One of THE most critical aspects of all websites, no matter who you are or what your business is, is something called a CTA, or a call-to-action.

A call-to-action is literally that – something that’s calling your visitor to take a specific action.

“Buy Now”
“Book Today”
“Send me a message”
“Click Here”
“Schedule a Call”
“Download Now”
“Sign Up Below”

These are all of examples of CTAs that you’ve probably seen dozens of times just today without realizing it. While these small little calls to action may not seem important – they’re actually one of the most important aspects of every single website in existence.

Why your website needs CTAs

Without CTAs on your website, your audience will inevitably poke around and eventually leave, because they don’t know what they’re supposed to do on your website.

Are they supposed to book a call with you?

Are they supposed to sign up for your free training course?

Should they be looking at the services you offer?

If you don’t tell people what to do, they won’t do it.

Failing to properly implement and use CTAs (even on the prettiest website in the world) will ultimately only result in a pretty website with a horrible conversion rate. And a bad conversion rate is bad for business!

What’s a conversion rate, you ask?

Great question!

What is a conversion rate?

A conversion rate is the number of people who take the action what you want them to take (aka. the number of successful “conversions”) in comparison to the total number of people who visited your website.

Let’s drop a quick and easy math equation:

Conversation rate = (# of conversions ÷ # of total visitors) * 100

If 50 people visit your website, and 8 people take that action that you told them to take, your conversion rate would be…

(8 ÷ 50)*100 , which equals a 16% conversion rate

There are plenty of different opinion on what a “good” conversion rate is, but the general consensus seems to be that anywhere from 15-20% is a good conversion rate.

So now that we’ve got the nerdy mathing outta the way, let’s tie this back to our original topic: calls-to-action.

Ensuring that your website uses CTAs is a great way to improve your website conversion rate, and a better conversion rate will ultimately lead to greater business success by providing:

More sales
More clients
More people on your email list

…which all lead to more money.

Best Practices for creating effective CTAs

• Use buttons – Bonus points if your buttons pop in color compared to the color they’re sitting on top of.
• Use short, clear commands – CTAs aren’t the place to get clever and cutesy with your words. Keep it clear and to the point so people know exactly what you want them to do
• Make sure you have an overall “website goal” in mind, then use your CTAs to lead people towards them.
• Have a CTA at the bottom of every page – Don’t leave people hanging and wondering what to do when they get to a bottom of the page. Lead them another step along the strategic path towards your website goal by having a CTA at the bottom of each and every page.
• Have a CTA “above the fold” on your Home page – “above the fold” simply means your CTA is visible before scrolling.
• Don’t have multiple, opposing CTAs visible at once – Having only one CTA visible at a time helps avoid confusion in your visitors. One exception to this rule would be if you have a CTA in your menu that is always visible as people scroll, such as a Book Now button. This wouldn’t count toward your “maximum of 1 at a time” rule throughout the rest of your website.

Take a look at your website and see if you have clear and obvious calls-to-action. If not, they might be holding you back in business success. It’s time to implement those best practices and start seeing the success your website deserves!

If you’re looking for more small but super duper effective ways to improve your website, drop your info below to get a copy of my (totally free!) 7 Website Must-Haves Checklist.

Spoiler alert: You’ve already got one of them done with this blog post! 🤓