Sphinx Web Design Blog

Recently, Facebook sponsored a study run by NeuroFocus — found via Search Engine Land– intended to quantitatively determine how people respond to websites and website ads. The results had some interesting findings for marketers who are wondering how their site structure and ad campaigns affect how users react to their website. Let’s just dive right in to those results and see what marketers can learn from their experiments.

What the Study Looked At

NeuroFocus used devices to measure the brainwaves of searchers when visiting websites, and looked to see if any patterns emerged. The test subjects were 50% men, 50% women, aged 21-54, and with a minimum annual household income of $30,000. The researchers tested the subjects’ reactions to the Yahoo! homepage, The New York Times homepage, and their personal Facebook news feeds. These are the reactions they measured:

• Attention: The test subjects had clear instances of sustained focus, and shifted focus — meaning it was easy to measure when they were very interested by what they were looking at, and when their attention got diverted by something else.
• Emotional Engagement: There was a clear delineation between positive and negative emotional response to certain page elements. For the purposes of this study, a positive emotional response is called “approach motivation,” which means the test subject felt motivated to do something, while a negative emotional response is called “avoidance motivation,” which means the test subject felt compelled to avoid a certain action.
• Memory Retention: Researchers could clearly detect when something on the page was interesting enough to be stored in the test subjects’ memories.

The researchers were able to combine scores given for each of these responses into something called Overall Neurological Effectiveness, a composite measure of the efficiency of a test subject’s cognitive processing.

Interesting Findings From the Study

To see how each website fared individually, you can read the whitepaper in its entirety. Here are some of the most interesting findings that emerged from the study.

1.) Overall: The New York Times had higher levels of attention and memory than the other two pages, but less emotional engagement. The Yahoo! homepage had higher levels of emotional engagement than The New York Times homepage, but less than the Facebook page. And Yahoo! had the least amount of memory activation out of all three pages.

People viewing their own news feed on Facebook, however, had high levels of activation on all three metrics — attention, emotional engagement, and memory. The Facebook page had statistically higher levels of emotional engagement than The New York Times and Yahoo!

2.) Effect of Ads on Attention: The mere presence of ads had neither a positive nor negative effect on subjects’ attention levels.

3.) Different Types of Ads: There’s higher attention and emotional engagement with social media ads than with TV ads or ads on a corporate web page. But ultimately, subjects’ memories weren’t activated enough in any context. Take a look at the results of an experiment NeuroFocus ran with a Visa ad on television, on a corporate web page, and on a social media site.

People paid more attention to the ad in the two online contexts, the ad had the most emotional engagement in the social context, but it had low memory levels in all contexts. NeuroFocus reported that memory scores at these levels usually indicate an ad has weak persuasive capability and that viewers discount it in their memory. 

4.) Effect of Stimuli on Memory: Memory scores tend to be higher when stimuli are personally meaningful and provide learning opportunities.

5.) Post-Facebook Activity: After subjects view their Facebook pages, the next site they visit makes subjects feel more connected — more users associated their experience with the word “connecting” than they had before.

6.) Engagement vs. Attention: Overall, emotional engagement scores are lower than attention scores. This makes sense, since online content demands more attention than passive media like television; there are simply more elements competing for a user’s attention, and consequently the study found that emotional engagement shows a slightly negative correlation with attention. The results indicate that high attention levels have a diminishing impact on emotional engagement.

7.) Effect of Prior Expectations: All of the consumers’ responses to the websites were found to be impacted by the expectations of the site that they carried with them before visiting.

What Marketers Can Do With This Information

If nothing else, it’s encouraging to know marketers are on the right track when we strive for a more and more personalized experiences in our marketing — even beyond our website. Along with great nurturing and segmentation, allowing people to interact with your brand in a social way is key to achieving this personalized experience. This study has shown that marketing is about more than just information consumption and cognition. Facebook is so successful because it provides new information that is both emotionally driven and highly personal. That means the information delivered is relevant to the user, and it makes it far more likely they will remember what they see on that site.

In the age of information overload, it’s remarkable content that can actually embed its way into someone’s memory. That is only achieved when you really know your target audience, what they want to hear, and you present it in a way that resonates with them. It’s just as much about the topics you select as your presentation of it — something that A/B testing can help you refine.

