These days everyone seems to want to increase their website’s ROI. We’ve talked about how having a blog can help increase ROI by attracting more potential customers. But once those potential customers get to your website or blog, what are they supposed to do? That’s where Calls To Action (CTAs) come into play.
A Call To Action (CTA) on a website or blog is something that urges the website visitor to take immediate actions, such as “Download Now”, “Sign up Now”, “Click Here For xyz”, etc. CTAs often offer something free in exchange for information about the website visitor (e.g. name, email address). A CTA also provides a way to measure your website’s success.
Too often though, website owners come up with a CTA and never test it or modify it. They use the same CTA whether it is working for them or not. This is a mistake many people make.
CTAs should be A/B tested from the start. Even if the resulting action is the same (downloading a white paper for example), alternate text, button color and button positioning should be tested for effectiveness.
The words you use in your CTA are vitally important. Your CTA should be clear as to what you want the website visitor to do. You should use active words. You may want to use a sense of urgency such as Offer expires July 31st or maybe a discount for signing up early.
Button color can be an important element as it can be used to attract the visitor’s eye. Button positioning is also important for the same reason.
Having effective Calls To Action are essential to any website. And any CTA should be put through the tests and rated against alternatives. Yes, it is more work, but well worth it. It could be the difference in a CTA that works and one that doesn’t. An effective CTA can make all the difference in your website’s ROI.
