When was the last time you spent more than 5 minutes reading a subject line? How about a navigation link? What about a form title?

In the world of marketing, short copy rules. People love it. It’s inviting and unintimidating. People read a short title and think, “Good, I won’t have to spend a lot of time on this.”

But that same short copy can be really hard to write. You have to grab people’s attention. You have to encourage them to take action. When you have less copy to play with, every word counts that much more.

Copy that can be easily overlooked is on those little buttons we use everywhere. It’s easy to treat them as an afterthought. But after spending months brainstorming your campaign, you shouldn’t settle for a simple “read more” or “submit” button, because that’s not going to have the big impact you need.

Those little call to action buttons and links actually have a big job to do. They have to convince people to click through and take the next step.

Follow along with the checklist below so you don’t miss any crucial components.

Elements of a Call to Action That Works

1) Use actionable language

One of the reasons why people may not click your CTA is that it doesn’t really push people to act. If you use static messages like “free trial” or “demo”, you’re not telling them what to do. It’s all too easy for people to glaze over buttons like these.

Effective copy boils down to action-oriented, second-person verbs (talking to “you”). Try some of these verbs for your next CTA:

• “Get more info”
• “Discover”
• “See full article”
• “Tell me more”
• “Get my (book, guide, template)”
• “See what happens next”
• “Count me in”

Buttons like these empower and excite readers to click on your button. Keeping your CTA copy short and sweet also helps make it stand out from the rest of your copy and design elements.

2) Avoid friction verbs

“Read more” is a pretty common call to action. We see it everywhere. Compared to buttons like “free trial”, you’d think it has a leg up. For starters, it’s a verb. Theoretically it should push people to act.

Not all CTAs work the same today.

Verbs like “read more” are friction verbs that cause uneasiness and apprehension with some people. They can easily turn them off by seemingly inconveniencing people who don’t have a lot of time to spare.

Friction verbs imply work that needs to be done, something lost, or time that needs to be given up in exchange for the click. The more you imply work with CTAs, the less likely you are to get a click. For people who are busy and don’t have a lot of time on their hands, friction verbs can actually discourage them from taking action.

Ultimately, you want your conversion path to be as easy and painless as possible.

3) Speak directly to your customers

The difference between average conversion rates and rockstar conversion rates is related to how well your messaging aligns with what your target audience needs.

Use your buyer personas to get a window into the motivations, behaviors, and goals of your ideal customer.

For example, if you know your customers don’t have time for heavy reading, instead of saying “read more” you can say “view more” or “discover what happens next”. These buttons highlight benefits and create intrigue, and at the same time downplay the reading that’s behind the click.

4) Make the actions clear

Too often we just put buttons on a page because we think they need to be there. If you plan your campaign ahead of time, you know what action you want people to take. What should they do once they read your copy? Is this some kind of offer, a new product, or something they can download? Maybe you just want them to click to the next page. Knowing what action you expect people to take will help frame the copy that leads up to your CTA so you can get the conversion.

5) Create copy that engages

Buttons are only going to get a click if your copy sparks action. When you’re creating button copy, you want to make it work in conjunction with your landing page or blog content to convince visitors to take the next step.

One way to do that is to avoid using any internal links in your copy so you can keep the focus on your button. Another thing that will help you create engaging copy is to understand where your target audience is in terms of purchasing. Are they new prospects just getting to know you, or are they middle of the funnel and researching trial options?

When it comes to button copy, pay attention to the small details. If your page is promoting a new guide, make sure you call it a guide in your button or link rather than an ebook or whitepaper. These details make a big difference because readers know exactly what they’re getting.

6) Create a sense of urgency

People are busy. While they’re browsing your website or blog, they’re also scheduling meetings, interacting with emails or taking calls. Anything they can put off until later has a good chance of being shelved.

The best way to keep them away from these distractions and focused on your button is to create some sense of urgency.

Help people to perceive your button as an urgent call that needs to be acted upon right now by adding words like “now” or “today”. This way you’ll remind them to do something right now, before their phone rings again.

7) Be clear with your value proposition

People need to know why they should take action at this specific moment. They could be skeptical or have questions. They may not know if they need to or if they’ve already seen something like this on another site.

Your job is to make your offer really unique and make the benefits of clicking on your button super clear. You want to assure them of the value you’re going to bring to them in exchange for the time and email.

If you’re offering a guide, give readers multiple reasons to download it. Talk about the benefits that people can expect. Will they save time? How about increase sales? Help them trust you by explaining what they will get and how they’ll be able to use it. It should be very clear what is going to happen when people click.

(NOTE: Getting clear with your value proposition is about getting clear on what your ideal customers really want around your brand. Check out my FREE Customer Avatar Worksheet to help you understand who you’re selling to.)

8) Make it stand out from the crowd

Don’t do what everyone else is doing with their buttons and links. Your readers will just glaze over generic and vague buttons like “download”, “click here”.

Give your button the best chance to convert by using personalized text that sets you apart and grabs their attention. Make them want to click that button.

You can add a personal touch by using “me”, “you” and “yours”. Instead of “download”, try “get my copy now”.

9) Use design to draw attention to the button

Another way to attract people’s attention is with the actual design of your button. The button should match your branding in terms of fonts and colors, but the way you put it together should clearly make it pop on the page.

One way to draw attention to it is by designating certain colors for buttons in your style guide, such as blue or gray. That way when your designer uses gray or blue throughout rest of the page they’ll know to use them only sparingly as accent colors.

Another thing to remember is that if you want people to click on your button, you have to make it look clickable. Use contrasting elements like borders, background, depth and dimension to make it look like an actual button you could press in real life. Really push the envelope so that visitors notice it.

10) Make sure your button is prominent

By prominent, I mean make it big, bold and easy to find. You want to make sure people notice it. Place it above the fold before people start to scroll will generally get you more clicks. But, on the other hand, placing it below the fold will give you a higher quality of leads from those clicks. So you have to test different placement to know where to place it

Wherever you decide to place it, make sure people can see it. What about putting it high up above the fold, and then repeating it further down the page? As people read on and become more and more convinced to take action, the ones who didn’t click on it the first time will be more likely to click on it if you repeat it.

The thing to remember here is that the more prominent your button is and the more times people see it, the more likely they are to click.

11) A/B Test Your Buttons

Don’t settle for the first button you create. This is your chance to get the click, so it pays to test a few out to discover the best performers. Keep trying different sizes, copy, designs, and placement until you find the magic combination that converts the best.

And don’t stop there. If even your best button performer is getting lots of low quality lead conversions, take a look at your landing page copy and make sure it’s speaking to the right customer. If both your landing page and button are high performers and getting clicks and conversions, but you still get few signups, you may need to create a stronger offer or update your overall value proposition.

(NOTE: Getting clear with your value proposition is about getting clear on what your ideal customers really want around your brand. Check out my FREE Customer Avatar Worksheet to help you understand who you’re selling to.)