And as if you didn’t already know it, your reputation matters. Every time people come to your website, they are building up a pre-conceived notion they will carry with them on every subsequent site visit. So be purposeful with what you put out there and the brand image you build for yourself. Selectivity is a good thing; what you don’t publish is just as important as what you do publish. Use your website and company social media accounts to build the emotional experience you want people to have when they interact with your brand.

Finally, it appears that site with social elements are particularly attractive for advertising because they have both the high emotional engagement of TV (without the high costs) and the active cognitive engagement characteristic of the online experience. So, if you’re going to run an ad…run it online!

Have you run any tests on your website to see how users engage with your content? Share your findings in the comments!

Image credit: digitalbob8

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Marketers talk a lot about advanced techniques for working with their leads: lead flow, lead management, lead nurturing. But all of that is meaningless without consistent lead generation, and landing pages are the strongest tools in a marketer’s arsenal to meet that looming monthly lead goal.

Because landing pages are so important to lead generation, attention to detail is in order to ensure you have the highest conversion rate possible. And as it turns out, landing page visitors are pretty darn fickle about which pages they’ll convert on. To show you how to prevent landing page abandonment, we took a HubSpot landing page and broke down what it looks like before optimization, and after. See if you can identify the mistakes and how to fix them!

Subpar Landing Page

Here’s an example of a landing page to access HubSpot’s ebook that explains how to build your Google+ business page. It’s not ugly, it’s on brand, and it’s professional; so what’s wrong with it? It’s not optimized, that’s what. That means conversion rates will be low, and page abandonment rates will be high. When it comes to landing pages (and almost everything else in marketing, for that matter) pretty is great, but functional is better.

I’ve identified all of the page elements that are either missing or incorrectly executed in the screenshot below. Take a few moments to try to identify what’s wrong with those page elements I’ve called out, then scroll down to see an improved landing page with explanations for why the new page elements will yield better conversion results.

Optimized Landing Page

Now let’s take a look at the second landing page treatment and dissect why each change helps improve the performance of this landing page.

1.) URL Architecture – An optimized URL will help your landing page rank higher in search engines. You probably don’t want the ebook PDF itself or the thank-you page it lives on to rank (that’s why you have a form in front of it), but if your landing page appears in search, think of how many more leads you have the opportunity to collect. Instead of optimizing for www.hubspot.com/google-plus, the URL structure www.hubspot.com/how-to-use-google-plus-for-business is ideal because the phrase for which this page is trying to rank — Google+ for business — is in the URL. And be sure to separate words with dashes instead of underscores; Google’s crawlers have an easier time reading dashes.

2.) Navigation – Notice how there is none? Including a navigation on your landing page like we did on the first treatment gives users another place to exit your landing page before they become a lead. The more choices you give site visitors, the more confused they will be about what action they are meant to complete on the page. And confusion among site visitors means lower conversion rates. You can bring back your navigation on the thank-you page where new leads land after they complete and submit your form.

3.) Page Header – First, notice the inclusion of the keyword phrase “Google+ for Business” in the header; remember that this also helps search engines identify the keyword phrase to associate with your page! But this isn’t the only reason this header is a drastic improvement from the first landing page treatment. The copy used in your landing page header is one of the most important page elements, because it’s what helps your page pass a user’s blink test. The blink test refers to the commonly accepted 3 seconds which every web page has to orient users once they land on a new web page. This particular header tells us that this is the page where you can access a new ebook, and what the topic of that ebook is, helping users quickly orient themselves and continue reading to get more information and complete the lead-capture form.

4.) Form Header – Our first landing page didn’t even include a form header, a major faux pas but quick fix. Your form header should simply tell the visitor what exactly filling out that form will do. In this case, visitors know if they fill out the form, they can download their ebook. And when can they do it? Right now!

5.) Image Selection – The first landing page included an image of two business people collaborating, but it wasn’t as relevant as it could be to the topic of this landing page. The image of the actual ebook visitors will see if they complete the form provides greater relevancy and helps hammer home the benefit of completing the form.

6.) Privacy – Privacy is a real concern for folks nowadays, and the last thing you’d want is for someone to abandon your form because they weren’t confident you’d handle their information securely. Including a link to your privacy policy helps alleviate those concerns so more visitors convert.

