When calls to action is worth the effort

Every audit we run turns up some version of this. Calls to action is not free, and pretending otherwise leads to bad decisions.

Content is the part of a project most likely to be underestimated and most likely to delay a launch. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

When it is worth it

One clear next step beats several options. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

When it is not

If nothing downstream depends on it and nobody is complaining, it can wait. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions.

How to decide

Reduce the sense of risk near the button. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

How to tell if yours is fine

Writing for the web is largely an editing job: the first draft is always longer than it needs to be. Three things worth confirming about calls to action before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• One clear next step beats several options — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Most of the value here comes from doing the first two things, not all of them.