I was walking in the woods today with my dogs, like every day. Along the way, I got to thinking about the customer journey – like you do when you’re in the woods.
As I was walking along, I kept seeing these trail markers on the trees. These are color coded for specific trails, and the parallel was easy to draw: the trail is the customer journey, I was the customer and the trail markers are the Calls to Action (CTAs).
When a potential customer lands on your website, they are going to follow a path. Depending on your calls to action, they may or may not follow the path you want them to, so like the trail markers, you want your CTAs to be visible. Burying your Sign Up or Buy Now buttons is a frequent mistake made on websites. They should be obvious and they should stand out.
Also like the trail markers, your CTAs should be consistent. You can definitely put the same call to action on a page multiple times, but make it the same each time. At least make it the same color and, whatever the message is, try to by clear rather than confusing in your choice of wording.
Finally, try to make one primary call to action on each page of your site. Having multiple options can be confusing. If you must put multiple calls to action, make sure your primary one stands out and put your secondary one a little farther down the page. A good example of a secondary call to action is a “Subscribe to my Newsletter” CTA.
To sum up, 3 great lessons about calls to action from the woods:
- Make your CTA buttons (or links, forms, etc.) visible!
- Make your CTAs consistent in both design and language.
- Use ONE primary CTA per page on your website and let it be the dominant CTA on that page.