7.) Keyword Optimization – Just as the keyword phrase “Google+ for Business” is included in the URL and header, the second landing page treatment includes the long-tail keyword phrase to help the page rank well in search engines. Targeting long-tail keyword phrases like these on your landing page will not only drive more relevant search traffic and be easier to rank for than a head term, but it will also help you rank for those short-tail keyword phrases like “Google+” too.

8.) Value Building – While short is good, the extra copy in the second landing page treatment will actually improve conversion rates, because it displays the value of completing the landing page’s call-to-action. Sure, the promise of an ebook on Google+ for business is good, but explaining what you’ll learn if you download and read the ebook is even more enticing. Make the end benefit of completing the download crystal clear with the copy you include on your landing page, even if it does mean a few more lines of text.

9.) Readable Format – You can make those extra lines of copy more easily digestible by separating the value of the offer into bullet points. The extra copy is needed to convey value and drive conversions, but readers won’t absorb the points you’re making if they’re too visually overwhelming. Using bullet points, numbered lists, dashes, and headers helps make those chunks of text easy to scan through.

10.) On-Page Social Sharing – You might think including social sharing buttons is a distraction just like the navigation in the first treatment, but on-page social sharing buttons don’t take a user away from your landing page. Let users share your landing page with their network for more leads, and still let your current visitor easily convert during their visit with on-page social sharing, just like on your blog posts!

11.) Pertinent Form Fields – The fewer form fields you can include on your landing page, the better. However, this is one element of your landing page that should be subject to the most scrutinizing A/B tests! It’s important not to overwhelm visitors with so many form fields that they abandon mid-form, but you also must collect the information you need to appropriately qualify your lead. The first landing page treatment’s form fields, while admirably low in count, don’t sufficiently qualify those who convert.

You’ll notice that the second treatment also includes red stars that indicate which fields are required, and which are optional. If there is information that isn’t absolutely necessary to qualify leads for your business but helps provide a more personal sales experience, include the fields and simply leave out the red star that indicates the field is a requirement.

12.) Action-Based Button – The last barrier to receiving a brand new lead is clicking the “Submit” button. Or if you’re looking at the second (and better performing!) landing page, the “Download Now” button. Your form button should contain active and instructive language that tells the user exactly what to do. “Submitting” a form doesn’t mean all that much, but pressing a button that says “Download Now” tells users that by clicking, they will be able to complete their ebook download — and complete it immediately.

Have you experimented with new structures for your landing pages that flout any of these best practices? Share your experiences building landing pages in the comments!

Image credit: dcysurfer / Dave Young, AGmakonts

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Law has been all over the marketing news lately. First, there was all the SOPA/PIPA drama. And you might have also noticed that privacy has been quite a hot button issue recently, with the launch of Google’s new one-size-fits-all privacy policy as well as the latest debacle with the up and coming (or maybe not?) social network, Path. With so much talk about laws governing the internet, as a marketer, you may be wondering how it could affect the way you do your job.

So if you want to make sure you’re not being a marketing outlaw, here’s what you need to know to comply with the major laws that apply to marketers so you don’t end up with a lawsuit, or worse. Rumor has it you can’t blog regularly in the slammer.

1. CAN-SPAM Act

The CAN-SPAM Act (or the ‘Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003′) is a law that outlines rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, provides email recipients with the right to make you stop emailing them, and lays out big consequences for violations of the Act (such as penalties of up to $16,000 for each separate email violation). As a marketer, all of your email marketing messages need to comply with the requirements set forth in the CAN-SPAM Act.

How to Abide:

• Avoid using misleading, deceptive, or falsified information in your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” subject line, and routing information. Make sure you clearly identify who is sending the email, whether it’s from a company or an individual. Make sure your email subject line clearly indicates what the content of the email is about.
• Include your physical postal address. Every email message you send out has to include your valid physical mailing address.
• Include an opt-out link, and honor unsubscribes promptly. You must include a clear and obvious way for recipients to unscubscribe from all email communication from you, even if you also provide a list of other types of email to which they can subscribe instead. If a recipient asks to be removed from your list, you must honor their request within 10 business days, and then you cannot sell or transfer their email address to another list.
• Choose a reputable email service provider (ESP). Even if you’re sending emails using an ESP like HubSpot, that doesn’t mean you won’t be held liable if the emails sent aren’t compliant with CAN-SPAM regulations. Both your business and your ESP can be held responsible for a screw-up, so make sure you select a legitimate ESP for your email marketing.

