Call to Action Best Practices

In order to capture your audience's attention and encourage them to click on your call-t0-action buttons, they need to be well designed and incorporate eye-catching graphics when necessary. Many business owners don't have the skills or comfort level to create their own call-to-action buttons, which is why we wanted to share that HubSpot has created 50 free call to action (CTA) templates that you can customize to your own specifications and begin using today.

As we discussed in a recent blog post, the best call to action buttons include words that will inspire the reader to take some type of immediate action, such as "register today," or "get your free Ebook now."

Here are some other characteristics of great call to action buttons:

• While calls to action should be brief and concise, they should also tell the reader or viewer what they’ll be getting if they click on the button. For example, while the word "free" is sure to catch someone's attention, using the phrase "click here for a free consultation" in a call-to-action can better prepare the reader for what he is clicking on. This can also help to ensure more quality leads and more conversions because you are inspiring someone that’s already interested and engaged in your content to take action.

•The best CTA buttons direct the online visitor to do something. All too often, businesses will have well-designed websites with fancy graphics, but they turn into a dead-end by not providing the next steps for an interested visitor to learn more. A great solution to add some depth to your website and increase your conversion rate is to request that your online visitors sign up to get updates, and including a call to action button can make this easy for your visitors to do.

•Really great call to action buttons can assist your sales team by qualifying leads and moving them down the sales funnel. The language that you use in these CTAs should not be pushy and instead encourage online visitors to "sign up for a free trial" or "talk to a sales rep for more information."

If your business uses call to action buttons to assist with marketing efforts, there’s no question that you will see an uptick in conversions of your online visitors.

Chris Vaughn is the Content Marketing Director for DigitalSherpa, the world's largest content marketing provider for small businesses. With the recent acquisition of SocialTract, DigitalSherpa is thrilled to welcome the HVAC community in to our client family. Learn more about content marketing and check out our free e-books and whitepapers at http://digitalsherpa.com. Connect with Chris and the DigitalSherpa team on Facebook and Twitter or e-mail Chris directly at [email protected].