What we’re about to tell you may shock you, so it might be best if you’re sitting down to hear this.

Are you ready?

Website traffic doesn’t matter. It’s useless… unless, and this is the whole point today, you’re converting that traffic. But before we get into ways to improve conversion rates, let’s first define it.

What is a Conversion Rate?

If you already know this, bear with us; the good stuff is coming. A conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors (or Facebook ads traffic) that you convert. So, the next question is this:

What is a Conversion?

A conversion can mean many things but the essence of it can best be summed up with another question: What are you asking this traffic to do?

Obviously, if you’re asking for a sale and you get it, that’s a conversion. However, a conversion can be something as simple as getting a click-through in an email, getting someone to fill out a form, or persuading visitors to reach out via email or phone.

Whatever you’re asking, no matter what it is, a conversion is simply an affirmative response to your CTA. It’s about persuading your audience to do what you ask of them; it’s a little more Jedi and a little less business owner.

(By the way, getting email addresses – list building – is pure gold and something you should be strenuously focused on.)

What is a CTA?

CTA is short for Call to Action. This is the ask. In this guide, we’ll be showing you proven strategies that will guarantee that your CTAs are as persuasive as possible. But first, to illustrate how important conversion rate optimization (CRO) is for the growth of your business, we’re going to do a little math… apologies in advance.

Let’s say that Business #1 gets 1000 visitors a month, while Business #2 gets 10,000. Business #1 has a conversion rate of 2 percent, while Business #2 sees a conversion rate of .10 percent. The math that follows is why traffic alone is meaningless:

Biz #1: 1000 visitors X 2% = 20 conversions per month

Biz #2: 10,000 visitors X .1% = 10 conversions per month

By the way, according to studies, the average conversion rate for landing pages is around 2.35 percent, and this is across industries. If you’re in the top 25 percent, your conversion rate will be around 5.31 percent. And if you’re in the top 10 percent, your conversion rate jumps to revenue-bursting 11.45 percent.

Are you ready for some strategies that will vault your conversion rates into the top 10 percent? We thought you might be.

15 Strategies to Improve Conversion Rates?

The strategies that follow require a little CTA psychology – using psychological triggers and persuasive techniques to elicit the responses you want.

What’s required from you is this: You’ll have to use empathy and put yourself in your target audience’s shoes.

You’ll also have to start thinking like a business psychologist rather than a business owner or entrepreneur.

1. Less is More

Ever heard of KISS – keep it simple, stupid? Not only does it apply in sales, but it also applies when unleashing your marketing strategies on visitors or subscribers.

Are you using an optin form to build your list? (In case you’re not sure, the answer is a BIG yes.) Stick to the basics, unless you have great reasons to deviate. The basics are first name and email address. With each box you add to your form, you can expect diminishing returns, as in fewer signups.

Less is more also applies to your landing pages… all of your static pages, really. And we’ll be digging into some specifics throughout this guide to optimize conversion rates on all of your pages.

2. Speak to Your Audience, Not at Them

There is a distinct way your target audience speaks and thinks, unless you’re Walmart, in which case, your target audience is everyone. So, first, define your target audience, and then tailor all marketing copy specifically for them.

Do you think lawyers speak differently than teachers or business owners? You better believe they do. Not sure how your target audience thinks or speaks – the words they use – to go LinkedIn and input your target audience’s job title into the search bar. Then read through some of their profiles, and make a list of the most commonly used words.

3. Use Offers to Improve Conversion Rates

Here’s an example you might appreciate: You land on a website and see an optin box asking for an email address. They offer nothing. You go to another site and see an optin box, but this time, they’re offering you a detailed guide about how you can improve conversion rates in return for your email address.

Which site gets your email address? Incidentally, once you have someone’s email address, you have permission to market to them. And if you don’t abuse that permission, you can nurture that prospect until you persuade her or him to become a customer.

