What Is CTA (Call To Action) and Why Does Everyone Need It?
A CTA or Call to Action, is the part of your website that tells your intended audience what they should be doing once they found your website. A Call to Action can be a mild request like “Click Here” or “Watch This Video”, or much more demanding as “Buy Now” or “Purchase Here”. No matter how inventive we get it still boils down to one request, telling people what to do next.
Having an effective CTA is a crucial part of every website. Every website should be built with an objective it wants users to complete, whether its filing out a contact form, signing up for a newsletter or taking advantage of a promotional offer. Every business faces the painful reality that users are inpatient and reluctant to take the next step. The CTA is your chance to give your reader these instructions.
Successful calls to action are among the fundamentals of every website, but far too many aren’t using them effectively. The following principles will help make your CTAs as strong as possible, making it easier to drive the business results you desire:
- Visibility – Your CTA is useless if nobody every sees it.
- Clear & Compelling Message – If your call to action is weak, users won’t be motivated to follow through. But if it’s too strong, they’ll resent being compelled to perform against their will.
- Supporting Elements – Using images, testimonials and other essential features near your call to action may boost activity.
One of the most common and worst mistakes we make is to assume people know what to do and forget the call to action. After spending money and effort putting up a website, promoting it and getting visitors to it — the last thing you want is for that visitor to leave without establishing some kind of connection with him or her.
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