Your digital marketing strategy is paying off and you’re gaining more traffic to your website. But what happens if the visitors keep leaving your site without clicking the CTA button? The issue could lie in a number of places, and in this article, we are going to look into the factors involved in a successful CTA and the best practices to follow.

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The CTA Button

A call-to-action (CTA) button is a visual point that encourages visitors to complete the desired action. This could include things like joining an email list, following a social media page, signing up to a membership or proceeding to checkout.

The CTA button is a vital component of marketing success – they essentially guide the visitor to complete an important part of the buying journey. And while every customer journey is unique, CTA buttons act as a conduit between the initial interest of the visitor, to then becoming a customer. 

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Importance of the CTA button

When designing a website or web page, you need to guide visitors to take action. Regardless of the primary goal, a CTA is needed to make it happen.

When a website is visited, there are a range of possibilities for the purpose of the visit. Most commonly, it is either for information, inspiration or entertainment. And once this desire is fulfilled, they will leave with no intention of taking it any further. At this stage, the visitor needs to be guided onwards, and the CTA creates a path for the visitors to take. 

There are a number of ways in which a CTA can help, but most commonly:

• It increases button or link click-through rates
• It grows the sale conversion rate of a product or service
• It enables you to build your email subscriber list
• It increases sales call enquiries 

We have clarified the importance of the CTA and how it will positively affect the success rates of your business, but this only works if the CTA is designed properly. When creating a CTA, the design, placement and wording must be taken into consideration. There are certain practices that should be followed for successful growth of conversion rates.

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The Best Practices for Increasing Conversion Rates

• Emphasizing contrast

Emphasizing contrast is critical because it makes your buttons stand out from the rest of the site design and content. Visitors won’t click on a button that they haven’t noticed.

We suggest using a range of contrasting colors, sizes, fonts and shapes that differ heavily from the background and from other elements of the page. Naturally, this will draw the visitor’s attention to the buttons, leading to an increased conversion. 

• Use a single CTA per page

It is important not to overwhelm the visitor. By having multiple CTAs on one page, it creates confusion and can lead to users into inaction and potentially leaving the site. The CTA should be a standalone, powerful prompt that tells the visitor exactly what they need to do. 

If your site has multiple goals, create different web pages that are designed for each specific purpose. Don’t risk putting too much information on one page.

• Keep it short and sweet

Following on from the point of overwhelming or confusing the visitor, a long-winded call-to-action is likely to confuse and discourage visitors. They are less likely to even read the CTA if too much information is presented.

In order to keep the CTA specific and relevant to your target audience, we recommend you keep the CTA between two and five words. Examples of this include ‘Upgrade Today’ or ‘Get your free eBook.’ 

• Social Proof 

In order to build a sense of trust, it is important to include testimonials or reviews from other customers before presenting the CTA. This could be screenshots from social media, video testimonials or a reviews plugin. Make this particularly noticeable so less action and thought is required from the visitor when deciding to make the purchase. 

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Measure CTA Performance through Testing

By this stage, hopefully your CTA practices have been implemented. But now we need to measure the success rate of these changes. 

We recommend running A/B tests on your CTAs. You can do this by choosing an element to change, such as the color of the button or text before the CTA. You can then compare the updated version with the original to determine which is working better. 

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How Redfast Can Boost Your Conversion Rates

The conversion rates of your business can be improved dramatically through a successful CTA strategy and a customer engagement platform like Redfast. Combining efficient use of both can boost your user acquisitions, upsell your existing products and services, and target exit intent actions.

To find out more about Redfast prompts, our marketing and technology experts are ready to answer your questions. See our How It Works page to speak with our team for a personalized demonstration.