Real-Life Offender: In 2004, Nicholas Tombros pled guilty to charges and became the first spammer to be convicted under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 for “war-spamming” thousands with emails advertising pornographic websites. Tombros was sentenced to three years of probation, six months of house arrest, and was fined $10,000.

2. Do-Not-Call Implementation Act

You’ve probably heard of the National Do Not Call Registry, which allows U.S. consumers to limit the telemarketing calls they receive. This is the Act that made it happen, and today, more than 200 million people are registered with the Do Not Call Registry. The Do Not Call Registry doesn’t prevent all unwanted calls, such as calls from organizations with which a person has established a business relationship, calls for which a person has given prior written permission, calls that aren’t commercial or do not include unsolicited advertisements, or calls from or on behalf of tax-exempt non-profit organizations. Violating this Act will cost you up to $11,000 per violation. Now that’s an expensive phone call.

How to Abide:

Here’s the obvious advice: Don’t cold call! Using inbound marketing to establish a business relationship with a prospect first saves you from being a slave to the Do Not Call Registry. At the very least, limit it. If you do cold call and use telemarketing…

• Regularly update your list. You’re required to search the Do Not Call Registry at least once every 31 days and remove from your call lists the phone numbers of new registrants.
• Do not call people on your list before 8 AM or after 9 PM. It’s prohibited.

Real-Life Offender: In December 2010, the FTC shut down two groups of Florida-based telemarketers that inundated consumers with “robocalls” in which they falsely promised to reduce consumers’ credit card rates. JPM Accelerated Services-associated defendants were fined $5.9 million, and fines of $3.2 million were ordered to six other defendants who were associated with an affiliated operation, IXE Accelerated Financial Centers.

3. Privacy Policies and Terms of Use

Although partial regulations exist, there is no privacy law that singlehandedly addresses how you can acquire, store, or use personal data in the U.S. Generally speaking, in the U.S., whoever bothers with collecting data is deemed to own the right to store and use it. That doesn’t mean you should play with fire. With the recent examples of Google and Path, we’ve seen what happens with businesses when they’re thought to have abused users’ personal information. Furthermore, it’s also important to understand other websites’ terms of use if you’re using them in your marketing strategy. Here’s what you should do to stay on the safe side…

How to Abide:

• Create a privacy policy and terms of use for your business. Make them clearly visible on your website. In your privacy policy, make sure you clearly communicate how you use personal information, who you share it with, and whether you use cookies or tracking software. If you say you will not sell users’ information or email addresses to other vendors, don’t sell their information or email addresses to other vendors.
• Provide a link to your privacy policy on or near your landing page forms and in email marketing messages. This will not only establish you as a credible, trustworthy vendor, but it will also suppress anxiety, create less friction, and thus increase conversions.
• Never sell or share sensitive information. This includes social security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account information, criminal background, or health records.
• Adhere to other websites’/business’ terms of use. This is particularly important if you’re using third-party social media sites in your marketing strategy. Make sure you consult these sites’ terms of use before you use them so you know what is and isn’t acceptable marketing behavior on each individual site. For example, were you aware that Facebook has pretty strict guidelines about how you can run contests and promotional campaigns on its site?
• If you conduct business internationally, obtain your Safe Harbor certification. Intended for organizations within the EU or U.S. that store customer data, the Safe Harbor Principles are designed to prevent accidental information disclosure or loss. US companies can opt into the program as long as they adhere to the 7 principles outlined in the EU Data Protection Directive on the protection of personal data. For more information, visit the official Safe Harbor arrangement site.

Real-Life Offender: In November 2011, Facebook agreed to settle federal charges from the FTC that it violated users’ privacy “by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.” The settlement requires Facebook to allow independent auditors to review Facebook’s privacy practices over the next 20 years. It also requires that Facebook get approval from users before changing how it handles their data.

4. Defamation Law

Defamation is a false statement of fact that is harmful to someone’s reputation and published as a result of negligence or malice. Depending on state laws, defamation is often defined in specific ways. Libel is written defamation, whereas slander is spoken defamation. Luckily, under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, websites are protected against defaming user-generated content such as blog comments, which means you won’t have to monitor and weed out that type of content (although you’ll probably want to remove it anyway).

