Unfortunately, there are many wrong ways to create a CTA (call-to-action). Here are a few ways you can tell that you need to makeover your site’s CTAs.
1. Your Landing Pages Aren’t Getting Traffic
One of the most obvious signs that you need to rethink your CTAs is that you’re not getting traffic to your landing pages even though your site overall is getting decent traffic. This may be because your offer and corresponding CTA don’t answer the crucial question your visitors want to know: “What’s in it for me?” One of the weakest calls to action is “Contact Us.” You want to be sure that you’re offering something that visitors are willing to exchange their contact info for.
Some ideas for lead generation offer include:
- Free eBooks
- Free Whitepapers
- Free webinars
- FAQs
- Kits
Also, make sure that your CTA is clickable. Many times I’ve seen a great offer on the page that either isn’t a link or is a broken link.
2. You’re Not Getting Leads
A lack of leads is another obvious sign that your CTAs need an overhaul, and is also tied to the fact that you need a compelling offer. But you also want to be sure that your CTA accurately matches the offer. Don’t overpromise on the CTA in hopes of increasing your click-through rate! If your readers click the CTA and reach a landing page where the offer doesn’t match up, they’ll navigate away from the page instead of filling out the form. So it’s also important that you follow landing page best practices to ensure that your landing page matches the CTA and offer
3. Your Visitors Have to Dig to Find a CTA
I often see the only CTA hidden away on a single child page that takes three clicks to get to. That means that if your site gets 300 visitors per day, that’s 300 lost opportunities to get leads (minus however many actually navigated or Google-searched to that exact page the CTA lives on). There’s nothing wrong with having your primary call to action right on your homepage. In fact, there should be a primary and secondary CTA on nearly every one of your website pages.
4. Your CTA Is Below the Fold
People are lazy. It’s the truth. Just like most people don’t go past page #2 in Google, people don’t like scrolling down if their eyes don’t find something interesting in less than 5 seconds. Place your CTAs above the fold so the user can see them without scrolling down.
5. Your CTA Doesn’t Stand Out
A bit of text in the sidebar isn’t going to be enough to grab your visitors’ attention. Make your CTAs bold, with graphics and colors that they can’t miss. Contrasting colors can help draw a visitor’s eye to the action you want them to take.
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About the Author
Diana Urban is a Marketing Manager @ BookBub | Fiction Author and was the former Head of Conversion Marketing in HubSpot. Diana is a results-driven marketer and content strategist who’s passionate about inbound marketing at startups.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianaurban/