You can think of a call to action (CTA) as a reminder for users to perform a certain action that you are optimizing for when a visitor lands on your site.

Examples of CTA’s are:

• Exchanging an email address for a whitepaper
• Signing up for a webinar
• Signing up to a newsletter
• Sharing your company to social media
• Entering a sweepstakes
• Signing up for a free trial
• App download
• Taking a quiz
• Purchasing
• Contacting the company

Possibilities are endless when it comes to creating novel CTAs that truly guide users to take specific actions within an application/webpage. Businesses will have different goals in mind as far as that one perfect action that a visitor will take when they land on your site or load your application. Doing a press announcement is a great way to get a ton of new traffic to your site to effectively test your CTAs performance.

Your CTAs can be a make-or-break so choose wisely. When thinking about the CTAs you’d like to use keep in mind your ultimate goal. Is it a purchase? User growth? Once you know your goal try to think about the actions that will create the biggest impact. Maybe it’s signing up for a newsletter or getting a user to purchase a new product.

Here are 3 guidelines to consider when optimizing your CTA before bringing in mass traffic:

1. Test. The first rule of thumb for a clear CTA is to ask industry experts and trusted professionals to test out your site and gather their feedback on what they believe your CTA is. Knowing the action that you’re optimizing for and properly tracking it’s effectiveness is crucial to the success of the CTA campaign.
2. A/B Testing. Try out different buttons, colors and wording and see which combination delivers the best results. The extra jolt of traffic from a press release is a great time to A/B test–especially if you don’t typically receive a high volume of traffic.
3. Javascript. Use a tool like HelloBar to enforce your CTA. It’s super easy to set up and will help remind your site visitors to take the action that you want them to take. You can also create pop ups to reinforce your CTA through tools like PopUpDomination.

After you’ve given your CTA consideration and tested it to make sure that you’re clearly optimized for all future users, you’re ready to start sending tons of new people through to your site via press releases, journalists, self promotion, growth hacking, and advertising.