website conversions – Hit Your Mark

Optimizing Your Website for Conversions: Crafting Effective CTAs

by Hit Your Mark | Mar 28, 2023 | Digital Marketing Articles

Reading Time: 7 minutes

It’s captivating. It’s catchy. It’s colorful. It’s your CTA. But for some reason, your website and CTA are still not yielding the results that you want from your business. No matter how many color schemes you try, your results are not drastically changed. You realize it’s time to seriously revamp your CTA so it doesn’t appeal to just you but to your consumers too. You’re ready to learn how to craft compelling CTAs so your business and website will flourish.

What Are CTAs and How Do They Affect Conversions?

In the world of business and online marketing, nothing is more important than your CTA. But what is it? A CTA, or a call to action, is a statement meant to invoke some sort of response or action from the guests to your website. The action could be anything from purchasing a product to downloading an ebook to signing up for your email list. A CTA is a quick way to prompt your consumers to interact with your website. It can also help your users know how to interact better with your website and company.

So why are CTAs so important? After all, just clicking a button doesn’t mean that your customer will stick around. Clicking a button won’t necessarily tell them everything there is to know about your website or your products. While this is true, CTAs are so effective because the human attention span is so short. They grab your reader’s attention with flashy colors and snappy statements to help your reader make a quick decision and engage with what you offer. CTAs impact your conversion rates so much because they are the first step to making a consistent connection with your consumers. This connection can quickly lead to accomplishing your final goal.

A CTA is also a good way to increase how long consumers look at your website, and this is something that you want. After all, increased website usage time and growing conversion rates correlate. If your CTA connects pieces of engaging and applicable content throughout your website, your readers are more likely to stay on your website longer. You can lengthen their attention span by guiding them through what you offer.

Placing a CTA on your landing page is even better, as it is often the place that newcomers first arrive at. So what is a landing page?

What Is A Landing Page?

Your landing page is one of the most important elements of your webpage. Here, visitors will come for their first viewing of your website. On this page, you can display your digital marketing campaign, encouraging your visitors to take an action based on your website.

Landing pages are also essential to a flourishing business because you can have multiple landing pages to appeal to various demographics and audiences. For example, one page may appeal to the younger generation, while another may offer information that would draw the attention of the elderly.

Each landing page should include its own unique CTA, guiding your readers to anything from scheduling an appointment to filling out a form. In addition, landing pages should also feature any accreditation or trusted relationships you may have with other businesses, testimonials or reviews from thrilled customers, a quick summary of your goals, and a striking headline to draw in your readers.

Landing pages can be one of the most exciting aspects of your website. Here, you have the opportunity to connect with your customers on a personal level. These kinds of connections are the best and most lasting. The easiest way to begin them is through landing pages accompanied by CTAs that speak the consumer’s language.

What Are The Key Elements of a Strong CTA?

So, now that you know what a CTA is and where to place it, it’s time to figure out how to make that CTA stand out from any other on your competitors’ websites. It’s not just where you place your CTA that will make the difference, it’s also the wording and the graphic design. It’s the individual appeal that it brings to the customer and the spirit of the whole CTA. So how do you achieve a catchy, bright CTA that communicates effectively and directly with your visitors?

Communication is key. A vague, general CTA will not draw in customers like a specific, brief CTA does. You should communicate your goals in a direct, straightforward fashion that’s easy to understand. Your CTA should answer your visitors’ questions but also make them curious.
Wording is everything. Certain words will make your customers feel like you are manipulating them into engaging with your website. “Request” and “schedule” not only feel too formal but also make consumers feel like they are not deciding on their own. Instead, try “get”. Paint a picture that shows them exactly what a wonderful thing you are about to give them. Action words are also a great way to guide your visitors to engage with your content. “Start”, “join”, “learn”, and “discover” all create an atmosphere of forward progress and development that people find attractive.
Keep it brief and simple. While you don’t want to make people feel stupid, you do want to speak to everyone. It’s risky to assume that people read your blog page and now know exactly what your goals are. Instead, the CTA needs to quickly communicate this. Never assume that your readers know the next step.
Don’t shy away from having multiple CTAs. The more CTAs your consumers encounter, the more they will have the option to engage with your business. If you only have one CTA on your whole website, only the people who happen to visit that specific page will know how to stay in touch with you and your company. Instead, make sure CTAs are a prevalent feature on your website.
Make an aesthetic appeal. People like looking at something that is bright and cheerful and that draws their eye. Don’t let your colors get muddled together: put light-colored text on a dark background or vice versa. Use a border around your wording and a font that’s big enough to stand out.
Place your CTA somewhere it can be seen. If your CTA is stuck in a little-viewed corner of your website, no one will know it is there. Instead, place it “above the fold” (the part of the webpage you can see before you scroll down) and make sure it’s not hidden. Make it the main feature of your webpage.

