If you landed on this page, it’s because you were called to…

Call-to-Action buttons play a pivotal role in soliciting action from the user. To garner the requested action, buttons are placed on the website that allow the user to perform an action, such as buying something, or leading to another page for more information. Careful planning is necessary in the creation of your call to action, and in this article I will explain the best practices for creating effective call to action buttons. I will also present you with examples in action to give you a better understanding of what works.

In order for your Call-to-Actions to work successfully, you must first determine how they’ll fit into the overall scheme of your site. By laying the groundwork, or information architecture, you’ll begin to discover how the buttons work within the web interface. To survive in the market, you have to generate revenue. So, the successful website is that which leads the reader of web page to the desired end result (“Buy Now”…”Learn More”). Now the question arises, how can we make effective call to action buttons which work in the real world.

This is what Web 2.0 is all about. It’s the same concept that we used back in the day, when we were developing in Flash. So why is that important? Well, back then we had to learn how to create all these amazing buttons. We created buttons like this to keep the user from clicking on the back arrow, while using a Flash website. And, that was just not kosher. So why am I blogging about this? Well, I could not think of a more crucial time to help people understand how to get a customer to click on a button to buy product, learn more, or just become friends.

 

So what is web 2.0? It is Flash with out the Flash. It’s Design without limitations, which can and does go both ways. People these day do not have a lot of time do to these things. Knowing this, it becomes very easy to direct a user to click on a design, website, logo, avatar, button etc… If no one is clicking, no one is buying. This is how you landed on this page; the golden key to an online successful campaign. Anyways, I can go on forever about this…

Factors to Consider

Size

In web design, historically the larger the element, the more important it is. The size of your call-to-action, in relation to its surrounding elements, is essential in converting users to take action. After all, it’ll be hard to get the intended action from your user if your button is miniscule in size and blends in with the rest of the text.

Use white space: A lot of what can be achieved from increasing the size of a button can also be accomplished by simply placing the button around plenty of white space. A button surrounded by white space will be much more prominent than one which is lost in a sea of text and graphics.

The more white space there is in between a call to action button and a surrounding element, the less connected they are. Therefore, if you have other elements that can help convince users to take action, reduce the white space in between those elements and the call to action.

 

You can see the effects of using a prominent color, sufficient white space, and size relative to surrounding elements to attract users’ attention. Straightforward language conveys a sense of easiness, claiming that you can “start” right away by taking action.

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