This also applies to email marketing, since we’re on the subject. Companies like WinZip use offers all the time to improve conversion rates. If your list members gave you permission, they likely are interested in what you’re selling. Now, just give them a good reason to do what you’re asking of them.

4. Understand How Visitors Read Online

First of all, hardly anyone reads anymore. We skim now. Our attention spans have dwindled to the point where a 30 second TikTok video is considered too long. Yes, it’s out of control. But what does this mean for you?

Write copy specifically for skimmers. This means using headlines to tell the whole story. After all, you cannot count on them to read what’s in between the headlines. But this also applies to areas of a web page and how visitors’ eyes tend to track.

Do you know what part of a web page is seen the most or seen the least? These details are essential when you’re talking about moving the needle a percentage point or two. Web site visitors’ eyes track in an F-shaped pattern, which means you should be putting the important stuff on the left side of the page, as this image from Crazy Egg shows.

Here a few more tips to improve conversion rates with this information:

• Use visuals more often, but only if they achieve your page or ad objectives; graphics grab attention.
• Use contrasting fonts and colors to do the same.
• Use directional cues, like arrows, to point visitors where you want them to go.
• Use white space liberally to make important things (CTAs, benefits, etc.) stand out.

5. Ask, Ask, and Ask Again

Ask and ye shall receive. Don’t ask and… guess what happens?

Include at least one CTA on every web page, email, PPC ad, home page section, etc. Never miss an opportunity to ask your visitors, email subscribers, or social followers to do something that will benefit you. But you’ll still need to ask the right way – which we’re getting to – which means putting on your marketing psychology hat for the rest of this guide.

One other important thing few people mention with CTAs: Clarity wins the day. If you want someone to click-through, tell them to click-through. If you want someone to reply to an email, tell them to hit the reply button. You can’t ever be too clear with what you want.

Here are a few more thoughts on using CTAs effectively:

• Buttons perform best because they are more easily seen.
• Action verbs also work best – grab your free ___ today, reserve your spot now, sign up below, etc.
• Use popup optin boxes, but also use them in a way that doesn’t annoy visitors or violate any of these 15 strategies to improve conversion rates.

6. Consistency is King

Well, consistency and content, that is. Imagine a Facebook ad that’s about losing weight, clicking on that, and then landing on a page about muscle growth. OK, maybe a bit of an extreme example, but every part of your funnel must be aligned in its messaging.

This means your ads, your website copy, your landing page copy that’s expected to convert, your emails… every part of your funnel must include a consistent message.

Here’s the thing with people and websites in particular: Once they leave, they’re not likely to return. So, don’t give them a reason to leave.

7. Benefits not Features

We mentioned benefits a while back and this is the number one way to improve conversion rates. Let’s use another example.

You desperately want to lose weight. You’ve tried everything and nothing has worked. You click through from an ad or email and get to a landing page with a headline that reads – Our special botanical blend of herbs blah blah blah.

Now imagine landing and seeing this headline: Lose the weight and keep it off.

The first example is feature centric, as in us, our product, our company. The second example is benefit-centric, as in you, your pain point, what you want.

See the difference? If you take away one thing from this guide it should be this: Always lead with benefits. Benefits create emotion and emotion is that magical land where buying decisions are made. (Take our home page for example, we lead with benefits.)

Now, there is a place for features. Features provide the reasoning and logic to back up that buying instinct. So, don’t toss those out; but don’t lead with them either.

Benefits should particularly show up in email subject lines, headers for marketing copy everywhere – PPC ads, landing pages, other static pages – and especially in CTAs. Try pairing your CTAs with the strongest benefit (or pain point) and watch conversions soar. Execute it like this:

If you’ve had trouble losing weight in the past, we can help you. Click the Buy button below and you’ll be slimmer and fitter than you ever thought possible.

When you speak about benefits, you naturally use the word you more often, and this is important because it allows you to speak directly to your target audience. You is what’s known as a power word when it comes to creating persuasive marketing copy. And you should use it often.

