A Call To Action, or CTA, is the link or other function on a web page that drives your visitors to perform your desired action. Desired actions can range from navigating to another page through to making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. The more effective your CTA, the better your conversion rate will be, the more sales or referrals you will generate, and the better your profit levels will become.

Avoid Generic Text Links

You should determine the most accurate and beneficial CTA for each individual page. Using a generic CTA that is the same on every page will not give you the best results in most circumstances. This is because your readers are looking for something different on different pages. Your home page and other informational pages are unlikely to warrant a direct sale CTA, whereas the deep pages or product pages will require exactly that.

Provide The CTA Your Visitors Expect

Consider the people that most often visit a page. How did they arrive on that page and what are they looking for and expecting to find? Once you have answered these questions you will be in a stronger position to write better copy, provide improved page content, and direct visitors to the next logical step. You will be able to clearly identify the CTA that you should use on each page. The most effective way to optimize any page is to think about what your visitors want, as well as what you want them to do. At the very least you will have to persuade them that your desired action is the right one to take.

Use Specific Content

Throw out the generic text links. Every page, or at least every group of pages, should have its own CTA button. Write short, accurate, and appealing copy for each of your CTA buttons. Two or three words is the optimum amount of content for a button because any more than this and it will become difficult to read on a reasonable sized button and with only one word (even with two words) it is very difficult to accurately convey a message.

Use Buttons Rather Than Text Links

Graphical buttons have proven to be more effective than static text links. In the same way that we suffer from advertising blindness we are beginning to ignore generic text links that appear at the foot of a page. We know these to be links and, with poor formatting, they can be difficult to spot at the best of times. A graphic button placed in a prominent and relevant position is more likely to provide the results you want.

Using An Effective CTA Button

Always ensure that content is relevant, especially your CTA. If visitors on a page are being led to navigate to a product information page, then the CTA button should lead them to that page. Conversely, if they have been sold on a product or service and are ready to make the purchase or begin the purchasing process in earnest then the CTA button should help them do exactly that. Buttons using relevant, concise, and accurate text typically prove more effective than generic, long-winded text links.