Tricks for an Effective Website Call to Action

Almost every website needs call to action. It is manifested by a button and encourages an action or response from your target audience.

Having an effective call to action is an important part of online business. It directs and urges visitors to perform your desired action of purchasing an item, filling in a contact form, subscribing to a newsletter, downloading a trial product and many more. Website call to action is also a useful tool to measure the effectiveness of your website and improve the website conversion.

5 Tips of an Effective Call to Action

Call to action is an indispensable way for a website to generate leads. But if you don’t apply the call to action wisely, you may fail to achieve your purpose or even force your visitors to go away. So, how to create a functional call to action in web design? How to make your call to action grab the visitors’ attention and inspire them to click?

Here are five tips for you in designing a strong call to action. These techniques will not only fulfill your objectives and get your website audience motivated, but also trigger for your Internet marketing success.

1.   Have prominent position

No doubt, if you place your call to action in an area not be noticed, you will lose a large amount of conversion. It is obviously that the placement of call to action in web page is critical to draw users’ attention. Having a prominent location such as in the central of the layout, above the fold section, at the top of the web page will make a big difference.

Take Pinterest as an example, you can see the call to action button located at the top of the web page. Placement of “Request an invite” and “login” at such distinguished area works very well. Visitors will notice the buttons at the first glance once they arrive at this website, and they probably will take action by clicking.

2.   Possess a personal space

To make your call to action stand out, you need to respect its personal space. In other words, you can leave proper white space around your call to action button without burying it in noise. Whitespace can distinguish a call to action effectively and grab visitors’ attentions.

Take a look at the call to action example of  Things , which shows how effective an appropriate whitespace is. This website applies white space expertly around the “Download” and “Purchase” button. Although these buttons are plainly designed, they are still very eye-catching.

3.   Use compelling words

The call to action with compelling words can inform users what they are about to do as well as what they will get in return. Visitors will not waste time on unclear text like “Click Here”.  You should consider the potential questions that users may have, and tell users what to expect. On the other hand, if your call to action button conveys a sense of urgency with active urgent language like “Offer expires May 31^st”, you can easily direct users to complete a call to action.

Aweber uses this approach when selling its service. It makes a call to action with compelling words of “Signup for Just $1”, which hints that this is quite a good deal. This call to action example perfectly encourages more visitors to click on the button and finally makes more sales.

4.   Make it big

It is also a good idea to draw in visitors with size. In a website, the size of a call to action relative to its surrounding elements demonstrates its importance. Although it is not an absolute truth, the bigger your call to action is, the more attention it will get. Therefore, you may decide the size of your call to action according to its importance.

koombea does an excellent job of making its call to action big enough. The button “Available on the App Store” is very appealing and makes a great effect on the click conversion.

5.   Use color contrast

We all know that color plays a significant role in drawing attention. To give emphasis to your call to action, you may use contrasting colors in your web design. Namely, try to use colors in your call to action buttons that have a high contrast to those of the surrounding elements and background.

SourceTec employs this technique properly on its website. It catches users’ eyes directly to the call to action of “Download Free Trial”. Here, the surrounding elements and the background are predominately in blue, while the call to action is highlighted in orange. In a nut shell, the button stands out because of the color contrast.

Showcase of 15 Awesome Call to Action Examples

Apart from the above tips of an effective call to action, there are also many other techniques you can apply.  However, these techniques are not used separately. You should consider the place, the space, the words, the size and the color altogether. Blow is a collection of 15 fabulous website call to action examples. You can see many best practices in action on these designs of call to action. Enjoy browsing!

1.   Get concentrating

2.   Resume baking

3.   Date my mate

4.   Dropbox

5.   Skype

6.   Plan HQ

7.   Get shopped

8.   Elegant themes

9.   Mail chimp

10.   Bloom fire

11.   Max CND

12.   The high land fling

13.   Latin rogue cleaning

14.   Cake php

15.   America by rail

Anything Missing?

The call to action is a vital element in the success of your website. Hope the above tips and examples are helpful source for your call to action in web design. If you find anything missing in this post, just feel free to add it in the comment.