8. Landing Pages Without Distractions

If your landing pages have more than one direction for visitors to go, tsk tsk tsk; that will not do.

Your landing pages aren’t like other pages. There shouldn’t be a footer, or a sidebar, or a menu. Landing pages should have one place to go, and your CTA will determine where that one place is. So, use some software if you have to, but create real landing pages, not normal static pages posing as landing pages.

Since we’re on the subject of landing pages, you should also follow Improve Conversion Rates rule #1: Less is more. If you’re only asking for an email address, try keeping the entire page above the fold. And remember to keep those optin forms down to as few asks as possible.

9. Test Everything

Do you know why digital marketing is so much more beneficial when compared to other types of marketing? You can measure everything in real-time and make adjustments as you go.

Fine-tuning is expected. If you’re not paying attention to your metrics and making changes, you’re not maximizing your digital marketing return; yes, we’re talking about ROI. Let’s use email marketing as an example.

The three key metrics and what they’re related to:

1. Open rates – subject lines
2. Click-through rates (if you’re asking) – CTAs, offers, benefits, persuasive elements – we’re getting to these
3. Conversion rates – same as CTR above

If your audience isn’t opening emails, you know what you need to fix. If they’re not responding to your emails – CTR or conversion rates – you know what you need to fix.

10. Ask for a Date, not Marriage

This is why building an email list is so vital. We consumers prefer to be courted for a while. We generally don’t make buying decisions on the first go. So, nurture those relationships, and don’t propose on the first date.

11. Use Social Proof

There are six elements of persuasion:

• Likability
• Consistency
• Authority
• Scarcity
• Reciprocity
• Social proof

There are books written solely about these elements of persuasion, so we’ll be briefer here. Social proof is what your customers have to say about you, your product or service, and your company.

These can be reviews, customer testimonials, word of mouth, social posts, blog comments; any forum in which people are commenting. But for our purposes here today, let’s focus on testimonials.

If you have them and they’re good, use them… a lot! (Again, we certainly do this like the one below.)

Put them in emails. Put them on landing pages. Just get them out into the world in as many ways as you can. Who better to sell your products or services than your satisfied customers? Do you want to know what your audience will think?

Well, if it worked for this person, it should work for me. 

12. Likable

You probably won’t be able to use every element of persuasion and certainly not all at once, but some are more important than others, and being likable is one of those.

We tend to do business with people we genuinely like and get a good feeling from, so use this. Emails especially are more personal than other marketing mediums. Don’t be too stiff when creating email copy and don’t come off as a jerk. I’m sure you’ve gotten emails where the tone is less than friendly.

One way we can portray ourselves as more likable is by coming across as helpful. As a business owner, your CTAs and marketing copy should be worded as such: We exist to help you.

13. Authority

Let’s continue with our weight loss theme. Whose weight loss marketing copy will come across as more reliable: Joe Schmo or Dr. Lose Weight?

If you are an expert, don’t shy away from it. Lean into it. Just remember to do it in a way that’s also likable. And remember, this is a feature, so don’t lead with your authority; use it to back up your benefits. Let’s use About pages to illustrate.

An About page is typically about the what (us). But if you can concentrate on the why (them), it’s more persuasive. How about we use Dr. Lose Weight’s About page as an example.

I created ___ because I saw how much my patients were suffering from ___. Continue on for a paragraph or two about helping the reader and providing benefits to your target audience. And afterward, dive into the features; in this case, experience, credentials, education, etc.

You create emotion then back it up with logic, and boom – you’ve got a conversion. And yes, there should be a CTA on your About page, too.

14. Scarcity

WinZip uses scarcity well in their email copy. They tell you about a product, make you an offer, and then put a time limit on it. You’ve probably seen Shopify e-commerce pages that tell you how many of a certain product is left in the inventory. Do you want to know something? That product is probably always on the verge of being sold out.

