All I Want for Christmas is a Clear CTA

You’ve heard the phrase, “like a kid in a toy store.” Little Bobby or Jane walks in, their eyes light up, and they starting picking out what they want for Christmas…this toy! That toy! Ooooo and that shiny thing! “Distracted” hardly describes it! So many cool things to choose from!

Imagine that toy store is Your Landing Page. You have carefully built the page, put lots of time into crafting copy that is compelling, selected images that capture viewers’ attention, added links to all of your social pages, posted URLs for five different white papers about fascinating research, include hyperlinked “about us” and “careers” text, and, of course, have included the all-important call to action.

Wait, what? Your goal for the page is to get viewers to click your call to action? Sorry, I got distracted by all the other toys…

Point of the story is this: landing page viewers are easily distracted and have short attention spans, quite similar to kids walking into a toy store. If you want them to take a specific action, this action needs to be crystal clear. Links and resources are fantastic but can actually encourage your page viewers to leave your page before they complete your call to action. That would be like leaving the toy store without even finding the best toy!

Check out this example from Forrester Research. They created a clean, simple layout, with a easy to scan design, and clear call to action: Get the Report. There aren’t any distractions, the form is easy to fill out, and suddenly this report is the only toy we want for Christmas. At least while we’re on this page ;-)