With these simple steps, it’s easy to create a CTA that succeeds. If your CTA is well-placed, colorful, and clear, customers will notice it and take advantage of it. Your CTA will become a quick way to communicate your goals and achieve them.

What Are Common Mistakes to Avoid When Creating CTAs?

Because CTAs are such essential elements to your website, it’s even easier to make mistakes in creating them. To help you avoid this, we’ve laid out the most common CTA problems.

Don’t stack multiple CTAs on top of each other. This can overwhelm your visitors with too many requests. Rather than this, focus on putting one CTA on each page.
Make your CTA follow through with what it says it will give. Don’t let it take your visitor somewhere other than where it says it will. It can frustrate customers if CTAs are deceiving, take up their brief attention span, and make them much more likely to leave your website.
Don’t request too many things at once. If you overwhelm your customers with requests and possible actions, they won’t know what to do. In the same way, if you ask them for all of their contact information at once, they will be overwhelmed and much less likely to give you even a name or an email address. Especially with purchases, customers usually aren’t ready to make a purchase right away. Instead, engage with them and build a relationship.
Create CTAs that are phrases, not just single words. Single words make a weak emotional appeal that the customer is unlikely to respond to. Phrases are more memorable and emotionally appealing. In addition, they are also clearer in communicating your goals.
Lastly, don’t try to make your customers feel guilty for not engaging. This comes across as pesky or even offensive to their personal decisions. Instead, you want them to feel welcomed by your website. You want them to genuinely choose to interact with your content, instead of being manipulated into it.

Crafting CTAs that draw your readers in can be difficult, but by avoiding these top five mistakes, your CTA will be much stronger and more brilliant. CTAs that are phrases instead of single words, that welcome your customers in, and that communicate one clear goal at once are basic ways to begin connecting with your readers.

What Metrics Should You Be Tracking to Measure CTA and Landing Page Performance?

Finally, once you have an effective CTA in place, it’s time to learn how to keep testing that CTA for effectiveness. This is where you can use A/B testing to track the success of your CTAs, headlines, and whole website layout.

How Do You Analyze Your Data and Make Changes for Optimal Conversions?

A/B testing is a way to test how your readers interact with your content and how successful it is. Platforms like Instapage, Unbounce, and Google Optimize all allow you to A/B test your website and CTA. Each of these lets you consistently review what areas of your website are succeeding, and which ones are falling behind. You can see the results from certain CTAs to measure whether or not they are successful. If you find that your CTA is not converting well, try changing up its placement, wording, or color contrast. The best way to know how well it is converting is to use these analytics and A/B testing to track your results and conversions.

Crafting a creative and successful CTA can be a challenge, but it is one that every business owner must master. Through a CTA, you can engage with your audience so much more effectively. This kind of communication lets you grow your customer base effortlessly. Fortunately, these simple steps make creating and optimizing your CTA smoother and more effective.

Ready to Boost Your Website’s Conversions? Let’s Optimize Your CTAs Today!

Here at Hit Your Mark, we offer services to help you grow your business and website through your CTA! From features like user flow to wireframes and prototypes, we help you identify successful and unsuccessful CTAs and recreate them into profitable, converting CTAs. Our services also analyze data and collect it to show more about your web flow and customer experience. We even collect consumer data and product data to help you visualize areas to push your business forward and on to higher goals. We are here for you to help you effortlessly make the best decisions for your business and break the boundaries of imagination and creativity in your business and its CTAs!

