Have you ever put tons of time and effort into creating a killer landing page, only to find it’s not actually driving many conversions? Frustrating, right? Well, one of the most common culprits behind poor landing page performance is ineffective calls-to-action (CTAs).
You may be wondering—what exactly is a call-to-action anyway? And why do they matter so much? Basically, a CTA is any element on a landing page, like a button or link, that prompts visitors to take your desired action. CTAs are absolutely essential because they clearly tell your visitors what you want them to do next. Without clear and compelling CTAs, people will just wander away from your page confused and unlikely to convert.
The problem is, it’s easy to make all sorts of CTA mistakes that totally undermine your landing pages. Between poor placement, distracting colors and fonts, weak messaging, and non-responsive design among other pitfalls, even the most well-intentioned CTAs can flop hard. And when your CTAs don’t work, neither does your landing page.
So in this article, we’re going to cover the most common CTA slip-ups that ruin landing page effectiveness. We’ll look at why they cause issues and how to fix them. We’ll also talk about best practices for creating killer CTAs that drive maximum conversions. Good? Great! Let’s dive in.
So as I mentioned briefly already, CTA stands for “call-to-action”. But let’s break it down a bit more.
Essentially, a call-to-action is any visual element on a landing page meant to prompt the visitor to take your desired action.
Their purpose is to guide visitors along towards conversion by clearly telling them what you want them to do.
For example, common CTAs include “Sign Up Now“, “Start Free Trial”, “Add to Cart” and so on. These short, action-oriented phrases urge visitors to move ahead in the conversion process. The style and design of CTAs can vary widely, but their core function remains the same – to incentivize visitors to take the next step you want.
Without strategically placed and well-crafted CTAs, visitors would enter your landing page without any direction. And we all know people love wandering aimlessly around websites, right? Yeah, not really. If you don’t explicitly show visitors how to move ahead, they’ll quickly lose interest and head for the exit. And that means lost conversions for you.
So in short, CTAs turn passive website visitors into active conversion-ready leads. They transition people from thinking “Nice page…” to thinking “Yes, I’m ready to sign up!” That’s why fine-tuning your CTAs is so tremendously important for landing page success.
Now that we’ve covered the general idea of CTAs, let’s zoom in on one of the most common and effective CTA formats – the call-to-action button.
Call-to-action buttons are clickable, interactive elements that encourage a specific action. They stand out visually from other content on the page and clearly communicate what the next step should be. CTA buttons use action-driven language like “Sign Up”, “Subscribe”, “Get Started” combined with motivating colors, size and placement. This instantly signals their purpose to visitors.
For example, think about signing up for a software app or online course. Typically you’ll encounter a colorful button front and center that says something like “Start Free Trial”. That’s a CTA button in action.
Ultimately, CTA buttons allow you to guide visitors through conversion in a very targeted yet low-effort way. They reduce decision-making down to a single clickable element. Of course, the button still needs compelling and value-focused copy. But used strategically, CTA buttons are tremendously effective at capturing conversions on landing pages and beyond.
Now that you know what CTAs and CTA buttons are all about, let’s talk about why they’re so critically important for landing page success.
The goal of your landing page is ultimately to convert visitors into leads and customers. Without conversions, all the time and money invested into driving traffic is wasted. Effective CTAs are what enable those conversions on your landing pages.
Think about what mindset people are typically in when they reach your landing page. They may be interested but also distracted, hesitant, and still making up their minds. Your CTAs need to guide them from that uncertain state into actively engaging with your offering.
If your CTAs are dull or buried on the page, visitors will remain disengaged. They’ll scan right by without knowing what actions are desired or why they should care. That results in mass bounce backs without any conversions. Pretty terrible outcome, right?
However, compelling CTAs like prominent call-to-action buttons confront visitors’ uncertainty head-on. They present a clear path forward and reasons to follow it. This helps visitors overcome hesitation, build trust, and progress towards conversion.
In essence, effective CTAs both inform visitors about what you want them to do AND motivate them to go ahead and do it. They bridge the gap between arrival and action. Without strategic CTAs placed throughout your landing page, it’s almost impossible to drive conversions consistently.
So making high-impact CTAs is crucial for converting inbound traffic rather than letting it slip away unused. Remember, your CTAs serve as the metaphorical hand guiding visitors along the conversion path you lay out. That makes them invaluable elements in any winning landing page.
Now if CTAs serve the pivotal role of ushering visitors towards conversion, it begs the question – what exactly are we trying to convert them to do? This brings us to identifying your landing page’s core conversion goal.
