Call to Action - How to Use a Call to Action

What comes to your mind when you think about Web Design? Most probably, you think about colors, fonts, and graphics. While these are essential elements, there is more to it than meets the eye.

As a web designer, you have the unique opportunity to influence the way a visitor perceives a website or a web application. With clever use of colors, graphics, and design, you can make a significant impact on a website's visual appeal. This, in turn, can greatly increase a website's conversion rate. In other words, you can make or break a business with a well-designed site.

In this article, we will tell you more about the role of a web designer and how to become one.

The Role Of A Web Designer

A web designer is someone who creates the visual appearance of a website. In other words, they are responsible for designing the overall look and feel of a website, including colors, fonts, and layout. A web designer can have a significant impact on the success of a business because of their creative eye.

As a web designer, you will be called upon to develop a distinctive look and feel for a client's website. This involves using your imagination and utilizing skills such as Photoshop and InDesign. Through careful research and planning, you can create a unique design that will capture the attention of visitors. When they visit your client's website, they will feel like they have arrived somewhere different. This is precisely what makes a web designer indispensable – they can make or break a business with a well-designed site.

A web designer should always bear in mind the end goal – to increase the chance of a conversion. Since this article is focusing on the role of a web designer in business, let's take a look at the different ways in which you can do this.

Attracting Visitors

A website's design is only half of the story. The other part is how the site is populated with content. In other words, you can have a well-designed site, but if you don't have any content to go along with it, it's like having a blank canvas – albeit a pretty one.

To draw in visitors, you'll need to establish a solid base line of content, whether that's an e-book, an online magazine, or a web series. When someone visits your website, they will see content scattered across numerous web pages. Depending on your site's subject matter, you can decide which content to feature and which to hide. Using a tool such as Google Analytics can help you pinpoint the types of content that drives the most traffic to your site.

Converting Visitors Into Customers

Once you have attracted some visitors to your site, you can use a variety of methods to encourage them to convert into customers. Since we're assuming that you're already using Google Analytics to track the performance of your site, you can use the data that it provides to focus on particular areas for improvement. If you notice, many businesses with a lot of traffic have very little engagement on their site – visitors simply arrive, consume the content, and leave. To encourage more action from your site's visitors, you can experiment with different activities, such as offering a free trial or a discount on your products.

While trying out new things is always desirable, ensure that your web design doesn't interfere with the functionality of your site. Otherwise, you may discover that certain areas of your site have become less effective due to the changes you made. Since your goal is to increase the chances of a conversion, it's paramount that you work with your web designer to ensure that your site remains functional and accessible. With modern web browsers supporting touch-based navigation, ensuring that all parts of a site can be interacted with via a finger gesture is now a standard requirement.

Designing For Different Platforms

Although the desktop remains the most popular device used to access the internet, the role of a web designer has shifted to mobile. Today, a web designer's job is not limited to creating a good looking site – they must also have the ability to design a site that functions properly on all platforms, including mobile devices. In other words, your web designer must be able to create a good looking site that functions smoothly on any device.

If you're a business owner or product manager who's hired a web designer to bring your site to life, you'll need to decide whether you want the site to be accessible via desktop or mobile devices. You can utilize tools, such as Google Analytics, to track the behavior of your site's visitors, which will help you make this decision. By ensuring that your site looks the same on all platforms, you will significantly increase the chances of a conversion – people feel more comfortable purchasing goods or services from a business they know will not break the bank.

Responsive Web Design

For a while now, the term ‘mobile-first' has been banded about. Meaning that websites should be designed with the mobile user in mind, and only then should they be tested on a desktop computer. Now, with Google launching its own dedicated ‘Responsive Web Design ' tool, this mantra has turned into a full-fledged strategy – and one that every web designer must embrace.

When a user visits your site, regardless of the platform they're on – mobile, tablet, or desktop – you want them to have a pleasant experience. To achieve this, you need to build a site that is flexible enough to function seamlessly on all platforms. Instead of having a distinct look for each device type, as in the case of a feature-phone website, you will want to have a consistent design that can be configured via CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to change its appearance depending on the platform it's viewed on.

How To Become A Web Designer

If you're interested in pursuing a career in web design, first, you should learn the technical skills necessary to succeed in the field. In other words, you will need to learn the tools of the trade, such as Photoshop and InDesign, as well as the basic knowledge necessary for laying out and formatting a web page. You should also familiarize yourself with various platforms, such as WordPress and Shopify, as these are the two most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) used by businesses.

After you've accumulated these skills, you can move on to more advanced training. One of the best online programs designed to teach you the ropes of web design is the web development Bootcamp – a comprehensive 10 week course that will allow you to build a portfolio of work. Also, since you'll be entering the field at such a late stage in life, you may decide to take up a course in web design part-time. This will allow you to continue gaining practical experience while being able to bill your hours. In conclusion, if you're looking to enter the field and can't easily find a job, freelancing is a wise choice – you can gain valuable experience, build a portfolio, and eventually find work.

Top Tips

An element that can significantly increase the conversion rate of a website is a strong call to action (CTA). A call to action simply means that you, the web designer, are encouraging the user to take a specific action – in this case, to visit the site's landing page and make a purchase. To put it simply: if you want someone to perform an action, you should call them to perform that action. With this in mind, let's take a look at different ways you can encourage users to click through to your site.

Use The Right Call To Action

Using the right call to action is extremely important – if you've ever worked in marketing, you'll know that this is the golden rule of online marketing. Similar to any other form of marketing, you'll want to focus on the CTA to attract the right audience to your site. In other words, you want to use the call to action to convince someone to click through to your site, not just to get them to visit your site but to make a conversion.

The call to action should match the action a user is taking – if we go back to our previous example, you would want to use an ‘order' button, since that is what the user is doing when they visit your site. But, you don't always want to use the same call to action for all elements on a web page. For example, if you have a button that says ‘Login', but the user is actually performing an action, such as registering for a service, you would want to use a different call to action – ‘register' or ‘sign up' might be appropriate.