Any commercial website which sells a service, product, or requests information likely has a call to action on their website. A call to action is term that brings the attention of the user (the website would call this user a ‘prospective client,’) to a link which leads to a function the company wishes they complete. In effect it converts a visitor into a customer, but it is not specific to ecommerce, for instance, Apple’s website has a call to action to download Safari Browser, or iTunes media player.
The following will briefly consider just three, among many, principles of a call to action.
Intuitiveness
Intuitiveness is a fundamental element in user experience. If a web page can flow in a way that is operationally unconscious for the user then that lays the groundwork for easier engagement. Engagement is the most important part of a call to action, because the action is necessarily the engagement.
Good flow is not just something to practice at the club. A website needs to make sense to a user in order to achieve a maximum potential of engagement. If everything goes right, the user will become a customer when he or she clicks the ‘download button,’ or ‘purchase,’ button.
Consider a ParadigmNext website built for ExeqContol with an intuitive call to action:
The ‘contact,’ button is right in the middle. It is also on the front page because people visiting the site are likely there to see prices or find a phone number. It would only make sense to have the contact button where it is for easy and intuitive access.
Casual Obtrusiveness
Something that is obtrusive does not necessarily need to have a negative connotation. The 800 pound gorilla in any room is always worth mentioning. So is your call to action. This is even more accurate when you sell a service and visitors to your website are specifically looking for the service you provide. Say you are an electrician with a website, you can only assume someone is visiting your website to hire an electrician. There is quite possibly no other reason for their visit.
Following that the website needs to address that very specific reason, and casual obtrusiveness of a call to action, or even multiple call to actions, is welcomed.
Consider ParadigmNext’s site built for EMF Power:
Casual obtrusiveness is achieved perfectly here. Not only is all relevant information displayed, but there are a minimum of four call to actions including a phone number. If a prospective client or customer visits their site, they will be very able to contact EMF Power.
Distinguished
Expressing a call to action which distinguishes itself from the website is probably the best way to grab attention. Remember the dreaded pop up ads of the previous decade? Those were all call to actions.
The pop up still has utility. For instance, if you are one of the few using Microsoft Internet Explorer, you may have noticed a call to action the first time you used it.
The IE team has distinguished their goal for you to use their questionable browser as a pop up. It’s part of the browser window, not website. This distinguishes itself from every other countless call to action.
By: ParadigmNext https://paradigmnext.com.com
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+ParadigmNextChicago
ParadigmNEXT, Inc. is a digital agency headquartered in Chicagoland. We provide branding, identity, integrated marketing, social media strategy, art direction, web-design & development, startup incubation, commercial video production, product development, and commercial storefront development services to a wide array of clients ranging from bootstrapped startups to successful longstanding companies.