Digital Marketing
SEO
Web Development
What we will cover
What is a Call To Action on a website?
A Call To Action, often abbreviated to CTA, is an instruction, or strong encouragement, to your website’s visitor to take the action you next want them to take.
Calls To Action come in many different forms ranging from simple hyperlinked text (anchor text) to buttons and contact forms.
Some CTAs are more effective than others, but not having one at all is a big mistake.
How CTAs and landing pages work together
One of the most common mistakes business owners make with their online marketing campaigns is directing all traffic to their home webpage. The problem with this is that most home pages have many conflicting CTAs.
Think of a website as a rail network. The home page is like a major city station with multiple platforms leading off to all regions of the country (and beyond). Landing pages are like small stations with one platform. Your only decision is whether to board the train or not. The call to action is designed to encourage you to take that train.
Website owners who create targeted landing pages, with clear CTAs, and link them to their ad campaigns experience more success. Vu Online can help you with all of that.
But back to CTAs…
Not all CTAs are created equal
Which type of Call To Action is best for your landing pages? The answer goes back to the question: what is a Call To Action on a website for?
If your landing page is part of a clear sales-related campaign, and you know that visitors are likely to be looking to buy from you instantly, a big, bright ‘Buy Now’ button might be the best option.
However, if you are just getting to know your visitors and are looking to add quality leads to your mailing list, a simple contact form is often the best way.
However, there is an art and science to designing a contact form as an effective CTA.
Is your contact form not generating leads? This might be why…
Many website owners slap a generic contact form on the bottom of their webpage and then wonder why no one is completing it.
If this is your experience, try putting yourself in a visitor’s shoes. You may not be asking for a sale, but you are requesting personal information for free. Why should your visitor give that to you?
Smart marketers include a device known as a ‘lead magnet’. This is a free incentive that you provide in exchange for the visitor’s contact details. There are dozens of different types of lead magnet, ranging from cheatsheets and exclusive video content to ebooks and even physical gifts. Lead magnets can also be a great way of qualifying your leads because you can match the incentive to your target audience’s interests.
Is your contact form simply too long? Again, ask yourself: what is a Call To Action on a website for? If your primary goal is to add a lead to your mailing list, do you really need more than a first name and an email address?
Many business owners fall into the trap of trying to collect too much information from a visitor in one bite. This has several drawbacks, including:
- It demands more time of your visitor – time they might not want to give you
- There are more points of failure. If any one part of your form throws up an error, the visitor is likely to abandon the process
- Your lead magnet is not worth the information requested. If you’re expecting your lead to provide a lot of detail, you need to make sure your offer is worth the effort.
- Invasion of privacy. Do you really need to know a person’s sexual preferences or religion?
- Certain fields imply future actions. For example, by including a telephone number field, they will assume you intend to call them (removing this field alone can increase a form’s conversion rate by 5%!)
- Research shows that the more fields on a form, the lower its conversion rate
Top tip: If you really need to collect more than basic contact information, use a multi-page form. Research has shown that switching a long single-page form with a multi-page form can increase conversion rates from 4.53% to 13.85%!
Vu can help you polish up your CTAs
For a more in-depth answer to the question, ‘What is a Call To Action on a website?’ get in touch with the Vu Online team. And if you are looking for someone to help you target your audience with highly targeted and effective landing pages – complete with powerful CTAs – check out our Professional SEO services.
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