Read Me Now: Are you calling your visitors to action?

The term ‘call to action’ is one you might have heard many times, but still many sites aren’t taking advantage of this simple technique which boosts your conversion rate and encourages people to do what you want them to do.

There are lots of types of call to action, but the thing they all have in common is that they are asking the visitor to do something. Maybe that is making an enquiry, telling them to buy or getting a quote. Lots of people think ‘But surely if they wanted to do any of those things they would?’ Well, yes, they would, but not if you make it difficult for them. Remember that the web offers infinite opportunities to seek a product or service elsewhere, so you need to make it obvious what you want them to do.

If your site is going to be a success, you will need to make it clear what you expect the visitor to do on each page. This might be ‘BUY NOW’ on a product page, ‘CONTACT US’ on a page with information or ‘FIND US’ on an address page with a link to a map. These calls to action are crucial, as you can use them to link to the pages of your site which lead to conversions.

This is important whether your site is simple or complex. Even on a mobile site, which is generally a very stripped down, streamlined version of the full site, one of the most important elements that needs to be present is the call to action. For example, if you are a minicab company, your mobile site will need the ‘Make a booking’ button to be prominent so that users know exactly what to do as quickly as possible.

Human nature dictates that we don’t like wasting time looking for something that should be obvious, so if you’ve hidden your buying or enquiry process inside a labyrinth of obscure links, your customers won’t take kindly to it, and are likely to go somewhere more user-friendly. It’s not just about directing people towards the pages you want them to see, but also about giving the visitor a great user experience.

If you want to find out more about the difference a call to action can make, get in touch with Artemis today and we’ll be happy to explain further. (see what we did there?)