The Call-to-action – always referred to as the CTA, is about encouraging a specific response from your visitors or readers. Whether it's to purchase a product, sign up for an appointment, or share feedback on your blog post.

It's essential to have a refined and clear CTA, so your website visitors and readers know what you expect them to do.  Otherwise, they just click on the next interesting thing that takes their attention…Squirrel!

Call-to-actions are all around you, but most businesses either neglect them or don't do them very well. The average conversion rate for a CTA is just above 4% across all industries.

So, to get the conversions, you must create a great call to action that will get your buyers to click the link. We will show you the golden rules to craft the perfect Call to Action.

Conjure Up Your Inner Wordsmith

Call-to-actions need to be clear and straight to the point. You don't need to beat around the bush. Your audience should know immediately what they are supposed to do. Otherwise, they will move onto the next clickbait that is put in front of them. That is your opportunity lost, and you may not get it back.

The way to make things clear and concise is to use action verbs to push visitors to take a specific action.

• Shop
• Order
• Buy
• Subscribe
• Download
• Find More
• Show Me How
• Act Now
• Secure

Other words that are attractive to users include:

• Free
• Discount
• Profit
• Secret
• New
• Increase
• Discover
• Maximize
• Boost

Keeping these in mind, think about some of the words you can use for a CTA

• Act Now & Maximize Profits
• Order Your Free Trial
• Subscribe for Massive Discounts

Personalize the Experience

Speak directly to your readers. Readers need to feel that the offer is just for them.

Using the term:

• ‘I Want to Save Money' is better than ‘Click here to Save Money.'
• ‘Give me a Discount Now' is better than ‘Click here for a Discount.'

If you utilize email marketing, use real names. This option is always available in better email marketing platforms and can be easily integrated into your campaign.

Another way to personalize the experience is not just to sell your product on how good it is. Get the buyers emotions involved. Forge an emotional connection.

Convey how the product or service can help them. How the customer will feel when they use the product or achieve their goal by using your service. Dig deep and focus on the emotional attachment that your product or service provides. Make it seem like you are writing to their specific problem or need.

Fix Their Problem

Competition in the business world is tough, and there are many options to fix one problem. You need to give your reader or buyer a reason to hand over their money or time, or both – which they are usually very protective of sharing.

It's your job to identify the problem that your product or service fixes and present it as a solution to their problem. Something that feels like it's giving them more than what it's taking away.

In some cases, you may need to use your content to first highlight their problem to the extent where it feels so unbearable, that the CTA to get the solution is the only real course of action.

To do this, you need to use your words….the first golden rule of making a great call to action.

Craft your content to make the problem almost insurmountable and then make your Call-to-action personalized, attractive, and the best possible solution to their issue.

But that is not always enough, you have to get them excited about it. Why your solution is the best. You have to know and convey your unique selling proposition as the best solution for their problem.

Know Where the Call-to-Action Goes

This is the major downfall of the majority of well-constructed CTAs. You can't just place your CTA button anywhere you like. There is a level of complexity about this issue. The page structure and content dictate the button's placement.

If the page is small and there is minimal text or information, then you can place the button above the fold. Above the fold just means anything that is immediately visible.

For longer pages, the Call-to-action can go below the fold – which will require scrolling. But you need your content to be spectacular to entice them to keep scrolling.

As a business, you want everyone who lands on your page to at least read your CTA. But most website visitors close down or leave within about 15 seconds. This means you don't have a lot of time to make an impression. The content should be informative and precise, with no distracting elements.

In this situation, have two or more Call-to-actions on a page. One at the top, another few interspersed in the content and one at the end.

If you understand the visual and reading patterns in Western populations, they tend to read in a left to right, top to bottom approach. Therefore, it's generally accepted to put most CTA buttons on the right side of the fold either at the top or the bottom of the visual material. But this is not a hard and fast rule.

Get Creative

While you can easily put a standard and bland CTA button on your page that comes with the platform or package that you are using, the truth is, it won't provide the results you want and mostly be ignored.

Your CTA needs to be obvious and stand out from the rest of the content on your page. This is why you need to incorporate other elements to make it stand out.

First up, using a button is far more successful than just text. When you are thinking about your CTA button consider:

• Size – Your button touchpoints should be between 44 and 50 pixels tall. But be careful, don't make them too big or else they become distracting, and people just leave the page.
• Shape – try to have something different in shape. You don't have to have a simple oblong button. You can use rounded edges, or even unique shapes such as arrows or circles.
• Text – Consider the size, length, color and font of the text that you utilize. The fewer words you use, the easier it is to read. You should also make it big enough, so they don't have to squint to read what is on the button.
• Color – the rabbit hole of color psychology is as big as any you will find on the internet. Colors have a significant impact on your conversion rate. Although colors you use can depend on the background color, branding palette and images, it is mostly regarded that orange and green are the best performing colors for conversion. However, blue is known to convey trust – which can also be helpful.

Get Rid of the Distractions

If you bombard people with too much, it is a distraction that prevents people from taking your desired action.

Distractions come in the form of any copy or design element such as headings, multiple CTAs, pop-ups and discount offers. If you are designing a CTA for a landing page, it should be used explicitly for a single offer.

Keep these tips in mind the next time you are sitting down to craft a spectacular CTA, so you can convert more users into repeat buyers.