The one million dollar question we're answering today is:

How many call-to-action buttons should you put in your (home)page banner?

And I bet the answers are going to surprise you.

Shall we?

1. Zero CTAs

Yes, you heard it right. Most likely your page doesn't need any CTA button in the banner at all.

Why? Because your visitors may click on it.

"Ehm... But isn't it great news?"

It depends on whether a prospect will click on this button because they're ready to take that action. Or because... "oh look, a button, I wonder what it does!" (You'd be surprised how many people older than 5 still do that).

So, if you need your prospects to read your page first...

(you know, the page you spent hours on, trying to craft the most compelling argument to persuade them to buy)

...if there's literally no valid reason for a prospect who just opened your page to click on a button

Don't 👏 Put 👏 Any 👏 CTA buttons 👏 In 👏 Your 👏 Banner 👏

"Ok, but what would qualify as a valid reason to put a CTA button in the banner?"

Glad you asked.

2. One CTA

A valid reason for a CTA button in the banner: you're ok with your prospects not reading past your banner text before they go to another page.

Meaning, if the banner text provides enough info for a prospect to know all they need to know before they can take the action you're asking them to take.

✔️ Examples:

• "View services" (for a service provider)
• "Start your free trial" (for a Saas)
• "Download your ebook" / Take the quiz, etc. (if the banner text provides enough info on the lead magnet)

Here's how I do it on my homepage.

The weird spots on the screenshot show the clicks from the visitor sessions (from which we also learn that people want to check out my free tools WAY more often then they want to learn about my services 😄 #notSurprised).

❌ Not-so-good example:

• "Contact us"
• "Hire me"
• "Book your session" (for non-free sessions)

Can you guess why?

Right, because sending you an inquiry / hiring you / booking an appointment is the highest commitment you can ask from your prospects.

And those couple of lines in your banner won't be enough to change their mind from "I'm not sure what this is and why I need it" to "Hell, yes, I need to contact this person asap!"

3. Two CTAs

Usually, the awareness level of your target audience (i.e. what they know about their problems and kinds of solutions you offer) is more or less the same. Which means the majority will find the same first sections of your page equally valuable.

But sometimes, you know that there will be enough people with higher awareness you can't ignore: people who could get bored with the first several sections of info they already know so much that they may jump ship.

In this case, say "hello" to two CTAs in your banner  👋 One for each level of awareness.

Funny story: none of these buttons lead to a different page, just to a different part of the page:

• CTA #1 (for visitors with lower awareness) leads them... to the next section of the page, the same way they'd get their by scrolling down once
• CTA #2 (for visitors with higher awareness) lets them skip the info they already know / aren't interested in and leads them directly to the part of the page with the new info

Let's look at some examples.

Example #1

This is a sales page banner Joel Klettke uses for his online course (and if Joel makes a copy decision, he always has very good reasons for it, and you'd better pay attention 👀).

The shiny pink button caters to the "warm" audience: people who have already heard about his course from social media or from their peers, know what it's about, and just want to see the deal.

Example #2

This is a wireframe for a service page banner from one of my last projects (hi, Michelle 👋 I obviously love this page too much 😄).

My client told me that a large part of her prospects don't have a clear understanding of one of the services she offers (PR consulting), which makes it more difficult to sell the service or to manage client expectations later.

So what would be the way to educate the prospects with low awareness without boring the prospects with high awareness?

Right, two CTA buttons at the very start of the page to let everyone decide what they want to hear next. 

Final words of wisdom

Imagine, the page banner text is all a prospect know about you / your offer. Do they know enough to want to take the action you're asking them to take?

• No => zero CTAs
• Yes => one CTA
• The CTAs aren't asking for a commitment but help them find the info they need faster => two CTAs

** In other news: A cool new book just dropped **

Ever wondered how to write blog posts that make both search engines and human readers happy? Then this book is for you.

My friend and founder of The Blogsmith content agency Maddy Osman just released her book "Writing for Humans and Robots" that made it on an Amazon bestseller list within just 3 days after launch (!)

Read the first chapter for free using "look inside" feature on Amazon 👇

This would be all from me for the week.

Sunny greetings from Germany,

Gill

Website review | Copywriting | 📙 My book

P.S. This email may contain typos, and I'm fine with them because cloning humans is, unfortunately, still impossible. Spending more time proofreading my emails would mean I'll have to share fewer tips with you. And sharing more and better tips is more important to me than sharing tips that are grammatically perfect. I hope that's fine with you, too.

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