Losing something is more powerful than gaining something. This is true in relationships, too. Your significant other is getting attention elsewhere and suddenly you want her or him more than before. Consumer psychology is everything when creating persuasive marketing copy.

15. Stronger CTA Copy

Take everything you’ve learned here today and use it to maximize your CTAs. This is the best way to improve conversion rates immediately.

Improve Conversion Rate Conclusion

As you now see, improving conversion rates is more about understanding human psychology than anything else, and it all begins with empathy. If you can put yourself into your target audience’s shoes, your marketing copy will be strong.

Yeah, this is some Jedi mind-trick stuff we’re talking about. But the question is:

Are you ready to be a Jedi?

Want to make more money from your ads or SEO campaign? Then you need to understand CTA psychology.

Because when you consider your prospects mindset and what motivates them to click, you can completely transform your conversions and sales.

As our business has evolved, we’ve started to look at our content through a different perspective, one focused on our call to actions. The results are breathtaking.

If you think about it, a 20% increase in conversions on a landing page or button tweak is a 20% increase in profits. Huge!

Using CTA psychology has evolved the way we get customers to convert. We want to help you do the same.

Continue reading to learn how you can improve yours.

What Is A Call To Action?

A CTA, or call to action, is a tactic used to suggest your audience takes a specific action. This can be buying a product, scheduling a consultation, or following your business on Instagram.

A clear CTA will persuade customers to take the next step, in the form of a button or link, and do what you desire them to do.

An example of a CTA would be a Facebook post with an additional button that says “Buy Now” or “Shop Now”. Once a user clicks on that button, it will take them to a landing page that has the offer that was featured in the post.

The average conversion rate for a landing page is only 4.02%. That means most of the people that visit your website aren’t buying anything.

Adding effective CTA’s to your website is the solution for this as it gives users the final push they need to buy.

Whether you’re a small business just starting out or a large business that has been thriving for decades, you need to start implementing persuasive CTAs. These are at the heart of CRO. (Wondering what is CRO?)

Otherwise, you’re wasting marketing dollars, and potential sales, left and right.

What Is CTA Psychology?

Buyer psychology is the secret code to unlocking your customer’s greatest needs and having them spend all of their money with your company.

Knowing that, CTA psychology is the idea of applying psychological principles to understand what motivates consumers to take the next step with a business.

Most businesses only focus on the surface level aspects of CTA’s, such as:

• Font type
• Placement
• Color
• Copy
• Other design aspects

These are important, but they can’t fully explain why users actually click on something in the first place.

CTA psychology goes beyond design and copy. It focuses on the “why” of consumer behavior.

You can use this concept to create call to actions that coincide with the psychological behavior of the consumer. And everyone knows understanding your consumer is one of the core concepts of marketing.

So combine design elements and psychology principles to take your business to the next level and increase your conversion rates.

Alright, now let’s talk about how you can use this to improve your business.

10 Ways To Improve Your CTAs

1. Offer Limited Time Only Coupons

People hate to feel like they’re missing out. FOMO (fear of missing out) is a real human condition.

We see this in everyday life. You feel upset if you see that your coworkers are getting dinner together and didn’t invite you. Or if your friend is having a birthday party and you can’t go, it’s the worst feeling in the world.

This idea can be applied to offering coupons to your customers.

If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that people don’t like to lose out on saving money. Coupons are an opportunity for customers to receive big savings.

Combining this fear of missing out with the desire to save, many consumers who are encouraged to click on a coupon will do it and spend more money with your business.

To really guarantee that a customer will click on the offer, put a time limit on how long they can use the coupon. That’s how the pros separate themselves from the rookie marketers.

Limited time offers create urgency and are a great place to start with improving your CTAs.

2. Check Your Website UX

Fair or not, customers will associate the state of your website with the state of your business.

First impressions are vital when it comes to improving conversion rates.

