For many, an ecommerce shopping cart is more about its design, visual impression, and easy navigability than anything else. But, a successful website selling products and services is not just a product of giving importance to these three elements. Quite obviously a lot of its success depends on these elements, but there are also other elements that are doing their bit to encourage shoppers to buy from the site. Efficient ecommerce website development is a coming together of diverse elements that make for a site that is the absolute word in attracting visitors and also ensuring high sales figures.

One such element is the call-to-action button. Let’s take a look at how the design and placement of call-to action buttons is important for helping online shoppers take a call regarding the products and services on a site.

Size does Matter

A lot of forethought and planning later, ecommerce website designers have come to one important conclusion regarding call to action buttons – Size is important as it attracts user attention! Now, you might wonder why something as obvious as this needed a prolonged thought process. Well, the answer lies in not ‘overdoing it’ when it comes to such buttons. Designers were worried that large call to action buttons will only serve to send the wrong message to online shoppers. But, concerted and sustained thinking, threw up an answer - The size of call to action buttons must be bigger in relation to the other elements that surround it, enough to give an indication of its importance. But, the button mustn’t be so big that it creates a negative impact. Online shoppers are a notoriously impatient bunch of people and it’s only the larger size of a call to action button, in relation to the various other design elements on the web page, that can help grab their attention. In some of the better ecommerce websites out there, you will find that, at times, the call-to-action buttons get more prominence than the website logo.

Another thing, there might be a case where there are more than one call to action buttons on a particular page. The size of the button also helps distinguish the important call to action buttons from the rest.

The Placement Dilemma

Prominence of a call to action button can also be achieved with placement. Now, most designers face this problem of position as the placement must be done in a way that compliments the overall design of the website. If you want to draw the attention of website visitors to the call to action buttons, these buttons must be placed in their line of vision. One such location is the top of the page. If the call to action button is placed right on top of the page, there is no way in the world that it is going to be missed. But, again the focus should be on placement that does not impact the other elements at the top of the web page.

Another favorably regarded placement area is right in the middle of the layout. Don’t worry, if your call to action button appears right at the center of the page, you really don’t have to ensure that it is large in size or has some other distinguishing factor. Such buttons also stand out, if they are not as large as the other design elements of the page. So, don’t use those color contrasts for providing differentiation. If they placed right in the thick of things, they will stand out no matter what their size or color.