How to Use a Call To Action on Your WordPress Site

Why do you blog? Are you in it for the fun or for the money?

While it’s nice to write posts and publish them, the whole point of drawing traffic to your blog or website is not merely to inform and entertain readers. The point is to induce them to do something that benefits you.

That’s what CTAs are for. Calls To Action or CTAs are little blurbs around your site that offer buttons for readers to click in order to get something.

Use a CTA to ask your readers to follow you on social media, sign up as a subscriber, buy your product, schedule an appointment, etc. No need to be coy about a CTA. Blog readers expect them. You should be using them.

How to use Call To Action’s

Place well

CTA’s are placed almost everywhere on a website. In the header and in a stripe above it, in a sidebar, in the footer, at the end of a post, embedded in a post, and as the focus of a landing page.

Write clever copy

CTA’s don’t mince words. The idea is to be brief and forthright in telling readers what to do. When writing CTA copy you want to appeal to your readers desires and need for exclusivity, using words that appeal to their emotions.

Ask a question, make a promise. Whenever possibly use humor and creativity.

Start with action verbs:

  • Get
  • Start
  • Join
  • Learn
  • Try
  • Save
  • Download
Add hopeful words:

  • Me
  • You
  • Free
  • Results
  • Solutions
  • Guarantee
  • Proven
Give it a twist of urgency

  • Limited
  • Secrets
  • Special offer
  • Exclusive
  • Deadline
  • Now
  • Last chance

Design well

Using your clever text, an effective CTA might also include an image, but one element it can’t do without is an eye catching button.

That CTA button should be so vivid, you could see it from space. Use colors that clash with your overall color scheme like yellows, oranges, pinks, and turquoises. Stick in an action verb that’s snappy and appropriate, anything but “submit.”

Tools to create CTAs

There are numerous plugins and widget to create, manage and monitor your CTAs. Here are six:

Wordpress-call-to-actionWordPress Calls to Action 

This plugin gives site owners the ability to monitor and track conversion rates, run a/b or multivariate split tests on calls to action, and most importantly increase lead flow! FREE

WordPress-›-Exit-Intent-Popups-by-OptiMonk-«-WordPress-PluginsExit-Intent Popups by OptiMonk 

Exit-intent technology provides you a powerful and simple way to convert more visitors to buyers and build your email subscription list. Your messages show up with a special offer at the exact moment a visitor is about to leave your site – down to the millisecond. Basically you get a second chance to convince your visitors. FREE

WEN-Call-To-Action-WordPress-PluginWEN Call To Action 

WEN Call To Action gives you markup for Call To Action with simple styling. You can easily customize by adding custom class. Extension of CTA depends on your imagination. Free

wp-notification-barWP Notification Bar 

WP Notification Bar is a custom notifications and alerts plugin for WordPress that displays a sleek message bar on your website. It can help you grow your email list, manage marketing promotions, increase your social media following or grow the audience for specific pages on your website. $29

scroll triggered boxScroll Triggered Box 

If there’s anything that can be called the silver bullet in getting people to take action then this is it! Scroll triggered box has consistently increased conversions rate by several times. Newsletter sign-up, Facebook like button, social bookmarking or something else you want to draw attention to after people have engaged with your website. Scroll triggered box will increase the conversion rate many times over. FREE

optinmonsterOptinMonster 

OptinMonster comes with an easy to use form builder that allows you to create beautiful optin forms that are proven to convert. You can create various type of optins including WordPress popup forms, floating header and footer bars, slide-ins also known as scroll triggered boxes, sidebar forms, after post forms, in-line forms, mobile-specific forms, welcome gates and more. $49

Call and Response

Using Call to Actions you’ll find yourself getting lots more response to offers than with your quiet old sidebar ads.

Let me know what you use to create CTAs. Now, check out my end post CTA.

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