Your Digital Marketing Checklist for Effective Call-to-Actions

[The following is a guest post by our friends at Aumcore, a digital marketing agency out of New York City.]

Congratulations! It seems that the amazing website you’ve built has been getting a lot of hits and your conversion rates seems good. Are you okay with just “good” though? Don’t you want it to be the absolute best it can be? If so, you have a couple of options. You can go to a marketing agency that’ll cater to your needs, or you can adopt a can-do attitude and start tweaking what you already have to create the most effective call-to-actions (CTAs) possible!

Effective call-to-actions are like street signs.

What is a Call-to-Action?

Call-to-Actions are like street signs for your website. They usually come in the form of buttons, text links, and images, and invite the user to click on them so that they can carry out a particular task (subscribe to a newsletter, start a free trial etc.).

How Does a Call-to-Action Boost My Conversion Rate?

CTAs are arguably most important for converting your site visitors into customers. However, CTAs aren’t always about selling something; they also help guide your visitor through your website and help them figure out what they want to do next. Nevertheless, effective call-to-actions can capture leads that later turn into a growing customer base. According to AddThis Academy, “customers usually prefer to do their own research before actually speaking to a salesperson. This makes it very important to capture a lead’s details in order to give content-driven marketing and lead nurturing processes the chance to “warm up” a prospect before a salesperson calls.”

So how can you make sure your CTAs are effective? Take a look at these 5 tips and see how you can improve your site:

The Effective Call-To-Actions Checklist:

1: Are your CTAs in a good location on your site?

Can your visitor easily locate your buttons, images, or links? If not, then get to it. Make to make sure that your CTAs are visibly located in places that flow logically within your website. We all know that web pages are displayed differently amongst different devices, so you need to make sure that your visitors can always navigate fluidly throughout your site. Another tip to keep in mind is to avoid stacking your CTAs directly above, below, or next to each other, as it distracts the user from whatever task they’re trying to carry out. Instead, figure out which task is of greater importance and then move the other somewhere else on the site.

2: Are your CTAs visually appealing?

An easy way to draw attention to your CTAs is through color and design. When your buttons and links are colored in a way that pops out from the rest of your web page, it’s much more likely that a user will see it and click on it. Details such as a larger font size, a contrasting color, or even the presence of significant white space will undoubtedly capture your visitor’s attention.

3: Does your CTA include actionable text?

CTAs with action-oriented words such as, “Download” or “Register,” encourage visitors to take a specific action. Even more so, including words such as, “for a limited time,” “now,” or “today,” have an even greater influence on your visitors to take action sooner rather than later. Something you should think about is whether your actionable text is in its most effective form. For example, a “Submit” button isn’t the most exciting call-to-action. Instead, you might want to consider using simpler, more exciting language such as, “I want this item!” If you have a “Buy Now” option on your website, you might want to reconsider its placement as well. Visitors might be turned off if it’s visible too early into their site exploration, as it comes across as too pushy and demanding. Instead, you might want to include a CTA that prompts the user to “Learn More” or “Get Started.”

4: Is your CTA easy to understand?

Your CTA should be clear and straight to the point. Also make sure that your CTA directly matches the action that the user expects. If the user clicks a button to download a pdf file, a download should begin immediately after the button is clicked. Another tip to keep in mind is to keep your CTAs between two and five words ̶ any more, and it probably won’t perform as well.

5: Is your CTA easy to submit?

Too many steps between the first and last click will result in a loss in conversions. People want their information now, and if there are too many steps, they will most definitely lose interest. In the same manner, be sure to keep your forms or surveys brief as well.

Above all, the most important thing to keep in mind is that your website should be mobile friendly. It doesn’t matter how beautiful or eye-catching your call-to-actions are if you’re not optimized for all devices. Honestly, nothing is worse than having to zoom into a screen that isn’t optimized for mobile, and having to constantly swipe back and forth just to see the entire screen. No, thank you! Ultimately you must make sure that your site is responsive or else your business risks getting left behind in the dust.

So, did you cross all the items off the checklist? If not, make sure to take another look at the CTAs on your site. You might be surprised to find that tweaking a few words or colors can change average call-to-actions into amazing, effective call-to-actions that convert your audience.

Author bio: Bianca specializes in digital design at the digital marketing agency, Aumcore. With a background in animation, game design, video production, and responsive web design, she loves creating any kind of digital content that will entertain people. Any thoughts represented in this article are the opinion of the author, and do not inherently reflect the views or experiences of Explainify.