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You have less than ten seconds to grab the attention of people visiting your website.

If you have spent lots of time and effort lovingly crafting your website so it is a thing of beauty - you don't want to waste it by making it hard for visitors to get what they came for. People are fickle that way.

This is when a great Call To Action (CTA) plays a critical part

So, what is a Call to Action?

No, it's not a stirring trumpet tune.  A CTA is content (usually a graphic) that helps your website visitor by telling them what to do next. It grabs attention and gets them to:

• Phone you
• Buy a product
• Register for an event
• Fill out a form to contact you
• Sign up for a free ebook or newsletter

Of course, you have to know what it is that people want from you.  You also have to work out what you need them to do - so you can give them what they want.

What makes for an Effective Call to Action

1. State the benefit so they WANT to take action

www.mint.com states what they offer - 'The best free way to manage your money' - and the benefits of their product right above their call to action.

The CTA button is bright orange with the words 'Free! Get Started'.

The button colour and style jumps off the page and almost defies you not to download the software.

Oh, and if the action you want is for people to give you their contact information, you will have to offer an incentive such as a free download or free trial. They won't give it away for nothin!

2. Use action oriented language – Do it now!

• Call
• Buy
• Register
• Subscribe
• Download

All these words are action oriented. It is easy to for the visitor to know what they have to do next.

Then to create a sense of urgency, add words such as:

• Now!
• Today!
• While Stocks Last!
• Limited Time.
• Available until 30th!

Avoid obscure language that makes people work harder than they have to.  

Favourites that fall into this category are 'Go' or 'Interested?' or the dreaded 'Click Here'.

3. Remove distractions

Don't give visitors too many choices or they'll become bored or overwhelmed and leave with a disgusted 'I can't be bothered with this'.

And now there is a tendency to place social media badges prominently on a homepage.

But if visitors click on these, it will take them off-site. Is that really what you want at this early stage in the game?

Think about what is the right time to introduce a way people can engage with you. First up might not be the optimum time as they don't even know who you are or what you do until they have read some content, purchased a product or had some other interaction with you.

4. Make sure they see it

Use a colour that contrasts with the main colours on the site, and only use that colour for the important CTAs.

Position it high on the page above 'the fold'. Where's the fold these days anyway? Well due to various screen sizes and hand held devices, you can't be sure. To be on the safe side, put the CTA as high in the content area of your page as you can