Every landing page needs to have a single, clearly defined conversion goal behind it.
Without an obvious objective driving the page, you can’t hope to move visitors there efficiently. CTAs require an endpoint to direct people towards.
Ultimately, it depends on what you want visitors to do after entering your conversion funnel through the landing page.
Figuring this out upfront is crucial because your CTAs should always motivate the next step in pursuing that goal. If you’re unsure what your landing page is really aiming to achieve, your CTAs will end up disjointed and ineffective.
For example, perhaps your goal is to get small business owners to sign up for a newsletter. So embedded CTAs would say things like “Sign Up Here” and “Get Expert Tips”. However, if you also tossed in CTAs like “Start My Free Trial”, it would dilute their clarity and intent.
Essentially, identifying a singular conversion goal acts as the true north pointing your CTAs consistently in one direction. It ensures every element works cohesively towards moving visitors into conversion rather than confusing them. So take the time to define what success looks like before mapping your CTAs.
Alright, so you’ve identified the single conversion goal for your landing page. Now let’s discuss how you can craft CTAs that actively support and advance visitors towards that goal.
Remember, CTAs serve as waypoints along the conversion journey you want visitors to complete. So ideally each step should build naturally upon the last in pursuit of the end goal you defined already.
For example, say your landing page goal is to get visitors to register for an upcoming webinar. The page might start by selling the value of attending live with some CTAs like “Learn More” and “See the Agenda”.
Further down, after detailing the webinar content, a new CTA may prompt visitors to “Secure My Spot Now”. This showcases rising urgency and exclusivity to drive registrations. Finally, the page may end with a colorful button CTA encouraging visitors to “Register for the Webinar Today”.
You see how each CTA builds upon the last in intensity yet remains aligned? The visitor journey starts with interest building, moves into value demonstration, then closes with a clear path to register. Each CTA plays a role in motivating and overcoming hesitation around signing up.
This methodology applies to any landing page and conversion objective. Strategically map backwards from the end goal to identify key barriers and friction points. Then craft supportive CTAs that help visitors confidently move through the funnel towards conversion. Aligned CTAs telling a cohesive story drive substantially more conversions.
Alright, we’ve covered the fundamentals around crafting landing page CTAs. Now let’s dive into some common mistakes that render them ineffective. First up – poor placement and visibility.
Even the most well-designed CTA button won’t drive conversions if visitors can’t see it or have trouble accessing it. So strategic visibility and placement on your landing page layout is critical.
A very frequent issue is cramming your primary CTA button way at the bottom of the page. Sure, it seems important to detail all your product or service features first. But if your CTA is barely visible visitors will lose patience before ever scrolling down to it.
Similarly, embedding your main call to action deep in the middle of dense paragraph text is problematic. Visitors simply won’t expend effort digging around for your CTA when distraction and exit options are far easier.
Additionally, having low-contrast colors between your CTA buttons and the surrounding page can undermine visibility. If the CTA blends too much into the background visually it will just blend into the noise for visitors.
The fix is making sure your primary CTA buttons are above the fold in uncluttered spaces rich with white area.
Complement this by using contrasting colors between background, text and buttons themselves. This naturally draws visitor attention with minimal effort or friction.
Remember – out of sight means out of mind for CTAs. Strategically spotlight them in areas you know visitors will look to maximize visibility and engagement. Don’t hide your calls to action away in inconvenient places.
Beyond just placement and visibility, the actual messaging and styling of your CTAs also matters tremendously. One of the biggest pitfalls here is failing to instill any sense of urgency or excitement around taking action.
Think about it – as visitors arrive at your landing page, what’s motivating them to move ahead in the conversion process you’ve laid out? They likely still feel neutral or hesitant about engaging further at this point. Your CTAs need to convince them to get involved now rather than putting it off.
However, calls to action that are visually unappealing with dull messaging won’t spark that crucial sense of urgency. Phrases like “Click Here For More Information” or “Sign Up To Learn More” are vague and completely forgettable. They give visitors no compelling reasons to actually follow through.
Instead, you need to add intrigue, exclusivity and enthusiasm into your CTAs. For example, contrast dull messaging with lively CTAs like:
These immediately create curiosity and enthusiasm around the offered result. Visitors don’t want to miss out on something hot in demand, especially if availability is limited. This pressure motivates them to take action rather than miss the opportunity.
Essentially, breathing passion, excitement and urgency into your CTAs makes them magnetic. Visitors almost feel pulled to click and convert rather than needing constant convincing. So ditch the lifeless CTAs for messaging that energizes.
