Your Call-to-Action: Two Small Changes that Can Make a Big Difference

 What is the most important element when it comes to CTA conversions?

There are many factors that influence the effectiveness of a CTA such as relevance, surrounding landing page content, location, etc. While each of these elements contributes to the success of your CTA, there are two simple components that can have a significant impact.

The smallest changes to the color and size of your CTA button can either harm or help your conversion goals.

How Big is too Big?

No one likes a massively oversized CTA overshadowing everything on a landing page. Well most people don’t…

However, a CTA that is too small is almost always a bad thing. Straining to find the CTA on a webpage is not nearly as satisfying as spotting Waldo in a crowd.

So how do we determine the optimal size for a CTA button?

The whole purpose of having a CTA button is to make people click on it — If they can’t see it then that’s not going to happen. So, make it easy for them to identify and click on. The ideal CTA button size may vary but as long as it’s big enough to click comfortably and not so large that it’s distracting it should work just fine.

This will probably require a little bit of experimentation on your part since size is a relative concept. The size of the button on its own is not necessarily the important part. It’s the size of the button in relation to the size of the other elements on the page.

As you are defining the best size for your CTA keep in mind that the color of the button will also influence how large it should be. While brighter colors on smaller buttons can help them stand out, softer colors are more suited to larger buttons.

Choosing the Optimal Color

The color of your CTA button is one of the most important factors to make it stand out. There are four key things to take into consideration when selecting the color of your CTA:

• Using an actual color — Black is not a color. It is the absence of light. Grey and white should usually be avoided as well.
• The color should stand out against the background.
• It should draw the attention of your users.
• It needs to be visually appealing and avoid clashing with the background.

As you are determining the optimal color and size for your CTA button, you may want to utilize free online tools to create different types of buttons and visually examine their appeal.

Most brands have certain colors that are strongly associated with them. However, when it comes to your CTA button, these colors are not typically the best choice. If the color blends in too much with the rest of the page it will be difficult to distinguish the CTA.

The color that you choose for the CTA should serve as a point of contrast from the color scheme of your website. One approach is to use a complementary color to help your CTA stand out without clashing with the rest of the page. For example, if your site features a lot of red shades then using green coloring on your CTA will provide contrast without conflict.

The final CTA size and color that you decide to use will ultimately depend on your website’s color scheme, the existing design elements on the page, your audience and conversion goals.