How to write a Call To Action that isn't annoying

Call To Action: A piece of advice to increase the number of clicks.

What is a CTA?

Even if you are far from the world of ads, you have probably heard about CTA. It is a short clickable message that answers the question: What to do next? It is used everywhere: bloggers ask to click on the subscribe button and follow them, there are buttons to add to the cart, buy or download everywhere. Call to action is always a verb: buy, click, get, subscribe, unlock and etc.

One call to action = one click

There should always be one CTA because the user should clearly know what he has to do after consuming an ad. Otherwise, confused, he may leave. So you should always lead the audience the way you need. If you are sure your audience will understand your CTA, you can ask them to do anything you want.

The easier to understand, the better

CTA that consumer can easily understand and relate to is the best. That’s why you should underline the profit the consumer gets. For instance, if it is a website for home cooking, it should sound like: “Subscribe and receive more tasty recipes!”. The user scrolled down the whole landing page? – make a call to action like this: “Receive a commercial offer”.

What not to do

Firstly, CTA shouldn’t be agressive and placed everywhere on the page, or all across the webpage. If there are too many CTAs on one page it looks too pushy. Users may feel intimidated and, as a consequence, reluctant to react.

Secondly, you better turn the Caps Lock off. Users may perceive it as if you yell at them, especially more sensitive ones.

To call or not to call?

You may decide to leave the call to action out, but I don’t think that is a good idea. First of all, CTA increase the probability of user to actually click because of the specifics of human psychology. It also serves as a short instruction for a user, letting him know what happens after he clicks on the button. If the user knows what he acquires after clicking, it increases the quality of your traffic and consequently the conversion rate.

Test different variations of call to action and try to avoid the mistakes. May the conversion be with you!