Calls to action or as we refer to them, CTAs, are an important inbound marketing tool for capturing your website visitors attention and increasing your conversion rates. CTAs are buttons on a web page that work to attract visitors attention because they have a defined, colourful shape that stands out from their surroundings.
With multiple audiences viewing your website -- new visitors, leads, customers, etc.-- it’s often hard to reach all of them through the same content. Using different types of CTAs on your landing pages can help narrow in on specific audiences within your marketing segment. More often than not, CTAs are generic and boring, and are placed ineffectively, resulting in a small level of interaction. Changing up the types of CTAs on your landing pages can help increase your conversion rates, and here are 6 types to try on your website.
1) “Read More” button
One of the most common CTAs is “Read More.” It’s an effective CTA to use on your website, especially for pages such as your homepage, to help reduce clutter. By using the “Read More” CTA you can encourage your visitors to deep dive into the pieces of content that interest them while refraining from overwhelming visitors with too much content.
While offering a brief introduction to each section, we use a “Read More”-style CTA to encourage visitors to find out more details about the specific subject they’re interested in.
2) Lead Generation
The ultimate goal of CTA is to increase lead generation, so you’ll want to use them on your web page where there is a high percentage of visitors. Some good places to put these CTAs are at the bottom of blogs, in the sidebar, or even a floating banner in the corner. CTAs need to be eye-catching, so remember important characteristics when making your CTAs such as the text used, the placement of the CTA, and the size and colour to encourage click-rates.
3) Form Submission
Once a visitor is on your website, your goal is to finish the deal and have them convert as a lead, and this is done when they fill out their information and click the submit button to become apart of your contact database. When collecting this information, make sure they’re informed on what they’re signing up for and rather than just having a “Submit” button let them know what they’ll be receiving in return.
This is the CTA we use on our homepage, as you can see we have a banner set-up to collect information along with a headline that lets the visitor know what they’re giving their information for (in this case subscribing to our educational blog).
4) Social Sharing
These are simple CTA’s and they are a great tool to spread word-of-mouth about the great content you’re offering. They allow the visitors to share content with their friends and are a low-commitment way for any users on your website to interact with your brand. Social sharing CTAs can be placed around your website where others may not be as effective, and usually go well on blog posts or landing pages.
We choose to use these CTAs on our blogs by listing them under the title and date, giving our users the option of sharing our blog posts to their social media pages, helping provide an organic spread of our content.
5) Product or Service Delivery
When people visit your website, they likely have the intent of looking at your business and what you have to offer them. CTAs help organize your website, and make it easier for them to navigate.
We use these CTAs at the top of our homepage to give visitors the instant option of what aspect of our business they would like to know more about. They’re simple and they stand out, and are something our visitors have easy access to.
6) Lead Nurturing
Once a visitor has been converted to a lead, the next objective is to get them further interested into the idea of purchasing your product. How can you do this? Enticing them with an offer is one way to help. Rather than a run of the mill marketing offer, your offer should be one that is more aligned to your product. Demos, free trials or free quotes are all good examples of how to capture their interest and a lead nurturing CTA is how you can promote this offer.
Along with giving information about what we do here with a “Read More” CTA, we add one more part to this piece of our website, a lead nurturing CTA. By giving them the option to request a free assessment, we provide the opportunity for them to experience our service offerings and touch with with a key personnel in our business.
These are just some of the many CTAs to try on your website. Whether you use one or all of them is your choice. Just remember to make them compelling, be logical about where you place them, and make sure they don’t compete with other content, and you’ll be well on your way to using CTAs effectively and increasing your conversion rates. Connect with our team to learn more about effective CTA strategy that will turn your website visits into leads.