User Experience (UX) Design: Improving Website Conversions for Your Business

by Hit Your Mark | Mar 22, 2023 | Digital Marketing Articles

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Have you ever had the frustrating experience of visiting a website that won’t load, or is hard to navigate? No one likes to click on a website and discover that it doesn’t work. User experience, or UX, is an essential part of eCommerce and your conversion rates. How your website flows will help to determine the number of users you have and how many actions they take on your website.

Brands that succeed in eCommerce often succeed in design-led strategy, as well. Design matters, because it’s a form of communication. Design is a part of user experience, and conversion rates are heavily impacted by it. This impact is so significant that your website design and your conversion rates typically change in direct correlation with one another. So, if you upgrade your website design, you will likely see an uptick in your conversation rates, whereas, if you ignore website design, your conversion rates will probably slowly plummet. In fact, 58% of customers say that a good website design will make them more likely to purchase from the website.

For many companies, the goal of eCommerce is to get as many sales as possible. To reach this goal, one key thing you can do as a business owner is to make your website as simple and as smooth as possible. A focus on user experience is one of the best ways to achieve this (we’ll refer to this as UX from here on out).

What Is UX Design and Why Does It Matter?

So, what is this magical UX? Simply put, UX is the tools and the items that make a given customer’s experience on your website better. Its purpose is simple. If you want customers to return, you should give them what they want. UX will help you do that.

UX encompasses everything that helps you optimize your site for visitors and bring them to your website in the first place. This includes transitions, navigation, loading speed, and everything in between. Effective UX matters because it will make your visitor’s experience on your website much smoother and more positive. Especially effective UX will answer your visitors’ questions before they’ve even left the website, and will answer ones they didn’t even know they had. The best UX will draw visitors in based only on their brief understanding of your website in their search results. As a diverse and multi-faceted tool, UX should cover every aspect of your website and its outreach.

The most essential thing about UX is how it can affect your conversion rate optimization (CRO). There are many types of CRO, but UX is most concerned with how you optimize the user’s experience to make your completion rates better. UX has so many benefits and so much potential, and one of the biggest areas where this comes in clutch is in giving your visitors an optimal experience.

What About UI?

Chances are, if you’ve heard of UX, you’ve also heard of UI. Since both relate to your website’s design and productivity, it’s sometimes easy to confuse the two. UX is the tool that transforms how your website functions. It covers your website’s loading speed, how customers can navigate through it (flow), and other things like how customers interact overall with your website. UI, on the other hand, is the tool that transforms how your website looks. UI is mainly related to design. It works to add images, place pieces of text in a logical place, and complete other tasks like where you put your dropdown menu.

Although these two parts of website optimization often work together, we’ll focus mainly on UX in this article. Having good UX will ensure that customers can also enjoy the excellent UI experience of your website.

What Is the Impact of UX Design on Website Conversions?

Because the ultimate goal of UX is to increase your conversion rates, good UX will push up your conversion rate optimization. Through the power of UX, you can revitalize your website and transform it into something fresh and user-friendly.

What UX Changes Will Increase Website Conversions?

More specifically, UX impacts your website conversions through a variety of techniques. These techniques are what will make your website’s UX stand out. One is to change the flow of your website so it’s easier to use. For example, if you mention a topic or product, make sure to include a link to it. This will help customers be able to find that product without searching high and low across your whole website. Spending time searching for something is often a purchasing deterrent for customers; they are more likely to buy your product if it is only one click away.

Another way you can implement UX to increase your conversion rates is by making your website flow intuitive. Fill your homepage with relevant information by including your newest products or blog posts and adding basic information like who you are or your contact information, depending on what kind of site you run. Customers should not have to search your website to know who you are or to find what they came for. Instead, it should be right in front of them.

Since UX is all about making website navigation seamless while simultaneously providing valuable information, giving your visitors a smooth and memorable visit is essential. If users can find everything easily and follow your business’s message, they will remember your website as a reliable and positive source. These kinds of changes can make a massive impact on your conversion rate. And it’s all done through UX!

