Read This And Find Out How Calls To Action Drive Business
Traffic.
A word dear to the heart of business people selling on the web; a nightmare when uttered by breakfast radio presenters while being stuck in the car.
We live in an age where everything can be documented, tracked, analysed, reformulated, tabulated, and redeployed only to be tracked, analysed, and optimised again.
So many businesses are focused on getting traffic to their website or landing page andwill pay top dollar in Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) or Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for it.
Not to wear out the reverse Field of Dreams analogy for the umpteenth time, i.e., If you build it, they will come – on the web, if you build it and don’t advertise, it doesn’t exist – but attracting eyes isn’t that hard.
Getting the grey matter behind them to decide in your favour is orders of magnitude more difficult.
If your website or landing page doesn’t have some incentive for people to stick around, they’ll click or tap away elsewhere. Co-opted from the language of the cool kids, this equates to a “bounce” from your website – a browser who looks at one page and leaves without interacting further.
The average bounce rate across all business segments is 60.78% (April 2023, Databox). That means one out of three clicks gained through PPC actually has potential of contributing to a return on yourad spend (ROAS.)
Then comes the tricky part: getting a conversion.
Let’s talk about conversion rates
Persuasion Nation via WordStream shows that the average page conversion rate is 2.4% with the top 10 percent of websites achieving an 11.5% conversion rate.
I got into writing to avoid maths, but let’s crunch the numbers. If you pay for 100 clicks, about 33 will stick around long enough to interact with the site. Using the average conversion rate, that’s approximately 0.8 conversions per 100 paid clicks. Ouch.
But what is a conversion? It doesn’t necessarily mean a sale.
What a conversion looks like depends on your business objectives. For an eCommerce site, it may indeed be a sale. For a business-to-business site, you may want someone to schedule a meeting. If you sell fast moving consumer goods, you may want people to follow your social media. If you’re selling something that requires thought and consideration, such as real estate, you might want them to sign up for your email newsletter. (You should probably have them sign up for an email newsletter regardless of what you sell!) Your conversion should have a monetary value attached, so you can accurately track your ROAS and/or return on SEO investment in your analytics.
Peter a VIP Business Network member from Process Culture in his March 2025 Lunch and Learn said about 95% of people interacting with your business maybe curious about what you have to offer, but only 5% are actually in the market to buy right now (also known as the 95/5 rule.v)
So how do you attract as many as possible when they are in a position to buy?
The push that makes people move is known as a Call to Action, or CTA.
Click here, buy now, sign up, download today, book a call.
What is startling is 70% of B2B small businesses don’t even use simple calls to action like these on their website. They don’t use simple CTAs, and it hurts their conversion rates.
According to SmallBizTrends, CTA buttons are at least read by 90% of eCommerce prospects to lower bounce rates.
However, the list of generic CTAs above aren’t exactly high performers. Persuasion requires a little more finesse, knowing one’s audience, and creativity. Making a CTA obvious by enlarging a CTA button is known to increase click-through rates by 90%. Urgency and “fear of missing out” (i.e., buy now before they’re gone –don’t miss out!) can increase conversion rates by 332%.
How can you improve your CTA game?
Givers gain – it works everywhere
As fellow VIP Business Network member Ben Lai of Sales Ethos says time and again, “if you sell you will repel” when networking.
Gaining a stranger’s trust is a challenge online, but not impossible. However, if you give to gain, you can increase your chances of conversion. That may mean giving away an eBook, a discount, or 15-minute coaching call in exchange for something in return.
Getting someone’s email is the best way to maximise your return on investment. Nurturing leads through email marketing offer a 42 to 1 ROI on average across all industries. 99% of people check their email every day, too!
Once you have something to give, now it’s time to craft the CTA.
Tips tocraft a great CTA
- Use verbs. Verbs are doing words and overloading CTAs with adjectives or nouns will dilute the message. Be as direct as possible with your offer. “Sign Up For Our Newsletter and Get A 10% Discount!”
- Use a mix of buttons and CTAs in copy. The buttons should be prominent and have a definite hook. You should also sprinkle CTAs throughout your website copy – just don’t go overboard.
- CTAs should stand out. That means using contrasting colours from the rest of your site.
- Excite the senses and emotions. If you sell air freshener, a CTA button could read “Click Here And Fill Your Home With The Scent of Roses.” If you sell coaching, it may read “Join Hundreds of Successful Business Owners Now.”
- A/B test. Always test different CTAs on your pages to see which calls to action work best. Test, analyse, refine, and test again to maximise your conversion rates. Using apps like ConversionCowcan speed up this process.
- Use social proof. Great CTAs often incorporate social proof or guarantees to increase conversions. “Read over 1,000 5-Star Reviews” or “Start Your 100% Money Back Trial.”
- Make it personal. Email marketing is the best way to use this CTA. Most good email marketing platforms will offer personalisation. A button that says, “We’d love it if you’d join us, John” is far more compelling than a simple “click here toR SVP.” Personalised call-to-actions perform 202% better than basic CTAs, according to Hubspot.
If you found these tips useful, I’d be grateful if you’d join hundreds of other businesses who get my many other revenue-raising tips and tricks through my newsletter here. You also get a month of Skillshare for free! (See what I did there?)
CTAs really are a variation on an old theme: if you don’t ask, you won’t get!
Tom Valcanis is a content, email marketing, and conversion strategist at I Sell Words. He’s written many articles on marketing, business, and communications and has been featured in outlets such as Inside Small Business, Flying Solo, and ABC Radio Melbourne as a marketing expert.