Web Design Tips - How To Help Your Visitors With A Call To Action
Written on July 28, 2010 – 8:56 pm | by Guru
Help Them Do What You Want Them To Do
- Don’t assume your visitors can find what they want
- Don’t beat their eyeballs with endless popups or animation - this is too far the other way
- Do make your contact information highly visible in a prime location if you want to be contacted
- Do make sure your important information and your call to action are ‘above the fold’
- Do run basic user testing - ask friends or family to do this if your budget is tight.
Avoid going soft-sell on your website, unless you are 110% sure that this is not what your visitors want. I’m not talking about ramming it down their throats, popping up ads, and having flashing banners all over the page, oh, no. What you do want visible are your contact details if you want leads to contact you, or your products or shopping pages if you sell online services. You want your visitor to have to make the least effort humanly possible with that great big heavy mouse they’re using - remember, it’s hassle for most visitors to locate anything at all on a webpage. Stick it under their noses, and they’ll pick up the scent.
There is an important note here that comes from old newspaper lingo called the ‘fold’. The fold = the place on your screen where your webpage cuts off. Widescreen hi resolution flat screen monitors are nice to see your design in all it’s glory. But, most people will still be viewing on 1024 x 768, with some lower, some higher. Make sure your critical navigation and calls to action are visible at these lower screen resolutions so you don’t let any visiting fish slip through your net.
I’d like to ensure my websites are simple for visitors to navigate. My mum isn’t know for her technical prowess when it comes to dealing with a PC or the “interweb”, so makes a great test subject. For instance, I asked that she find my email address and contact me from my website. If someone not very techy can tell what your call to action is, you’re heading in the right direction. You can employ more subtle ways of user testing if you have the time or the money to test your call to action, navigation or any other part of a page, split A/B testing is one example., we don’t cover that within this article however.
Need help with your business website design?
Call us today, we’re happy to help you with your questions.
Lloyd Roberts | 123 Web Design Bournemouth
http://www.123webdesignbournemouth.co.uk
01202 23 77 99
Tags: bournemouth, call to action, web design
