Site Optimization: 4 Ways to Improve Your Submit Button

When looking to improve conversion rates we often first look to the type of media we’re using to drive traffic to our site. However, there are some easy ways to improve our marketing performance right on our own site!

By improving the click through rate on submit buttons you can potentially increase your marketing performance quickly and efficiently. There’s no silver bullet and every change should be measured to analyze its effect because every site, and its audience, are different. With that in mind let’s take a look at 4 simple ways to improve your submit button performance:

1. Button Copy: Typically button copy that alludes to committing the user to a decision doesn’t perform as successfully as it could. Examples such as ‘Buy Now’, ‘Purchase’, ‘Submit’ or ‘Buy’ tend to perform poorer because they have a sense of finality to them. Try other options that communicate the process rather than the completion of a process. For example, ‘Next’, ‘Go’, ‘Find’, ‘Continue’ and ‘Learn More’ may drive higher conversion rates.
2. Size: There’s nothing worse than hunting for a small call-to-action button. Your users are right there, help them! Make your button large enough to easily see. A good rule of thumb is get out of your chair and stand halfway across the room. If you can’t see your button on the screen, make it bigger. The other added benefit is your button copy will be clearer and easier to read.
3. Color: Generally the colors green and orange perform best. Some common mistakes to avoid are using the color red or making the button the same color as the page background. People associate the color red with stop and that’s the exact opposite of what you want users to think when they are on your form! Buttons that are the same color as the page background will be difficult for users to find.
4. Location: Just like in real estate it’s about location, location, location. Your submit button should be close to the last form field click the user needs to complete. That’s important – think about where the mouse pointer is mostly likely to be. I’ve seen so many forms where the button is way off in the corner – sometimes in the corner of the page itself! Keep it close and in the user’s line of site.

Have you implemented changes similar to these on your site? Did you try something different? What were the results?