Improving Your CTAs: Button Colours and Wording That Get Clicked

One of the things to improve if you want to lift conversion rate and how far people move around your site is the CTA.
This article covers why CTAs matter and how to improve them.

1. What is a CTA?

CTA is a marketing term made from the initials of Call To Action. In Japanese it is rendered as a prompt to act. guiding people towards the action you want them to take on the site is what it means, and it refers to things like banners, buttons and text links.

If you sell a product, that might be a ‘Buy this product’ button; for a paid course, ‘Sign up for a free trial’; elsewhere, ‘Request a document’. Placing buttons and banners like these in the right spots guides people towards action.

Reviewing and improving your CTAs lifts both the conversion rate and how far people move around the site, so they always deserve close attention on a website or landing page.

2. Why CTAs matter

CTAs matter because they feed straight into results.
If the CTA is not well designed, people will not take the action you want, however good the service you are making the case for.

Placing buttons and links well also makes it easier for people to reach the information they came for. That is an advantage not only for whoever runs the site but for the visitor too.

Raising the number of conversions and making the site kinder to use are both reasons CTAs matter.

Raising the number of conversions and making the site kinder to use are both reasons CTAs matter.

3. Seven ways to improve a CTA

Here are seven concrete ways to improve a CTA.

3.1 Match the content of the page

If the CTA does not match what the page is about, the conversion rate will not rise.

With a high-priced product, for instance, people usually want information first. They rarely buy straight away, so a CTA of ‘Buy this product’ is unlikely to convert.
For someone who wants information, the right CTA is something like ‘Download the guide’ or ‘Join a briefing session’.

Whatever the price, the final goal is a purchase, but the higher the price the more you need to lower the barrier to it.
Price is only one example. What matters is designing the UI and UX of the website and its CTAs with the psychology and behaviour of your visitors in mind, from every angle.

3.2 Where the CTA button sits

Where the button sits changes the impression it makes.

Top of the page
The first place a visitor looks.
‘So I can buy the product here.’ ‘So I can sign up for a free trial.’
That is the picture it gives them.

Bottom of the page
The position that appears once they have finished reading.
You make your case at the moment they have taken in the article and their interest is high, so it converts readily.

Fixed header and fixed footer
A bar that stays at the top as the page scrolls is a fixed header; one that stays at the bottom is a fixed footer.
The button is always on screen, so people can press it the moment they want to act.

Within the content
On a long page with many headings, some people will not read to the end, so it is worth inserting a CTA button part way through.

3.3 The design of the CTA button

The colour and size of the CTA button matter too.
Rather than designing the button in isolation, you need to think about how it balances with the website and the rest of the page.

Button colour
There are accounts of conversion rate rising after a button was changed to red or orange.
Colour has a strong effect on people, which brings in colour theory and psychology.
Colours give impressions such as these.

Blue … intelligent, calm
Red … excitement
Green … safety
Yellow … lively, caution

These are the impressions of a colour on its own, though; no particular colour raises conversion rate by itself.

Button size
On size: too small and people may miss it; too large and it throws the whole page out of balance, so it is best to feel your way towards the right size. The size also needs to suit the screen, whether desktop or mobile.

Button shape
A rounded rectangle or a circle changes the impression.
Sharp corners read as intelligent, while rounded corners and circles feel playful and approachable.

Depth on the button
A button with some depth is recognised as a button at a glance more readily than a flat one.
As noted above, though, you do need to decide this with the design of the whole page in mind.

3.4 Use wording that converts

The text on the CTA button matters as well.
For example, ‘Buy 〇〇’ is a more effective phrasing than a button that just says ‘Buy’.
What matters is wording that makes the action easy to picture and easy to take.

‘Sign up for a free trial session’ also lowers the psychological barrier compared with ‘Sign up for a trial session’, so if you offer something free, making that the claim is effective.

If you can add a line of copy alongside the button, wording that sparks a picture and some interest works well, such as ‘The No.1 product for results people feel!’, ‘Results endorsed by a professor at 〇〇 University!’ or ‘Comes with a case study of a 30% rise in sales!’

3.5 Keep the choices to a minimum

There is a jam law, also known as the paradox of choice, which says people cannot decide when there are too many options.
The name apparently comes from an experiment in which a supermarket sold to more buyers when it laid out six kinds of jam than when it laid out 24.

Apple, one of the GAFA companies, is said to have cut its product count by 70% during a slump in performance, and then surged ahead.

The same goes for CTA buttons: rather than offering many kinds, narrowing down to the best one will maximise the effect.

3.6 Give a reason to act now

Even once someone’s need has grown and they feel like buying the product or signing up for a free trial, a thought like ‘maybe I will think about it a little longer’ makes conversion far less likely.
Simply adding wording that gives a reason to act now keeps people from slipping away and makes conversion more likely.

Wording that conveys scarcity or urgency, such as ‘Free until 〇 〇’ or ‘50% off for the first 〇 people’, makes someone feel ‘if I am going to buy, I had better buy now’, and they are more likely to act.

Conditions such as a limited period or the first 〇 people must match what you actually offer.
False statements can break the law, so take care.

3.7 A/B testing

An A/B test prepares pattern A and pattern B differing in one element, shows them at random, and compares the results to find the pattern that performs better.

For example, you compare pattern A with a green button against pattern B with a red one, and see which colour works better.
Running tests like this across the position, colour, size and wording of the CTA button lifts the conversion rate.

Using a tool for A/B testing makes the improvement cycle both quicker and more effective.
Related article:
A/B testing in HubSpot: the plans that include it and how to run it

4. In closing

That covers what a CTA is and the points to improve.
The thing that matters throughout is improving your CTAs by reviewing the structure with the feelings and behaviour of your visitors in mind.
Finding the best CTA straight away is hard, but keep measuring with A/B tests and the like, and build towards higher conversions.