Designing a good Call to Action (CTA) is crucial to the success of your online business. Creating an effective CTA involves having excellent writing skills, understanding your industry-specific site visitors, and some design technique.

The following 6 steps will help you in establishing CTAs that work:

Step 1) Your call to action should stand out on the page. Try to pick a contrasting color or something that would be easy to identify for first time visitors to the page. Do not get too crazy with this, nobody wants an obnoxious flashing CTA distracting them from the other page content.

Step 2) Keep your CTAs relevant! Make it a logical next step for the information on the page. Don’t confuse your visitors by throwing up an offer that is completely irrelevant to your business or that page’s content. CTAs that directly relate to the content page they are placed on are way more effective with site visitors.

Step 3) Make it clear. You should be able to convey to your visitors what the call to action is there for. The message should be concise and specific. You do not want to create confusion. Using the verb for the CTA as soon as possible in the message is advised (i.e. Download, Click, See, etc.). If you have an image of what is being offered included in your CTA that is even better!

Step 4) Convey the benefit. It is imperative to elaborate on the benefit the visitor will receive if they click the call to action. A simple “click here” is not going to entice most people to take action. What will the be getting out of it? What is it there for? For example, when including a CTA for an ebook, you could put “Learn how to generate 4 times the amount of leads”. This way the customer has a specific outcome displayed if they wish to take the action.

Step 5) Create a sense of urgency. Adding in a “Download Now” or “Hurry offer ends” or "30 Day Free Website Trial" to the CTA can improve click throughs. It’s a stronger command phrase and influences visitors to follow directions. Sometimes people need a little push!

Step 6) Deliver what is promised. Nothing is more frustrating than thinking you are getting something and then finding out the information was completely misleading. If your CTA has an offer, make sure your visitors are receiving what is suggested. Lies will drive them away quick.

Following these 6 steps should help you generate successful CTAs. Check out the infographic below for a more visual explanation, and remember, everyone’s business is different. Try out some different options and see which ones work best for your website.