How to Abide:

• Don’t abuse your freedom of speech in your content. You have the right to share your opinions in your content, but avoid definitive statements that just plain aren’t true. 
• Check your sources. We’d like to think that you wouldn’t purposely post defaming content on your website, but where you might get into trouble is if you unknowingly source defaming content and use it in your own content. Be sure you check your sources and question anything that could be considered defamatory before you publish.

Real-Life Offender: Many of you probably remember the popular example of online defamation that resulted in a $430,000 settlement that Courtney Love paid fashion designer Simorangkir for the 20 minutes worth of Twitter hatred she unleashed on the designer over an invoice dispute. To her 40,000 followers, Courtney had called Simorangkir a drug-dealing, prostitution-pushing thief who lost her children because of an assault and battery record.

5. Intellectual Property Laws

Intellectual property laws oversee the creation and enforcement of intellectual property such as copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secret laws, etc. These laws grant owners specific exclusive rights to various assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. While Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does protect you against user-generated content that is defamatory, the law does not offer protection for intellectual property violations, meaning it’s possible that you could be found liable if a user posts something to your site that is in violation of intellectual property laws. Although you’ll need to reference specific laws to understand the intricacies of each, there are a few things you can do to make sure you stay on the right side of the law.

How to Abide:

• Attribute your sources. If you have any question about whether or not (or how) you can use another’s content in your own, reach out to the source. To prevent others from using your content inappropriately, create a set of content usage/attribution guidelines (you can refer to HubSpot’s content usage guidelines as an example), and make them visible on your website.
• Remove questionable user-generated content. Don’t allow content that you think is in violation of intellectual property laws to remain on your website. You don’t want to run the risk of getting sued over it. Create and publish a user-generated content/comments policy that indicates you have the right to remove any content you feel is defamatory, inappropriate, or in violation of intellectual property rights and that you will disclose personal information to requesting authorities over questions of intellectual property violation.
• Use Creative Commons-licensed content. Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization that offers a free alternative to full copyright. In marketing, it’s particularly useful if you’re looking for images to use in your content. The conditions of CC licenses vary depending on which license the owner chose for his/her content, but for the most part, CC-licensed content can be used when attributed correctly. This page provides the information you need to know when using/attributing CC-licensed content, and you can search for CC-licensed content here. You can also cheaply purchase royalty-free images from sites like iStockphoto, without needing to attribute the source.

Real-Life Offender: Who remembers Napster, arguably the most popular intellectual property case ever? Napster allowed users to share music files, causing thousands of people to download songs for free instead of purchasing CDs or MP3s. The problem was, Napster didn’t own the rights to the music its users were uploading to Napster’s servers. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued Napster and won, forcing Napster to shut down. Napster is now owned by Rhapsody.

6. Disclosing Paid Reviews/Promotion/Affiliation

In 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published revised guidelines to its FTC Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. The guidelines explain the conditions by which the FTC would find endorsements or testimonials unfair or deceptive. Per the FTC’s guidelines, a positive review from a person connected to the seller — or someone who receives cash or payment to review a product or service — should disclose the connection between the reviewer and the seller of the product or service. In other words, bloggers who make an endorsement are required to disclose their connection with the seller of the product or service. And if, in an ad, a company refers to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the ad is required to disclose the connection between the advertiser and the researcher. These guidelines also extend to informal, under-the-table payments for testimonials from influencers used in word-of-mouth or buzz marketing.

How to Abide:

• Don’t ever offer payment in exchange for positive reviews. That said, it’s perfectly acceptable to encourage customers and fans to leave you positive reviews if they wish by reminding your happy customers and biggest fans that positive reviews are always appreciated.
• Always disclose relationships with partners and co-marketing partners. When it comes to online marketing, transparency is key to maintaining a credible, trustworthy brand image.

Real-Life Offender: Don’t be like Legacy Learning Systems, a popular seller of guitar-lesson DVDs that ended up with a $250,000 fine for using misleading online ‘consumer’ and ‘independent’ reviews. The FTC charged that it “deceptively advertised its products through online affiliate marketers who falsely posed as ordinary consumers or independent reviewers.”