If you have a bad website that has slow loading speeds and unclear information, the user will assume that they will have to wait a long time with your business to get products and information.

It takes 8 positive encounters after a bad first impression to officially change that consumer’s negative perception of your company. The online world makes it extremely difficult to get 8 more encounters when the consumer can go to 10 different sites that look like yours.

Having fast loading speeds will make your business seem efficient in the eyes of the consumer. No wait for the website to load means no wait to get the product they ordered.

You should also be as clear as possible with what you offer. The customer should never be confused about what you do. If they click on any page, there should be no question as to who you are and what you offer.

Quality branding is a must to really pick up market traction. People trust brands they know so the more you share your great website, the more people will know who you are.

If you need help improving your website design, work with us we’ll improve your leads and sales off your site.

3. Place CTAs First And/Or Last

People tend to remember either the first or last thing they see.

This is especially true if they are viewing long copy that goes into extreme detail.

If you want the user to remember anything from what they just read, it’s your product and how they can get to it. This is where your CTA comes in.

Place your CTA at the very beginning of the copy, the very end, or both. It doesn’t hurt to put it in both places; if they miss one, then they’ll see the other.

You can also apply this to a short Facebook post, a brief email, or anywhere else you put out content.

For shorter posts, using a layout of 3 can be effective. Placing a CTA on either side of a limited time offer will guarantee that the user will click somewhere to get to your site.

Before you post, ask yourself if you can clearly see where the CTA is. If you can’t find it, then it’s getting lost in your content and you need to reposition it.

4. Reciprocity

Offering free products is a classic move.

When you get an unprompted gift, you’re filled with joy to such a degree that you feel like you owe them something in return. Whether it be a gift of your own or volunteering to help them, you feel like it evens out the score.

You can use this concept to your company’s advantage with free products. This can be anything from free samples to a free ebook.

Offering a taste of what you offer gives the user a chance to try it out before they invest in it. If they like it, they’ll buy it. They’ll also feel like they owe you something because you gave them it for free and they found value in it. They’ll want to return the favor by buying it.

To make this work, what you offer must be valuable to the user and helps if they get first access to it. Don’t be stingy here or it’ll never work.

The offer also needs to be unprompted. Reciprocity comes from making the consumer feel like they are not obliged to do anything in return.

This can work on both prospective and existing customers. The more free gifts you offer builds the feeling that the customer owes you something.

Including CTAs with the free gift will show the consumer exactly where to go to pay back the favor and purchase the actual product.

5. Be Concise

Besides only remembering the first and last thing someone sees, most people can only remember short statements.

Producing content that includes long paragraphs is great for education. But you run the risk that the information you bring up won’t be retained.

Your content, especially important content, needs to be straight to the point. The more fluff you add will decrease the clarity of what you want the viewer to gain.

Sometimes, the most powerful messages are those of only a few word phrases (hello Nike with, “Just Do It”). Use this idea to your advantage by putting it everywhere.

Incorporate it into your content, post it on every page of your website, and spread it anywhere else you can.

The repetition of your short message will help people remember it and then associate it with your business.

Eventually, people will see those few words and know that it’s your company they’ve stumbled upon.

The more a person sees your business will increase their curiosity and lead them to your website.

6. Capitalize On Expectations

Past experiences help establish expectations.

For example, you expect there to be certain foods at Thanksgiving, like turkey and mashed potatoes. If you get there and see chicken fingers and fried, you’d be confused.

This same idea applies to CTAs.

Customers are used to seeing call to actions and they expect it to come somewhere on the website.

Since it is an expectation, it is okay to make it an obvious part of your page. In fact, it should be an obvious part of a page or else the expectations of users will not be satisfied. If they can’t find it, they’ll be confused why they were even on your landing page.

You’ll want to put the CTA in a logical place above the fold on landing pages.

