can’t expect people to ever sign up for our sake. If they have to take the time to fill out a form, it absolutely has to benefit them somehow. And there’s almost nothing more convincing than immediate gratification. Try to offer a compelling e-book for free or an interesting promise that you can deliver immediately.

Emphasize its Convenience: Compare a CTA button that says “Sign Up Today,” versus one that comes with an accompanying blurb underneath, which says, “It only takes a minute to complete!” By letting your customers know how long it takes to complete your survey or sign up process, they will be more motivated to do it. Your customer’s convenience should always be your first concern when it comes to technical upgrades, web design, and content optimization.

Use Strategic Placement: If you have images on your website, use them to direct your users toward the call-to-action. For example, if you want to use a picture of a smiling woman looking to the left side of your page, then the best place to position your CTA is where the woman is looking. According to this CTA placement case study, a website’s most frequented area is generally above the fold but away from the scroll. That leaves us with one great spot: the top left side of the page. However, don’t let this finding discourage you from experimenting with different placements. Each website’s heat map is heavily determined by its template layout. Depending on how you want your template to look, position the CTA in the appropriate place.

Contrasting Colors: Your CTA should stand out from the rest of your content while still remaining within the color scheme of your overall design. High contrast CTAs help to emphasize its importance and level of authority in your design hierarchy.

Take Advantage of White Space: White space shouldn’t make you nervous. In contrast, you should use white space to draw in more attention to your CTA. The busier your landing page appears, the more distracting it will be for your bottom line: which is to get people to sign up for your service.

Bigger is Better: In addition to experimenting with your CTA placement, you should also experiment with its font and button sizing. As a general rule of thumb, your CTA should be relatively larger and more eye-catching than the rest of your content. Bigger is better in this case because it has to be able to past the squint test. If you squint your eyes, can you still spot your CTA loud and clear?

Make it Sales-Focused: Finally, your CTA should be sales-focused. This means that everything prior to (or surrounding) your CTA should dwindle down to this bottom line. Your CTA should help you close your sales, so structure it in this way for maximum impact.

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