Internet usage is growing rapidly and you need to be there when prospects are looking for the products and services that your company offers. Your corporate website may be the most important factor in your inbound marketing strategy, but digital marketing success requires more than just having a website.

Once you’ve begun driving traffic to your website and engaging visitors with compelling content, you need to convert your visitors from prospects into sales leads. You can accomplish this by adding call-to-action (CTA) images and text across your website.

The goal of a CTA is to drive a visitor to take a desired action, such as subscribing to you newsletter, downloading a free ebook or requesting a product demo. Use the following best practices to create effective Calls-to-Action (CTAs) that will increase lead generation on your website.

Creating Effective CTAs
CTAs are the key to lead generation, but you need to do them right to convert traffic into leads. Here are 5 ways to create an effective CTA:

1. Make CTAs bigger and bolder than most other elements on the page, but don’t overdo it.
2. Consider the color and graphic design of the CTA, whether it is a link, button or image. Make it look so good people will want to click on it. You can also try testing different colors (e.g., red versus green buttons) and language to see which CTAs get more clicks and generate more leads.
3. Offer CTAs that provide value, like free guides, white papers or estimates. “Contact Us” is the worst form of a CTA. Don’t rely on that as your only option for conversion.
4. Make the CTA look clickable by making a button or adding a hover effect to an element.
5. Less is more. Keep it simple and clearly state what you are offering.

CTA Positioning
Once you’ve created your CTAs, you need to carefully consider where you will place them on your website. You do not want to place CTAs everywhere because that will give visitors too many options – or not the right options at the right time. Consider this:

• Segment your top-of-the-funnel and middle-of-the-funnel offers. Place top-of-funnel type offers (whitepapers and downloads) on top-level pages. Put middle-of-funnel offers (request a quote or free trial) as the prospect is digging deeper and learning more about your offering.
• Place CTAs above and below the fold. Placing CTAs above the fold is important because that part of a page gets the most views. However, add CTAs at the bottom of pages and in body content too.
• Some studies suggest placing CTAs to the right of the page work better, but testing different CTA placements will ultimately determine what’s best for your website.

The placement of your CTAs can impact conversion. The only way to know which options work best is to test.

• Use thank you pages for additional CTAs. A thank you page or message is what someone sees after they complete a web form. There is usually plenty of real estate to offer more downloads; however, do so without requiring them to complete another form if possible.
• Test, test, test! As indicated in the example above, it’s unclear which version will drive the most conversions. Test different CTA placements to know which one works best for your website.