A landing page will let the user know that there is likely going to be a CTA somewhere. It builds up anticipation until the user finally sees the CTA and then feels the urge to click on it.

Fulfilling the expectations of your consumers is a must. Ensure that your CTA is obvious to find and matches your visitors’ expectations.

7. Create Anticipation

The human mind creates an expectation for greatness when we plan to do something.

It can be something as small as the burger you’re planning on ordering at dinner. Or as large as a month long cruise across Europe you’ve been dying to take.

When something special is on the horizon, anticipation builds until it actually happens.

You can create this same unique feeling with your CTA.

The content that leads up to the call to action is your golden ticket to getting someone to click.

It needs to be engaging and intriguing. A story that captivates their attention.

As humans, we respond well to stories. It keeps us going from one sentence to the next.

Writing a story will build anticipation to the climax which is your CTA. The heading and copy are the introduction, and rising drama will lead to that perfect action step.

People buy from companies they like. Use anticipation and stories in your communication to be likable.

8. Add Rewards

Humans are reward driven. Babies are given toys for taking naps. Kids are paid for doing chores. And 18-year-olds are given cars for graduating high school.

Marketers can use this conditioning to associate CTAs with rewards. Usually when you click on a CTA, there is some type of reward that comes with it.

People will be excited to click on your button if they feel there is a reward coming with it.

Offer a discount for members when they first sign up. Or give a coupon for their next purchase if they buy a product.

Getting your viewers to associate positive rewards with your company’s CTA will produce long-term results that pad your bank account.

Using reward based language is a great way to accomplish this. You don’t want there to be any confusion on if the viewer should click or not.

Some examples of reward based language are:

• “15% off your first purchase when you sign up for our rewards program”
• “Free gift with your next order”
• “Get 20% off when you refer a friend”

Be intentional with the words you choose and follow through with what you say for maximum effect.

9. Give Users Ownership

People are more invested in the things we own than those we don’t.

We’ve all worked on projects that we put all of our efforts into and feel extremely nervous when it comes time to present because we own them. The feedback you get holds much more value when it’s something that is entirely your own.

Creating a feeling of ownership in prospects before you sell a product will drastically increase the likelihood that someone will make a purchase.

This applies to all kinds of businesses.

Netflix does this by allowing users to create their own profiles that have all of their shows and recommendations based on what they watch. They have their customers invested in their product and can then sell new offers to them.

You can do this by offering free trials or early access to products to get users to invest in them.

Once the time comes to purchase, the user will purchase because they’ve already invested so much time into making it their own.

Using wording like “make it your own” can help create that feeling of ownership.

This is a guaranteed way to ensure that the product will be valuable to the consumer.

When it’s yours, it’s valuable to you. Make your audience feel this way and you’ll be golden.

10. Increase Time Investments

Ever go to an event, it rains, and you decide to stay since you’re already there? That’s this last point put into effect.

The more time people invest in your business will increase your chances of making a sale.

This doesn’t mean that this only works for existing customers.

This can be as simple as adding a progress bar when a customer is signing up for your services. When a customer sees they’re at the halfway point, they’re not likely to leave the page.

People don’t like to feel like their time is wasted so they’re more likely to follow through if they spend a lot of time engaging with your business.

This also applies to money. If someone has invested a lot of money in your business, they are more likely to follow through with another purchase.

Creating additions to products and heavily customized products will increase the potential future investments.

The more you can get customers to continue using your products, the better your sales performance.

Apple does a phenomenal job with this. They offer upgrades and new products all the time. And most of their customers have invested a lot of time and money into their business. It is unlikely that one of their customers will leave them because they’d have to learn an entirely new way of using a phone or computer.

Conclusion

Improving your call to actions is a great way to improve conversion rates.

Armed with this new CTA psychology, your customer base and business is sure to grow.

Start implementing these easy changes to see the lasting effects.

Good luck and look forward to a future of improved conversion rates!

What customer psychology works on you as a consumer?