Your website is like a recipe. It needs certain ingredients to perform well. Miss key ingredients and you will be wondering why your website isn’t performing like it should.
Today, we are going to talk about one of those key ingredients—call to actions.
❓ What’s a call to action?
On a website, call to actions present themselves in the form of buttons. They help guide you from page to page and experience the entirety of a website.
These decisions are made deliberately, although as a website visitor, you may not have considered this.
Putting buttons wherever you want will lead your visitor…
- Confused
- Lacking a clear destination
- Unsure of what you want them to do
There is hope, though. This is solved by using two types of call to actions—transitional and direct.
Let’s talk about both.
🫵 Direct call to action
The direct call to action, is at its name implies—direct. This action should tell your user EXACTLY where you want them go.
Examples of direct call to actions are:
- Buy now
- Schedule a call
- Get a quote
While not every customer will be ready to buy, you will have some that are. When you do, you need to give them a clear call to action that they can take.
It’s like someone who goes into a store knowing they want to buy something but can’t find that item. It’s frustrating and will leave a bad taste in your visitors mouth.
🚢 Transitional call to actions
Most website visitors aren’t ready to buy. No matter how convincing you think your copy is, it takes a while before people are ready to invest in a product/service.
That’s where the transitional call to actions come in. It’s a way to give your user a taste of what you do without selling your main package.
Examples of transitional call to actions:
- Get your free download
- Learn about our services
- Check out our blog
These are low barrier to entry call to actions. The primary goal of a transitional call to action is to nurture. Get them to stick around and find a way to stay top of mind.
Some of the best ways to do this are to give away a free lead magnet. If you are looking lead magnet ideas, check out last weeks edition of the newsletter—5 lead magnet ideas to use on your website.
🔑 Summary
For a website to be considered professional, it should strike a balance between transitional and direct calls to action. This is analogous to a recipe, where using an excessive amount of one ingredient can result in an unpleasant taste of the dish.
To recap:
- Two types of call to actions
- Direct call to actions
- Transitional call to actions