How much time have you spent on creating amazingly inspiring call-to-action buttons for your website?
What’s a Call-To-Action button?
Call-to-action buttons give your website visitors the opportunity to DO something on your website. This includes purchasing, downloading, completing an information request, giving feedback on a survey, taking a quiz, signing up for a newsletter, or anything else that interacts with your business in any other way. The button in itself has to inspire your visitor, and convert them from a passive reader into an active “do”-er.
As a business owner, it is essential that you get a basic understanding on the language, scale, color and other factors that make for a good call-to-action button. It could make such a huge difference to your bottom line! Imagine only 1% more of your website visitors following through with a shopping cart purchase… What would that mean to your business? Exactly!
So, the process involved in this phase is not that complicated, but careful planning and testing is needed none the less to create a call-to-action button that works! Make sure to read the following pointers to help you come up with a call-to-action that will be of great use to you.
Type of Call-To-Action Buttons
Not all buttons are made equal. Here is a list of the common call-to-action buttons that are based on the action that you want for each visitor to do:
- Add to Cart Buttons – E-commerce sites use call-to-action buttons a lot, and the “add-to-cart” is the one that they commonly prefer. This type of button usually appears on each of the product page. The wording being used for this particular button goes somewhere along the lines of “buy now”, “add to cart” or “add to bag” and it comes with an icon of either a cart or a bag, which is widely understood and associated with online shopping.
- Download Buttons – This is a button that is similar to the “add to cart”, one which entices a visitor to take possession of a product or item. The difference about download buttons is that developers add in more wording in the button itself where it includes version information or size of the download, and the most common strategy that site owners do is use small wording to keep the customers interested or curious which will encourage them to download it. The graphics typically associated with download buttons are any and all variations of down-pointing arrows, icons depicting a file, or the Adobe Acrobat .PDF reader icon.
- Trial Buttons – In order for site owners to provide a free sample of what they’re offering to visitors, a trial button is commonly used as a big call-to-action. It usually comes in the form of a free account or free download, depending on what the site is all about.
- Learn More Buttons – This button is commonly used when the content of a site involves a teaser which will encourage the visitor to click on the button in order to read the full version. Despite the simplicity of this button, they mostly come in large sizes to easily capture the visitor’s attention and letting them know that there is more to be had here.
- Sign Up Buttons – Sign-up buttons usually comes in two different versions. The first one is mainly associated within a signup form and sadly, too often still reads “Submit Form”, while the other one is similar to that of the “add to cart” button wherein a user needs to purchase or sign up for their account first before they can get to the actual sign up form.
There are lots of call-to-action buttons but these are the ones that are commonly used. Depending on your site, you can enhance these buttons to make them even more appealing to your visitors.
Using Negative Space Effectively
For your call-to-action button to effectively serve its purpose, you must make it stand out from the rest of your content. It must grab the attention of your visitors. To do that, use negative spaces around your call-to-action buttons. This means that you must surround your call-to-action button with enough space around it for it to get noticed. The negative space will make it easy for visitors to spot the button despite all of the content within the page.
Size and Color
You need to consider the size and color you will use for your call-to-action buttons. If you use something that is too large, it will just overpower the rest of the content around it… And too small of a button can easily be lost in the content around it and won’t inspire much action in your visitors.
The color is another consideration for your button and its journey to most effectiveness. Large buttons requires a color that is less prominent within your design so that it will still stand out, but not overpower. For smaller buttons, you can choose a brighter or more “loud” colour, and this will contrast it from the design and other content more than its size. In general, make the button colour stand out from the color of the design you use without clashing with it overall.
Create Urgency
The way for your buttons to get clicked on is to let your visitors have little thought of doing it as fast as possible. All you have to do is give out an impression that they need to act right away. This will get your visitors clicking without having second thoughts on doing so. However, be careful to not deceive your visitors with a “Buy Now” button that does not give them the option to actually “buy” or do it “now”, but only directs them to a contact page.
In Summary
If you haven’t thought about call-to-actions for your website, start now. Make an inventory of “things” that your visitors could “do” on your site to interact more with your business. Create ways for your website visitors to spend time on your page. After you’ve inventoried your list, come up with appropriate wording, get creative and get call-to-action buttons to become a natural part of your website design.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net