A call to action is an essential element to every website—whether it’s a call to action to fill out a request quote form or contact form, signup for a newsletter, share on social media, register for an event, or schedule an appointment. An effective call to action provides focus to your website and direction to website users, as well as a way to evaluate your website’s success.
Having an effective call to action can generate enormous interest in your product or service. But how do you create an effective prompt to encourage your website users to act? Check out our tips below:
Identify your goal or objective. Determine the action that you want your audience to perform. Do you want them to share your content on social media, or sign up for your newsletter, or fill out a contact form? Perhaps your goal is to get them to sign up for membership to your fitness program. If you don’t have a clear objective, you will not be able to come up with a compelling call to action.
Know your target audience. If you want to create an effective call to action, one of the most important things you should do is to understand who your target audience is. This will help you know how to meet their expectations and what you need to tell them to prompt them to act. And if you are targeting many different types of groups, writing a copy addressing each specific group is crucial to your success.
Keep them noticeable and focused. Website owners normally put calls-to-action to the right side of their webpage content so that the reader’s natural eye movement captures it. You may push your call to action a bit more into the content stream to step it up a notch. Some sites are designed in such a way that the call to action floats so that as the reader scrolls, it stays with them.
Provide an actionable path. Although your objective may be to boost sales, your calls to action usually are actually a set of actions rather than just a single action. For instance, you may have a social media post that leads your followers to your website or blog. Once on your site, you could give away a free short eBook or any other gift. Then in that eBook, your readers would find yet another actionable step. You can use temporary offers or free trials to encourage your audience, but make sure your offering is something that will grab their attention.
Keep your calls to action simple. Whether it is an offer or anything else in your call to action, making sure that the instructions are simple and the path to engagement is easy will get a higher number of your audience to perform the action you request.