The bottom line? As an inbound marketer, you need to stay in the know about the laws that govern the web to avoid possible legal ramifications. Even if it doesn’t cost you a hefty fine or some time behind bars, the negative attention associated with legal trouble could cost you your brand’s reputation.

And Now, Some Legalese…

This blog post has provided information about the law designed to help our readers better understand the legal issues surrounding internet marketing. But legal information is not the same as legal advice — the application of law to an individual’s specific circumstances. Although we have conducted research to better ensure that our information is accurate and useful, we insist that you consult a lawyer if you want professional assurance that our information, and your interpretation of it, is accurate. To clarify further, you may not rely upon this information as legal advice, nor as a recommendation or endorsement of any particular legal understanding, and you should instead regard this article as intended for entertainment purposes only.

Image Credits: Sam Howzit, whittlz, pasa47, Thos003, Sean MacEntee, Margaret Ornsby, Trace Meek

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As a follow up to last week’s post about things a marketer could buy with a Super Bowl ad budget, we wanted to share this real life story of a Super Bowl ad buyer’s remorse.

This week, we discovered that a HubSpot customer ran commercials for his business during last weekend’s Super Bowl. Turns out that customer learned a tough lesson about the cost and value of outbound marketing as a result.

(more…)

Calls-to-action (CTAs) are one of the most important elements of lead generation, and they should be used in each and every one of your marketing tactics: emails, social media updates, press releases, trade shows … the list goes on. In fact, whenever you want to ensure your team is moving in the right direction, pose the question, “What’s the call-to-action we’re using to drive people’s behavior?”

Once you have a strategy in mind for which calls-to-action you’ll feature on your website, you’ll probably start obsessing over their design. In this blog post, we present you with some guidelines to master the design of successful calls-to-action.

1. Size Matters: Make Your CTA Big 

The goal of your call-to-action is to attract the attention of website visitors, and one way to convey its importance is by enlarging it. “You want your button to be large enough to stand out without overwhelming the design,” writes graphic designer Cameron Chapman.

Size shouldn’t be determined independently of other factors — it is tightly related to the context of the page and the other characteristics of your call-to-action. For instance, the CTA will naturally be large if it includes a graphic or an image that strengthens the message. This is what we do for HubSpot’s blog: the call-to-action placed at the end of each article is bigger than your standard CTA button because it is contextualized and adds value to the article. Just scroll down to the bottom of this post to see for yourself.

2. Spatial Effect: Give it Room to Breathe 

You know how they say that, sometimes, less is more? Well, that can definitely be true for calls-to-action. If you want to attract more attention to your CTA, you should give it some white space (or in the case below, orange space). Don’t crowd the language unless the information around it is key to taking the action. 

Simple logic dictates the ‘amount of white space’ decision. Separating the CTA from the rest of the content on a web page will mean it’s a separate item. If there is a tight connection between the call-to-action and some other web page element, then maybe there should be less white space between the two. 

“The more white space there is in between a call-to-action button versus a surrounding element, the less connected they are,” writes Jacob Gube in SmashingMagazine. “Therefore, if you have other elements that can help convince users to take action, reduce the white space in between those elements and the CTA.” 

Another tactic here is to fill your call-to-action with warm background colors, such as red and orange, which appear larger than colors suggesting coldness, blue and green. Warm colors appear closer to the viewer. 

3. Give it Prominent Placement 

Your call-to-action needs to be above the fold so viewers don’t have to scroll down in order to spot it. According to an Eyetrack III study, the best placement of online ads is in the top and left position. This tactic, too, is dictated by simple logic. In the English language, we start reading from left to right and from top to bottom. 

Copywriter Dean Rieck suggests that once your readers get used to a particular placement, they might start ignoring the call-to-action or ad. “So even the prime upper left area won’t work so well if you always put ads there,” he writes. The most effective placement could also depend on the context of the rest of the page, so make sure you do some testing (see the section at the end of this post). 

For instance, test the ideal top and left position versus a placement in which the call-to-action is right beneath the offer description. Run an A/B test to see if you get more clicks, and pick a winner. 

4. Contrast Is Key 

Contrast is one of the most powerful graphical techniques you can apply to calls-to-action. The fastest way to grab someone’s attention is by making your CTA stand out from the rest of the page and making it dominant. You can achieve that by picking a color for your button that contrasts the background. 

