You hear about call-to-actions all the time. If you work in this industry, you probably hear, "what's the call-to-action," "where is the call-to-action," "we need a stronger call-to-action" on a regular basis. And, it makes sense, having a fully successful website revolves around them.
The whole purpose of a call-to-action is to get your visitors to do something other than just stop by your site. call-to-actions are the link between a page with information that your visitors are interested in, to a page with a higher value offer on it to help convert visitors into leads.
But where is the best placement of your call-to-actions on your Joomla website to get those visitors to notice and take action? Let's explore.
Homepage
Your homepage call-to-actions should be somewhat diverse since this is where most of your visitors will initially land or at least at some point, take a look at.
An ideal location for a homepage call-to-action would be a top of the funnel offer above the fold, relevant to a primary persona. This way the visitor won't have to scroll in order to see the first call-to-action.
Your homepage should have at least three call-to-actions — one for each stage of the funnel to appeal to those who are visiting your site to just explore what you have to offer, and then those who are ready to convert today.
It's important to strategically place your call-to-actions so they fit in well with the design of your homepage. You want to avoid your homepage looking cluttered and spammy. Like stated earlier, place one above the fold, and then the others along the sidebar and one at the bottom to keep them spaced out.
Your Blog
Since I already know you are an excellent inbound marketer for your Joomla website, I know that you have a wicked good blog that you are updating with fresh content quite frequently. So, the best place to start with placement of your call-to-actions is at the bottom of each blog post you write as well as the sidebar if you can.
Put a top funnel call-to-action in these places that is relevant to your blog post. Your blog post can be a nice segway into everything your call-to-action has to offer, therefore making the prospects more inclined to click on your call-to-action.
Your blog is a very interesting part of your website that you are constantly updating, so strong call-to-actions should be present. The call-to-action should be large enough to make an impression but not appear spammy.
Product or Service Pages
Your product or service pages should around 2 call-to-actions - usually a top of funnel offer and a bottom funnel offer relevant to the particular buyer persona the page is for. One at the bottom of the page and one along the sidebar, above the fold.
Keep these call-to-actions at a reasonable size enough for the visitors to notice, but not overpower the product or service page itself. Keep it clean.
Contact Us or About Us Pages
These pages are there to help visitors learn more about your company and to decide what to do next therefore this is ideal real estate for call-to-actions.
On an about us page, try doing an educational top of the funnel call-to-action so the prospects can learn more about what your company specializes in and you can prove why you are the best in the industry at what you do. Place this call-to-action above the fold and another at the bottom of the page beneath the content explaining who your company is.
On your contact us page, do a bottom of the funnel offer since the prospects are at the place where they are considering contacting you for further information. Do the same placement as you would for the about us page - above the fold and at the bottom.
Adding a call-to-action in Joomla
Joomla makes it easy to add custom content to your site in a variety of ways. For adding a call-to-action, we recommend creating a custom HTML module.
The module should include an engaging button or image, and a clear message to engage the viewer (see also this guide to best-practices for calls-to-action).
Placing the module can also be done in a variety of ways. The easiest method is to edit the module parameters to assign the module to specific position or block in your template, and to a specific menu item(s). Most templates have a variety of positions above, below and on the left and right of your content, offering a lot of flexibility.
You can also include a module directly in any Joomla article using the loadposition technique (see here for a detailed demo)
Takeaways
To put it simply, all of your Joomla webpages to should have some type of simple call-to-action on it to keep visitors interested and always steering them to the next step. The trick is to keep your website clean and not be cluttered by too many call-to-actions or too large of call-to-actions.
Keep your call-to-actions balanced on your pages. Definitely do some A/B testing, tracking and measuring with the placement of your call-to-actions to find the most effective spots. Monitor where you are getting the highest clicks and conversions.
Now, time to get those call-to-actions placed on your Joomla website and start turning those visitors into leads!