The eBiz Blog

Even if your website is beautifully designed and full of excellent content, if visitors don’t click in the appropriate places, you will not see conversions. It’s not enough visitors show up to your site and spend time on your pages. You need them to do something once they arrive, whether it’s making a purchase, requesting additional information or signing up for your newsletter.

That’s why, when you are in the website development phase, you need to pay close attention to your calls to action, or the places where you’re asking site visitors to do something. Without a clear and compelling call to action, there’s a good chance your conversion rates aren’t going to be anywhere near what you want them to be.

There are dozens of strategies you can use to improve your calls to action. But if you focus on three key areas, you should see an improvement in your conversion results. If you take this advice to heart before launching your site then you should see good results from the start and you can focus on making small adjustments going forward once you have a baseline gauge to work with.

Use the First Person

Whenever anyone evaluates an offer, they consider the question “What’s in it for me”. Users click on calls to action because they want to receive some type of benefit, whether it’s a solution to a problem or they need, or want, your product. That’s why it’s important to phrase your calls to action in the first person and give them that personal slant users are looking for. As you write your call-to-action copy, complete the sentence “I want to …” with the benefit someone will receive by clicking. You’ll avoid boring and uninspiring calls to action like “Register to receive our newsletter” and create more compelling calls like “Sell more widgets this week!”

Have Obvious and Simple Buttons

Make the things you want visitors to click on obvious for clicking. Links should look like links and change color or style when moused over. Your buttons should stand out by using a different color (never gray) or including a visual hint, like a cursor, that will let users know they need to click there. Do not include design elements that look like call-to-action buttons, but are not. Also, avoid including more than one call per page.

Be Convincing

You may need to add some enticements to convince users to click on your calls to action. Testimonials, privacy and security information, a guarantee, a review or rating — these can all be useful in convincing a user to click on your offer. Ideally, the enticement should be contained in the call-to-action button. When determining which “click trigger” to use, consider the possible objections a user may have and answer them. Perhaps, they are concerned you’ll sell their name and email address if they sign up for your newsletter, so your call to action should tell them you never sell information.

Improving the effectiveness of your calls to action requires making them easy, clear and benefits-focused. Give users a reason to click through — and you’ll see your conversion rate skyrocket.