Every page on your site should have a clear Call To Action.  What is a Call To Action? It’s the next step you want your user to make.  The clearest example is the product page on your Zen Cart.  The Call To Action is the Add To Cart.  You want visitors to purchase from you and the next step at this point is adding the product to their cart.

There’s a simple rule of thumb when designing web pages (and websites). It’s also the title of a great book now in it’s 3rd edition, Don’t Make Me Think. The idea is simple, don’t make them think. Don’t make your site visitor try to figure out what they are supposed to do next.  They won’t read instructions or long text.  Many studies have shown that people will skim a page, rather than read it.

Make it painfully simple. Tell them what to do and make that part of the page, be it text or an image, stand out.  When they skim the page, the Call To Action needs to be obvious.

How do you make it obvious?

  • Use a button of a contrasting color.
  • Make the button BIG.
  • Make the text bold.
  • Make the text bigger.
  • Use more than one technique!

It’s a little counter-intuitive, but think gaudy. Not to the point of obnoxious, but close. The Call To Action needs to be painfully simple to find and obvious to all of your visitors.

Look at the two images below.  The one on the left is a stock Zen Cart with the Classic Template.  The one of the right is the same product on the same cart but with a different Add to Cart button.  Notice how your eyes are drawn to the yellow button?

call-to-action-white
call-to-action-yellow
That’s the whole point! Your eye is pulled toward what I want you to do next.
And this is just one page.  Every page should have a Call To Action.  Think about the shopping cart page, what do you want your visitor to do?  Continue Checkout!  Is that button obvious?  Or is it the same size and color as the Back to Shopping and Estimate Shipping buttons.  Those buttons are less important so should be less obvious on the page.
It’s a process. Running a business is a process.  Nothing stays the same and there is always room for improvement. Start with the low hanging fruit. Review your product page and checkout pages.  These will yield the highest return.
How will you know? You are using some sort of analytics, right?  The metric to watch is the ecommerce conversion rate.  Check out our other articles on Google Analytics.
For now, set aside some time to review your product page and checkout pages.  Then move on to the other top visited pages on your site and be sure the Call To Action is clear and obvious.
If you want help defining your Call to Action, creating the buttons or tracking the results, Contact Us!