Call To Action (CTAs): What They Are and How to Use Them
The main goal of any business website is to convert users into leads, leads into customers, and then customers into promoters. Regardless of the type of website you have – be it a blog, an e-commerce site, or a portfolio – the whole point is to attract your users and tell them why they need you. Luckily, that’s where a CTA, or call to action, comes in, encouraging visitors to take the next steps you want them to take.
Typically, CTAs are a button with a piece of text, image, or graphic that they click to do something like sign up for a newsletter, register for an event, or make a purchase. And so, these buttons need to be carefully designed to grab their attention and keep them engaged. Otherwise, they have no reason to engage and engage with your business and brand.
There are different types of CTAs that you can use throughout your website that are specific to each page that your visitors are landing on. CTAs are not only important on your homepage, but they should be used on product pages, about us pages, pricing pages, etc. And if done correctly, your website will be easier to navigate and will serve different audiences and their goals to get them down the marketing funnel.
Now that we have built the foundation, let’s take a look at 5 different types of CTAs that you should be using throughout your website.
1. Lead Generation
CTAs are essential if you want to generate leads from your website.
Ultimately, you want to convert new visitors into leads, so your CTAs need to be placed in the parts of your website that they are looking at the most – your analytics will tell you that. In general, the most popular places that businesses tend to place this type of CTA are at the end of their blog posts, in the sidebar, or even in a floating banner in the corner of the page.
To be effective, these calls to action need to be eye-catching and clearly communicate the value your visitor will get by clicking on it; they should know exactly what to expect.
Some examples of this type of CTA are “Start a free trial,” “Download a free ebook,” or “Request an appointment today.”
2. Call to Action Examples
Sometimes, your goal might be to draw people deeper into your website because many visitors won’t be ready to buy from you right away—you need to earn their trust.
And there will be extra information they want and need, questions that need to be addressed before they’re 100% sure they want to make a purchase.
Let’s take your homepage in particular. If you have multiple products or services on offer, or there are multiple features for a single thing you’re offering, visitors won’t always know what they’re interested in, so you can invite them to “learn more.”
This type of call to action is very common, and for good reason, too: it allows for more content to be displayed, but “learn more” or “read more” buttons help ensure that your compelling posts get the attention they need. Additionally, these CTAs ensure that people click through to your site to read posts instead of simply scrolling down so that the page itself gets credited with its traffic, great for SEO.
3. Sign Up for Newsletter
This CTA is used to convince visitors to sign up for your newsletter.
However, if your button literally just says “sign up for our newsletter!”, your visitors will think, “Well, I already get dozens of newsletters in my emails every day that I don’t read. This is a new website, I don’t even know what they’re about.”
Yes, newsletter CTAs are important on websites, but they need to be done right to be effective. They need to tell your visitors that it’s worth it, so you might incentivize people by offering them exclusive deals or extra content that they wouldn’t otherwise get.
At this point, your visitors are very close to becoming a lead, and you don’t want them falling through the cracks with a poorly designed button. Typically they’ll be asked to fill out a field (or fields), like an email address, and then click a button to submit their contact information, and to make it more actionable, you might say “join 17,123 people who get new marketing tips every month,” for example.
4. Promote the event
If you’re planning an event, whether online or in-person, you’ll want people to attend.
And using a call to action to promote an event will help spread the word and even drive ticket sales. The great thing is that you can use this type of CTA anywhere on your website depending on the type of audience you’re trying to reach.
For example, if you’re trying to convince existing customers, this could be on a login page or the page where you give them an order confirmation. On the other hand, if you’re trying to target leads, this CTA could appear while they’re reading a blog.
5. Turn visitors into leads
If you run an e-commerce site, sell software, or other service packages, you’ll probably want people to make a purchase directly from your website.
In terms of this type of CTA, how it is designed will depend on the type of product or service you are trying to sell and your website itself.
For example, an e-commerce site should allow visitors to browse their products and may include multiple “add to cart” buttons, while a website that sells software may have multiple purchase plans that require different CTAs for each.
Simply put, when you’re trying to close a sale, your CTA button should make a single offer, but where that’s not possible, try to draw attention to your ideal products/services.
Conclusion
As your business grows and your website becomes more complex, you’ll need to tweak your CTAs to appeal to each audience. Ultimately, your goal is to nudge newcomers along their path to purchase and keep those who are actively interacting with your brand engaged.
