There are many important elements to a landing page, but the call-to-action (CTA) button is arguably one of the most critical. Think of the CTA as a direct ask or invitation to your website visitors. In order to get your audience’s attention, the button needs to stand out and its message needs to be succinct and compelling.
Fortunately, there’s lots of research available on CTA stats. We recommend starting with some tried and true strategies and then conducting some A/B testing to further improve performance.
Button Placement
For best results, the CTA button should be located in a highly visible location on the right side of the page, near the offer. Users should have to “look” for the CTA – it should jump right out. Locating the CTA on the right vs. the left is preferable because it follows users’ natural viewing patterns.
Button Style
Besides ensuring the CTA button has good placement on the page, be sure it is large enough to have good visibility. In terms of styling, there are numerous options. In general, we find it is most important to select a shape and style that complements the branding and page design but also stands out. A test by Unbounce found that a rounded green button had a 38% increase in sales (not CTR) compared to a square blue button. However, this is not to say that all buttons should be rounded – it really depends on the styling of the website.
Button Color
The color of a CTA button is very important – it increases its visibility and also can have psychological associations. In general, most experts agree that the button color should “pop” or stand out from the page, but there are lots of conflicting opinions about the best hue. There are many case studies that indicate a red button resulted in a huge lift in conversions when tested against blue or green. And, there are a handful of studies that show the reverse. What seems to be most important about color selection is to choose a color that is bright, that stands out and to select a particular shade that works very well with the overall branding of the website and page. In other words, if the links on your website and much of the branding is red or orange, then a bright blue button will probably perform better than red. Obviously, it may take a few tries to find the best hue. Also don’t discount yellow, bright pink or purple – depending on the site, those can work well too!
Button Messaging
The messaging on the button is probably its single most important aspect. Since the goal of the CTA button is to propel the user into taking an action, use succinct action-focused text that is written in the first person. For example, instead of “Submit” (or worse yet, “Click Here”) try these instead:
- “Reserve Your Seat”
- “Sign Up For Your Free Consultation”
- “Get Started”
- “Start Your Free Trial”
- “Set Up Your Account”
- “Download Whitepaper” (instead of download our whitepaper).
In addition to the messaging tips mentioned above, it can also be helpful to instill a sense of urgency, like “Subscribe Now” or “Start Your Trial Today”.
Test, Change and Test Again
Changing any one of the above button aspects can have a significant impact on conversion rate. The key is to change only one aspect of the CTA button at a time, so that you can accurately A/B test the change. For example, if you change both the size and the color of the button at once, you won’t know if the results were influenced by both or just one of these variables.
The Big Picture
Always remember that the CTA button is just one part of your landing page. For best results, be sure that the page conveys the benefit of the offer, use a minimal number of form fields, ensure the form title clearly states the ask and that the landing page copy matches the visitor intent.
A well-optimized landing page is just one part of an overall paid search campaign. We can help get interested prospects to convert by ensuring your campaigns are leveraging closely-aligned keywords, ad copy and landing page content. Give us a call today at 443.475.0787 or Contact Us online.
