They can make or break your sales.
Your website has a purpose to attract visitors and guide them to become customers. One of the most vital sales tools you have at your disposal is your Call to Action button.
Your Call to Action button tells your visitor what you want them to do and every website should have one; whether you are directing your visitor to buy, download, sign up, learn more, set an appointment, or pick up the phone and call.
This design element is often overlooked or designed in a way that doesn’t compel your visitors to take the next step, which can result in lost revenue for your business.
In this article we cover some basic principles of Call to Action button design that will help you to increase your revenue potential.
Color
A Call to Action button should stand out from your website design without clashing. There is no right or wrong color, but it is best to choose a color that contrasts from your website color scheme in a way that makes it instantly visible yet not overpowering.
Size
Size is an important factor in allocating importance in your website. Your primary Call to Action button should be sized in a way that grabs attention immediately without overwhelming the rest of your page content.
Spacing
Adequate white space around your Call to Action button will help it stand out more. It is a good idea to separate your Call to Action from the rest of your content just enough to raise its visibility, but not so much that the button becomes disjointed from its relative content.
Positioning
The location of your Call to Action button is vital to its visibility. In westernized cultures it is most common for a visitor to scan starting from the top left of a page, down to the bottom right. A button that is placed in the top or center of the page will gain more immediate attention than a button that is located on the bottom or left of the page.
Visuals
Adding imagery to your Call to Action can help increase the speed in which a visitor will be attracted to the button, as well as increase the relevance of the button itself. It could be advantageous to add an appropriate icon or image to your button that will help communicate what the button is for, or to attract more attention to it.
Wording
You can pretty much guarantee that the wording on your Call to Action button will be read by your visitors more than any of your other website content. With this in mind, it is important to word your button in a way that will compel your visitor to click on it. Ideally your wording should communicate value, relevance and urgency. Your Call to Action should direct your visitor to click on it and communicate in a way that your visitor will know what he will receive once clicked.
Follow-through
Do not make false claims about what your visitor will receive once clicked. This tactic will break your visitor’s trust in your business. An example of this could be a register button that claims registration is quick and easy, but clicks through to a large form that takes several minutes and too much thought to complete.
Multiple Call to Action buttons
There may be times when your site requires multiple Call to Action buttons to direct your visitor to make a choice about what action to complete. Your Call to Action buttons should be designed to convey the relative importance of the action. This can be accomplished by the use of size and color, making the higher priority button more visible than the lower priority button.
Take a good look at your website from a visitor’s perspective and see how effective your call to actions are.
