Avoid These 7 Mistakes When Making Your Calls to Action

Your call to action, or CTA, is what drives your audience to take real steps toward becoming a customer. It’s pretty much the determining factor between a lead and conversion. No wonder it has become a staple in ads and websites.

Unfortunately, CTAs don’t always work for everyone. Some marketers fail to encourage their readers to press the button because their CTAs sound stale and boring. Others are unable to convert leads because their visitors are having trouble finding any call to action.  

If creating compelling CTAs is something you struggle with, consider yourself lucky to have discovered us. As a West Palm Beach web design agency with years of experience in the field, we know how crucial it is to have a killer CTA, and yes, we definitely know an ineffective CTA when we come across one.  

In fact, we’ve noticed businesses committing the same CTA mistakes over and over, mistakes that have led them to drive away their visitors and killing their conversion opportunities instead of boosting their sales.  

Now, you’re probably wondering if you’re one of these businesses we’re talking about. Could any of these blunders be the reason you’re not getting the results you’re expecting from your CTAs? You’re about to find out below!

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Making Your Calls to Action

Writing a strong CTA doesn’t have to feel like rocket science. As long as you know the common no-no’s, you’ll be able to come up with a call to action that will get you more customers.  

This post should serve as your guide the next time you create a new CTA or edit an existing one. And, if you're guilty of making any of these mistakes, we suggest you consult a West Palm Beach web design company right away to get them fixed.  

Mistake #1: Too Many CTAs

Having too many CTAs on a single web page can confuse your audience. You don’t want to put them in a situation where they need to choose between two primary CTAs. Rather, just provide a text link to the other option.  

A secondary call to action in the form of a link is always ideal. Otherwise, it’ll end up competing with your primary CTA, making it more difficult for your visitors to come up with a decision.  

Let’s say you have a primary CTA at the top of the page, encouraging your visitors to get a free trial. Then, you sneak in another one to your content, and this time, you tell users to download a free PDF cheat sheet. Lastly, you place a sidebar CTA at the end urging everyone to subscribe to your newsletter.  

Chances are, your visitors won’t take any action at all. You’ll only shoo them away.

Cluttering a page with too much information can result in indecision. Pages with one CTA are more effective as you’re only giving your audience a single thing to do. In case you have two or three, make sure to use a text link instead of a button.

Mistake #2: Buried CTAs

Another reason why many marketers are seeing not-so-great outcomes despite coming up with well-written calls to action is that they're difficult to find.  

First, your CTA should be big enough to capture the attention of your visitors as soon as they land on your page. No matter how bold the font is, people would still have a hard time looking for it if the button’s a bit too small.

Also, it should be placed above the fold so that visitors won’t have to scroll down the page to see it. In case you’re planning to put a sitewide CTA, add it to the header so everyone can reach it from anywhere on any page.  

Mistake #3: Weak Language

If you’re using vague and passive language in your calls to action, it’s time you finally stop. Why? It’s putting your visitors off.  

To craft a CTA that will get your prospects to hit the button excitedly, follow these best practices:

• Be specific. The more specific your CTA is, the higher your odds are of converting your visitors. People want to know exactly what to do, and what will happen when they do it.  
• Use active words. If you’re being passive, your visitors will also become passive. Use persuasive words such as download, buy, click, subscribe, etc.  Just be sure not to sound too commanding.
• Add a sense of urgency. Reminding visitors to act ASAP creates FOMO (fear of missing out), which increases their motivation to take your desired action.  

• Explain the benefit/s. Let your audience know what they’re in for once they take action. Reveal the perks they’ll be getting to give them all the more reason to press the CTA button.
• Show proof. Some consumers get skeptical about an offer from a company, especially if it sounds too good to be true.  That's why you should add social proof in the form of client testimonials or stats to prove that you're not a phony brand.  

Mistake #4: Single-Word CTAs

Subscribe. Download. Shop. Join. Click.

Doesn’t it just bore you to see calls to action that contain ONLY these words? If we stumble across one, we sure as heck wouldn’t click on it!

Single-word CTAs hardly generate results, particularly when they fail to mention the benefits they offer. Besides, why should a prospect take the intended action when they have no clue as to what they're getting?

That said, you should always add a supporting word or two each time you’re making a call to action. You gotta be clear and precise to provide more context to your audience. It’s not even that much of an effort!

Mistake #5: Poor Design

Although words play a major role in your CTAs, you should also pay as much attention to their design. People love attractive things, after all.  

Focus on using the right button color and sizes. Keep the typography clean. Add design elements like images and boxes. And of course, place your buttons in visible spots.  

Mistake #6: Blending In

As a West Palm Beach web design company, we can tell you that even well-designed CTAs can fall flat. That’s because they’re already blending in with the other elements on the page, which makes them unnoticeable for visitors.

So, aside from putting forth extra effort into the design of your CTAs, it's also vital to keep them distinguishable. Whether you're using a visual or text call to action, you should ensure that it stands out.  

When it comes to visual CTAs, opt for a color that starkly contrasts the rest of your page. For example, if you have a blue and white background, you should use either orange or red buttons so visitors will immediately know where to go when they’re ready for the next step.

As for a text CTA, use a different color for its hyperlink so your audience will recognize it easily.  

Mistake #7: Not Testing and Monitoring

As with any other digital marketing strategy, testing your CTA is a step you shouldn’t miss. You can’t just type your text, design it, place it on your page, and move to another project. That’s not how it works.

Make it a habit to track your calls to action to see how well they’re performing. Do A/B split testing to determine which version works best. Change certain elements such as your copy, button colors, and surrounding text. Keep monitoring and testing to boost your conversion rates.  

Allow Us to Help You!

There’s not a doubt that powerful CTAs can leave a huge impact on the performance of your marketing campaigns. By steering clear of these mistakes, you’ll be seeing an increase in your sales in no time.  

You wanna know what else you can do to grow your brand online? Investing in a West Palm Beach web design and SEO agency! Digital Resource is here for you!

Whether your goal is to build a website, rank at the top of search engines, or turn leads into customers, it would be our pleasure to help you achieve that. Book a consultation with us now!

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