Alright, next pitfall to avoid – stop making your CTAs compete for attention! Having multiple contrasting calls-to-action visible simultaneously undermines their effectiveness substantially.
Often, in hopes of capturing every possible conversion path, marketers cram every variation of CTA onto one page. You’ll see “Download This Ebook”, “Sign Up For A Demo”, “Start Free Trial” and “Contact Sales” all at once. Talk about option overload!
The problem is each CTA triggers a different visitor decision-making process. By presenting conflicting choices, you short-circuit the evaluation stage for all of them. Their priorities become muddled trying to weigh contradictory options.
This mental taxing leads most visitors to simply abandon the whole process altogether. Without a linear path, they shut down under the burden of choosing the “right” option. After all, determining optimal paths takes a lot more effort than just leaving!
Instead:
Of course, you can still include secondary complementary CTAs a layer down on pages. But spotlight that key conversion goal CTAs in main visibility areas without competition. Don’t allow divided attention across conflicting calls-to-action.
Another area many marketers drop the ball on is making CTAs properly responsive across devices. It’s 2024 – the majority of your traffic is likely visiting on mobile devices. Yet still today, CTAs often display and function poorly for mobile visitors.
If your CTA buttons, links and related copy aren’t legible or accessible on smartphones, you block a huge portion of conversions. Visitors get extremely frustrated when screen elements fail or flow suboptimally cross-device.
Issues range from buttons being too small to tap accurately to critical info displaying off screen on mobile. Similarly, CTAs like click-to-call phone links prove useless on smartphones. Without adjusting these components for each platform, functionality suffers greatly.
Essentially, your landing pages and embedded CTAs should deliver an equally streamlined, high-converting experience regardless of visitor device. Clunky technical issues undermine mobile usability substantially, so responsive design is mandatory in today’s multi-platform world.
When designing an effective landing page, an age-old principle applies: less is more. Cluttering up your page with excessive information and visual clutter tanks conversion rates by distracting visitors from your CTA.
It’s tempting to cram every selling point, feature, benefit, credential, and piece of social proof you can into a page. But that backfires by creating a dense, complicated layout that overwhelms visitors. Their eyes bounce aimlessly across the page, unable to focus on any one message or CTA.
Big chunks of dense paragraphs hide your key value props and calls-to-action. Visitors aren’t going to slog through all that content to find your CTA. They’ll move on to simpler experiences instead.
Similarly, visual components like stock photos, graphics, animations and videos compete for attention. If overused, these elements pull focus towards entertainment rather than conversion. Stick to only imagery that directly supports and enhances understanding of your CTA.
Less truly is more when it comes to copy, images, and elements that might distract.
Now that we’ve covered the pitfalls ruining most CTAs, let’s shift gears to discuss best practices for creating high-converting calls-to-action. Follow these guidelines, and your landing pages will start driving way more leads.
There you have it – follow those guidelines, and your CTAs will start compelling action better than ever before. Just don’t forget the most important lesson overall: focus visitor attention on one primary CTA per page or experience. Eliminate distraction for conversion success.
Optimizing your landing page CTAs takes some nuance. Let’s tackle some common questions that arise when trying to boost CTA performance:
There’s no universal “good” conversion rate. It depends on your niche, offer level of intent, etc. However, shoot for at least a 1-2% conversion rate from visitors hitting your page as a baseline.
Limit yourself to one primary CTA, plus a few secondary supplemental ones on long pages. Too many CTAs compete and confuse visitors. Simple is best.
Bright contrasting colors like oranges, reds and greens grab attention. But also test black/white CTAs since they look more professional for some industries. Choose colors that align with your brand.
Above the fold! Keep your headline CTA visible when visitors arrive without requiring scrolling. Secondary CTAs can go further down pages.
Crystal clear messaging that builds value and urgency works best. For example “Register Your Spot In Our Limited-Time Sale” demonstrates an urgent benefit. Compelling CTAs overcome hesitation.
Buttons typically convert better by catching the eye with more visual prominence. But test both – occasionally simple underlined links match certain page designs cleaner.
There you have the most common CTA questions covered. Remember to continually test and optimize as you learn more about your visitors and what calls them to action!
Let’s recap the key lessons for optimizing your landing page CTAs:
Optimizing your landing page CTAs takes continual testing and refinement. But apply the strategies covered today, and you’ll notice your conversions steadily improving over time.
Remember – without clear, effective calls-to-action, inbound traffic leaves without converting. Compelling CTAs are the metaphorical hand guiding visitors into becoming loyal customers. So make sure your pages end with strong ones leading to conversion success!
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