How To Conduct a UX Audit of Your Website

Improving your conversion rates correlates with improving your UX. If your UX is good, customers can buy products without running into major technical issues or getting lost on their way to the shopping cart. So how do you figure out where customers are having trouble?

If you want to conduct a UX audit on your website, you should check things like

The conversion funnel. This is the process from when a customer enters your website to when they either purchase something or leave it behind in the cart. If you can find the moments when customers tend to abandon products, then you know where to begin improving your UX. For example, if you find that most customers are leaving the website without even adding something to the cart, you may want to explore making your brand’s reliability more obvious or making website navigation as a whole simpler.
The website design. Sometimes the problem isn’t that customers are abandoning products halfway to the purchase button, it’s that the website design is so unconventional that they have a hard time even beginning to look for products. In this case, the best option is to give your website a makeover. Try a new layout, new color scheme, new homepage, or all of the above. This is a task relegated to UI, so if you struggle with this, you might want to try the UI branch of website overhauls.
The site navigation. If your customers are having a hard time finding what they want on your website, then you may need to improve your website navigation. Whether it means adding a dropdown menu or making your website optimized for mobile devices, there are plenty of ways to improve this feature of your business through UX. Sometimes all you need is something intuitive like a search bar. That way customers can simply search for what they want.
The checkout experience. Customers may become frustrated and leave products in the cart if they are having a hard time checking out. We’ve all had that annoying moment when we put in all our information, but something is wrong and the order won’t submit. Often, customers who don’t have luck the first time around won’t give the purchase a second try. Instead of losing a customer at the last second, improving your shopping experience and checkout process will guide customers to make that purchase. You can also eliminate any confusing buttons or unneeded steps. Make the checkout process as simple as possible and request as little information as possible. The easier the checkout, the more customers will choose to purchase from you.

A simple audit of your website can help you identify these problematic areas. After you’ve completed your audit and improved your website, the next step is to watch and see the difference in your conversion rates. With better UX, customers will begin to find what a resource you offer theme! After this, you can continue making improvements based on the new customer data that you glean.

Analyzing User Behavior and Identifying Pain Points

Once you’ve completed the audit of your website, you may be wondering how to know exactly if your user is running into other difficulties. Your audit will reveal some of the main problems in your UX, but are there others that customers consistently meet? Even if your conversion rates go up, that doesn’t mean that your website is perfect. Where, you might ask, are customers across the board running into problems? What you’re wondering about is called a pain point.

So, what is a pain point? For a user, a pain point is anything that causes frustration or negative emotions when using your website. It might be something simple like the loading speed of your homepage, or something more complex like having trouble finding specific products. So how can you identify and overcome these pains so that your website doesn’t cause customers frustration?

To identify a pain point, you can look at some different areas. For example, one way to start figuring out where your customers run into trouble on your website is to take surveys and ask questions. Make sure that you ask people from different demographics, age groups, and product preferences. Look over your interviews and surveys more than once. Get fresh opinions on what the interviewee might have meant. Ask questions that imply as little bias as possible, and be ready to take the hit if you get negative responses back. Finally, give all of your data a fair look. If you don’t examine the data in detail, you probably won’t get the answers you want from it.

These steps will guide you to finding the common pain points that your customers experience. But now that you know what they are, how do you overcome them?

Overcoming Consumer Pain Points,

Fortunately, these problems meet their solution in UX. They may seem overwhelming, but there are several simple steps you can take to make the process of UX changes on your website manageable.

So, now that you know which problems you face, it’s time to form a plan to defeat them. However, it can be overwhelming to even know where to start, especially if you are dealing with multiple problems at once. First, you should choose only one or two problems to tackle at once. Rank them in order of importance, and start with the top two.

Then, take your top problem and break it down into manageable steps. For example, if you are dealing with problems in how fast your website loads, you can break it down first into figuring out what slows your loading, and then correcting that first on the home page, then on the next most commonly visited page, and so forth until you have finished your number one problem. And your tool for fixing slow loading? UX, of course!

