Wednesday, May 8, 2013

The Importance of Calls to Action

By Walker L. Percy


On a website, the call to action (CTA) is a crucial conversion process aspect. What this does is engages the consumer who is looking at a specific part of the site, and nudges them towards buying your service or product. Having effective calls to action can increase your conversion rate.

What exactly is a website call to action?

The call to action is your opportunity to drive traffic to your website, get people to subscribe to your newsletter, convince people to click on your advertisement, grow your following on social networks, get people to join your team, sell a product or service, or move someone to do anything that helps accomplish your business goals.

A call to action is a banner, form or link that guides or requests website visitors towards the next step in the conversion process. As a potential customer finds themselves for the first time on your website, giving them something like a whitepaper or ebook that is easily downloaded is a good idea. For returning visitors, offering them product specs or another promotional enticement will get them to give you some more personal info to receive it, this is for those who have already gotten their "top of the funnel" rewards.

There must be a good reason for the site visitor to care about what you are offering them. It can be evidence of success, a free trial, a discount, additional bundling of items or even a guarantee of results. Knowing your clientele is important in designing an effective call to action, so be sure to do some research into what they would be interested in. You may want to put the hint to the offer somewhere earlier in the page, to soften them up to the idea. Your potential buyer should see this offer as something they are interested in, and find valuable.

The call to action has to be in harmony with content provided in it. Depending on what content the visitor is looking at, you can offer a subscription to a casual browser on the homepage, or a more intensive demonstration if they are more advanced in their search queries. And the call to action should visually stand out from the surrounding copy. Arrows or other graphics are beneficial, and an interesting font such as one that looks like handwriting is effective. This should still be in sync with the rest of your webpage, including color and brand design elements. This should entice the page visitor to look at the area, but not to distract and aggravate them. Think about navigational cues that fit within your overall site.

You have a very limited amount of time to capture a person's attention. Give the prospect the necessary information quickly and don't waste their time with unnecessary material. There is no time to waste here, so don't make it lengthy and dull or they will move on, people don't generally have a lot of extra time.

Make any forms that you are asking the visitor to fill out quick and easy. If you are trying to get someone to opt-in to your e-mail list, for example, keep your form short. The important information is all you need. Complex forms that are lengthy are not filled out as often. You want them to buy your product or services, not do a bunch of work. This should be as easy as possible for the consumer, and that will make the outcome more favorable for your business. Keeping your calls to action simple and making them easy to complete will dramatically increase your conversion rate.




About the Author:



0 comments: