As a Web site designer, your professional life is based on crucial questions that can help you deliver better results for your clients.
What widgets are needed to drive conversions? What kind of check page elements do you need to include? Should that product page have a video or slideshow?
One of the biggest issues we face when building landing pages to encourage sales is the need for a CTA (call to action) button above or below the fold.
Answering the question: “Where should the CTA go?” properly may have chances of making or breaking your client’s sales. Unfortunately, this particular concern has been a source of raging debate for many years now. Everyone has their own opinion about CTAs and where they belong.
Today, we’ll cover the pros and cons of putting CTA over the top.
Should you put a CTA over the top?
Starting with a quick refresh, the term “over the fold” refers to any area of a website that appears on a screen when a user accesses a web page. The content that appears above and below the folder may differ depending on the device on which you are visiting a Web site.
Experts in the digital design and marketing world have often argued that if you want to get the best results with CTA, you have to put it over the fold.
This strategy makes a lot of sense. If your CTA is out of date, the chances of it being seen are much higher. Some customers may not want to scroll to the bottom of the page to find out what they need to do in their shopping journey.
In addition, according to the NN group, the 100 pixels above the fold were seen 102% more often than the pixels below the pill. Eye tracking technology has learned that you get more engagement more often than not.
Take a look at this landing page from Lyft, for example, you immediately see what you need to do:
It’s not just one study that mentioned the benefits of CTA on their behalf, either.
Another report on the “importance of visibility” found that ads above and CTA had a 73% visibility rate compared to 44% for those below the fold.
So with stats like that in mind, why would you never thinking of using a CTA below the fold?
When a CTA should be placed below the fold
As with most things in web design, there is an exception to the rule.
Yes, above all, CTAs will be better for you most of the time. However, there are times when you would have to think outside the box.
Most people think that putting a CTA below the fold ensures that it will not be seen. However, if you are creating a webpage or landing page that contains a lot of vital information, your audience will need to scroll.
For example, if you are creating a page where one can download an app to tackle a business they are already familiar with, it makes sense to speed up the journey along with CTA above. However, if you are trying to convince someone to sign up for your webinar, you may need to tell them what that webinar is all about first. That’s where CTA below the fold comes in handy.
Customers may not have much time in their busy schedules to scroll these days. However, they still need the right information before they can decide what to do with your brand. According to Marketing Experiments, below the fold, CTA buttons can result in a 20% increase in conversion. However, this conversion boost only happens when you are providing valuable, engaging and persuasive content.
Take this example from the Boston Globe, for example:
Fold is Not Everything in Web Design
The moment is often an essential consideration in web design.
However, this is not all you have to think about when deciding where to place valuable CTA signature forms and buttons.
According to the Nielsen Norman group, the content that appears at the top of the page will always influence the user experience. However, that does not mean you have to put your CTA in there. All you need to do is make sure that anything you have over the hours is promising enough to attract your visitors and get them scrolling.
Simply put, there is a big deal above and below the moment, but you should focus on leveraging customer motivation, rather than worrying about just one imaginary line.
When deciding where a CTA applies, you need to think about it motivation.
How motivated are you to click a button? How desirable is your offer at that time, and how much does your visitor already know about what is being offered to him?
If you need to provide more information before your customer wants to convert, the CTA below the fold makes the most sense.
If you have already provided all the information your customer needs and are visiting from an advertisement or other page on the Web site, the above folding should be exceptional.
The Truth About Design for Return
The fact of the matter for web designers today is that achieving higher conversion rates has little to do with whether a CTA is above or below the fold.
The important thing is whether your buttons fall under the right amount of copy that answers the right questions for the audience.
Remember, when visitors come to a website, they are looking for different things. There are visitors:
- You already know your brand and value your offer: These people often click on your landing pages from other marketing campaigns where they have learned about the brand or offer. You can give these prospects a CTA immediately so they can continue down the buyer’s funnel as fast as possible.
- Are you unsure about your offer and need more information: These people need some extra information. They may be worried that they need to be addressed before they are willing to spend their money. You may not need many copies here, which means CTA may still appear above the fold.
- Is your website brand new: These prospects require a reasonable amount of copy. They do not know what you are offering or why it is valuable to them. Because of this, you may have to wait to push them into action until you have delivered the correct copy.
In some cases, you may even place multiple CTAs on the same page. Some people will have a general understanding of technology and what it does. This means they will be happy to click the button at the top of the fold.
On the other hand, visitors coming to the same page may not understand what the benefits of real-time personalization are. This means that you have to elaborate a little on what you have to offer. A simple one line explanation is not enough here.
Verify Where to place CTA
Deciding where to place various features of a website is a common challenge for web designers. Despite many blogs out there, claiming that “over the fold” is always the best option for any conversion rate optimization, the truth is a little more complicated.
The crucial thing to remember as a web designer is that a CTA button prompts a customer commitment. Even if the CTA allows a person to download a free demo or sign up for a newsletter without spending any money, it requires a customer to start a brand relationship.
In a world where customers have less confidence in companies than ever before, it does not make sense to push them into a relationship too quickly. It is not a good idea to ask a target audience before they have a chance to see what is “for them”.
Jump in too fast, and you’ll probably get people the wrong way.
Go out and Master the Return
The issue for today’s designers is not figuring out if a button needs to be visible from the moment someone hits a page. Instead, you need to consider whether visitors are arriving at the CTA at a time when they are ready to take action.
You can only answer the question “where should the CTA go?” after carefully analyzing the project you are working on.
Remember, the answer is not always over the hour.
Image featured by Pexels.