Next, you will need to make sure that your changes have fixed the problem. As frustrating as it can be, sometimes the changes don’t always make the problems go away as you anticipated. So, to make sure that your changes are doing their job, test them. If your customers are not experiencing any improvements in their experience, then it’s time to try a new solution. However, if your changes are making a big difference, then you can move to the third step.

This step is to measure your results. No solution is ever perfect. As you learn more about how customers respond to the changes you’ve made, you can continue to fix small problems until the whole system is working very smoothly.

Through this process, you can overcome pain points and make your website run smoothly. A UX audit will begin this process; beating pain points through UX will complete it.

Key Elements of a High-Converting Landing Page

Another area where UX will be your best friend is in how you create your landing page. UX helps a landing page function so that it will meet your customers’ needs and give them an easy, smooth journey throughout your website. The most important thing to remember about UX is that it aims to give the customer a valuable experience. Your landing page is the place where you need to demonstrate this most clearly.

There are multiple ways that you can make an excellent landing page. Some key aspects of one that UX specifically targets are:

Aim for a fast loading speed. Your website needs to be able to load quickly not just on laptops and desktops, but especially on tablets and mobile phones. These are the most commonly used devices for website skimming. So, aim high and make loading speed one of your top UX priorities.
Include stand-out CTAs. Your landing page should include stand-out CTAs that make a clear point. Often, people briefly glance through a webpage and then evaluate whether or not to continue taking action based on the landing page. So, your CTA is your main pitch to convince your audience to embrace your product or service. Remember to make your CTA link to what it says it does: this link is what brings customers into your base. UX can help you perfect the flow of that link and make it easy for customers to keep engaging with your company.
Provide all of your contact information. This one is huge to help customers trust you. If they see that they can contact you through email, phone, and an actual physical address, they are much more inclined to believe that you are a real company and trust you. Also, customers may need to contact you about your products. If you include contact information, this makes it much easier for them to have their questions answered.

These are just a few of the steps you can take to create a usable and logical landing page. If your customers’ first impressions of your page are that it is trustworthy and easy to use, then you can expect heightened conversion rates.

Best Practices for Mobile UX Design

Since one of the best ways to design an effective website is to optimize it for mobile use, there are a few steps you can take to make your mobile website succeed:

Remember that most people have slow internet speeds. This means that you’ll need to have a website that will load fast on little data. One way that you can achieve this is to only load the essential portions of your content at first, and then let it continue to load other pages as the user navigates through your website.
Keep any forms that customers will have to fill out short. Typing on a mobile device is a lot harder than typing on a laptop. We’ve all had to fill out forms on our phones, sighing as we do. Bless your customers by keeping your forms short!
Make your website friendly to common gestures in phone usage. These include things like tapping, swiping, and pinching. If these are the easiest ways for customers to navigate through your website, then you will not need to instruct them on how to use your website.
Set up your mobile website to be cohesive with your desktop version. Customers should be able to expect a uniform experience throughout the different versions of your website. You can do this by keeping the layout very similar to your desktop version and keeping your UI design aspects consistent. This also keeps your brand’s trustworthiness higher.

Making your webpage friendly to mobile users is a key step in increasing your conversion rates. Because so many users navigate websites on their phones, it’s very important to make mobile engagement easy and seamless.

UX is one of the best ways to reach more customers and increase your conversion rates. By making your platform user-friendly, you will create a seamless experience that consumers find attractive. UX lets you do this through mobile optimization, landing page improvement, and resolving pain points. Overall, UX is an essential tool for any eager business developer to increase the function of their website.

Improve Your Website Conversions With Effective UX Design Strategies!

Here at Hit Your Mark, we harness the power of UX to improve your website conversions. By implementing effective strategies and marketing techniques, we will broaden your range of customers and increase your conversion rates. Our experts are trained extensively in digital marketing and have insight into even the most complex digital marketing challenges and needs. Through our attention to detail, we engage in comprehensive performance marketing, email marketing, content creation, and overall project management. Contact us today for a consultation and the opportunity to work with a company that executes plans with transparency and trust.

Optimizing Your Website for Conversions: Crafting Effective CTAs