Engage! The Importance of Using Calls to Action (CTAs) on Your Website

Websites can be powerful marketing tools: they can convert visitors into customers or donors. To do so, you need to include calls to action (CTAs) that guide your visitors. It is not enough anymore to simply create a website and wait for the magic to happen. If you build a website without a strategy, you may convert a few visitors into customers. But if you want your website to be a tool for customer or donor engagement, you need to strategically employ calls to action in your website design and content.

What Are Calls to Action?

A call to action is a directive that you want website visitors to complete. CTAs should be simple, understandable, and easy for website visitors to execute. Depending on your goals for your website, you may choose to employ a variety of CTAs, including:

• Subscribe [to our listserv, newsletter, blog]
• Download [our app, our free toolkit]
• Find Us [on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram]
• Contact Us [via email, phone]

What Are Strategic Calls to Action?

At first glance, website CTAs may seem limited in scope and possibility. For example, if your website allows for e-commerce, you may view the “purchase” button as the ultimate CTA. In all likelihood, not all of your website visitors will complete that action. But you can make it easier to lead website users to that action through creating other CTAs: “Add to Wishlist,” “Add to Cart,” etc. By allowing users to choose one of many CTAs, you can increase engagement on your website and may be able to better pinpoint how to convert website visitors into customers or donors.

How Can I Create Strategic Calls to Action for My Website?

First of all, you need to be able to evaluate how well your current CTAs are working. Start by asking yourself the following questions:

• How many website visitors do I get in a given day, week, month, etc.?
• How many visits does each page on my website get?
• What are visitors looking at on each web page?
• How many clicks does each link get in a given day, week, month, etc.?
• How many face-to-face customers say they visited my website?

After you evaluate how well your current CTAs are working, you can strategize about what you can do to improve your CTAs to enhance engagement and conversion. For example, you may not be getting the number of subscribers that you would like for your blog. After using a heatmap tool for a month, you discover that only the first half of the web page with the subscribe button on the bottom is being viewed by website users. To make the button more visible, you can move it toward the middle or top of the screen, or you can reduce the amount of content on the page. With patience, reflection and creativity, you can devise strategic CTAs to drive website engagement and increase customer conversion.

Need Help Creating Better Calls to Action?