There has been a huge debate revolving around usage of the color red for call-to-action design. Some marketers argue that red can increase click-through rates significantly. Others explain that the context of the web page should determine the color. Whether you decide to use the color of fire, passion, and also the international stop signal or not, be mindful of your overall website design. While you want to keep the colors contrasting, make sure all of them fit in with your general website color scheme and avoid using patterns. 

Another way to achieve contrast with your call-to-action is to make the font visually different: some words might be larger or more emphasized than others. Just ensure that the CTA is easy to read. 

5. Add Hover Effect 

Surely, you’ve seen calls-to-action that change when you hover over them with your mouse. This type of hover effect creates a perception that the CTA is instantly clickable. In that sense, the visitor is one step closer to taking the action. 

Using hover animation, you can make your buttons change color and brightness. You can also give them a shadow or have them zoom in or out. There are many Adobe Photoshop tutorials out there that can teach you how to create such a hover animation and help you create an even more irresistible call-to-action.   

6. Embrace Unconventional Shapes 

Most calls-to-action have the same shape: that of a standard rectangular box. Shay Howe, designer and user interface engineer at Groupon, recommends that you give your CTA shape rounded or circular corners to make it more “button-like.” Square corners, he writes, may signal to visitors that the CTA is an ad or banner, and they might therefore avoid it. 

Sometimes you will encounter calls-to-action that have more unconventional shapes. For instance, they might be oval, star-like or assuming the contours of another object. This creative approach creates an element of surprise and might prove to be effective for increasing click-through rates. So experiment with call-to-action shapes that are rare, asymmetrical, and out of the ordinary. 

7. Create a Sense of Direction 

Some of the most successful calls-to-action out there have arrows pointing at them. It creates a sense of direction and guides the visitor to the important element on the page. This is a way of prioritizing information and creating a flow. 

In fact, HubSpot Social Media Scientist Dan Zarrella, found out that if you have a picture of a human looking at a lead-capture form or call-to-action on a page, that’s where the eye of the visitor will also shift to. So don’t add images of people who stare right at your audience; make them stare at what your audience should look at.

8. Focus on Text, Not Graphics

The Eyetrack III study also showed that in ads, website visitors read more text content than graphical content. “People looking for information are looking for text, not pictures,” writes Dean. Make sure your wording is clear, specific, and action-oriented. If you need more information on copywriting for calls-to-action, download our free ebook, which includes specific guidelines for CTA copywriting. 

While you should focus on your call-to-action text, don’t forget that graphics can help convey meaning and strengthen your message. They are especially useful in explaining a concept that is hard to explain with words alone.

9. Consider Adding a Secondary CTA

Often times, you have two or three competing actions that you would like your website visitors to take. For instance, you might want to ask them to request a consultation and try out your product. Or you might want them to sign up for your email newsletter and download a whitepaper. Decide which call-to-action has higher priority, and give it more prominent placement and a bigger size. Also, keep in mind that the context of your page will affect click-through rate, so make sure there is a clear alignment between your call-to-action and the content around it.

Make sure you use different colors to illustrate which alternative is more desirable. For instance, on HubSpot’s homepage, you will see that in the center we have three calls-to-action that, from left to right, decrease in importance. The key call-to-action, “Request A Demo,” is in orange, followed by the grey “Free Trial” CTA, and then the “Full Feature Set” CTA, which is just hyperlinked text.

CTA A/B Testing

A lot of the suggestions in this post have represented CTA best practices, but it’s important to understand that sometimes, best practices might not be the best practices for your particular business. One business might find that a red button in the top left corner of a web page performs the best for them, while another business might find that red buttons rarely get clicked, and the top right corner of a web page is the optimal placement for their CTAs.

Therefore, marketers who are striving to continually increase their CTA’s click-through and conversion rates are constantly conducting A/B tests to determine the best design for their CTAs. Every design element we’ve mentioned in this post can — and should — be tested. And if you’re a HubSpot customer, the Call-to-Action Module makes it very easy to A/B test different call-to-action buttons to determine which generates the most clicks and conversions.

Now that you’re familiar with the key elements in call-to-action design, you should go and see how improving CTAs affects your lead generation efforts. Make sure you share your experiments with us!

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