What is a CTA?
In this blog I will look to answer the question "what is a CTA?"
For those of you looking for the short answer CTA = Call to action (at least in marketing terms). If that is all you needed, thanks for stopping by 🙂
Still here? Ok cool. So a call to action is pretty much how it sounds. It is a request for the visitor to that webpage or landing page or social post to do something.
It could be any of the following and lots more:
1) Â Complete a form
2) Sign up to an email list
3) Download something
4) Visit another page or landing page
5) Play a video or audio
6) Buy something
Why do you want CTA's on your website?
Nice and easy this one, to keep the user journey flowing and to help direct them. A website with dead ends is a common occurrence unfortunately and the way to avoid this is to give the visitor clear directions. This will also lower bounce rate and exit rate in many cases.
Now in the case of E-commerce you might not want them to leave the page and the CTA is all about making the purchase or at least giving some indication you may by it later by adding to a wish list.
For a Blog it might be an email sign-up or a free download of some kind. Either way you need to think about your user journeys  and make sure that there is a clear path and when you want a visitor to take action you provide them with a relevant CTA.
The relevant part is really important as if it is not relevant it is unlikely to be clicked.
There are also lots of tools for making CTAs and testing them too. Colours do matter and so does the wording and in some cases the shape of it too. Some simple changes to CTA's have found dramatic increase in results.
There is no hard and fast rules but what works for you. I personally try and avoid red for two reasons. One is because I think people associate red with danger and the other is I am a spurs fan.
I also always try and provide 3 things at the bottom of all of my sites in the footer:
1) Email sign-up and a reason for signing up
2) Menu items to direct them where next
3) A link back to the top of the page (little blue arrow bottom right)
These options ensure that the user can take action and keep moving. If they are done I have my email list or to keep going the menu or back to the top button.
Regarding the testing of CTA's I would only really worry about this if you have the traffic and it drives revenue. Spending time split testing is not always the best thing for a marketer with little traffic to worry about and should really be spending time building and distributing content first.
If you made it this far, thanks 🙂 Let me know your thoughts or check out my other options or hit that close window button 😉
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.