Seth Godin (The Big Red Fez) calls them bananas and your users are the monkeys. The objective is for the monkey to find the banana in less than 3 seconds (before they give up and leave). “Force yourself to design each and every page with one and only one primary objective. That’s the banana. Make it big. Make it blue (or red). Make it obvious.”

This post discusses how to design the perfect ‘call to action’ button and showcases 30 examples of good call to action button designs.

How to design the perfect call to action button

Force yourself to design each and every page with one and only one primary objective. – Seth Godin

Your call to action button needs to be obvious and jump out at the user. Here’s 5 characteristics of a good call to action button.

1. Colour

The colour should stand out from the rest of the page, and is therefore usually a brighter, contrasting colour.

2. Location

It should be located where the user would expect to find it easily. Above the fold, beside a product, in the header, top right navigation; it should be obvious and not hard to find.

3. Language

The language you use to communicate with your user is important. It should be short, to the point (no waffling) and should start with an action verb like signup, download, create, try etc.

And give the user a reason to click on your call to action button, ‘free‘ being the number one incentive.

4. Size matters

To make it obvious that it’s your most important button and that you want users to click on it, make it bigger than any other button and give the user as much area as possible to click on.

5. Room to breathe

Your button shouldn’t be overcrowded with other elements. It needs sufficient margins so it can be distinguished and the text needs enough padding so it’s easy to read.

Showcase of good examples of call to action buttons

1. Things

2. WordPress e-Commerce

3. Skype

4. PB Wiki

5. Exceptional

6. PicsEngine

8. GoodBarry

9. Plan HQ

10. TypePad

11. Mozilla Firefox

12. 37 Signals

13. Hambo Design

14. Cake PHP

15. Traffik

16. Boag World

17. Donor Tools

18. Luke Larsen

19. Square Space

20. Wu Foo

21. Barack Obama

22. Freshbooks

23. Crazy Egg

24. Web Notes

25. Campaign Monitor

26. Light CMS

28. Stumble Upon

29. Remember The Milk

30. Ekklesia 360

How often do you open your mailbox, grab the pile of unsolicited mail and throw it in the trash? Probably a million times. How often do you pause to think you might have unintentionally thrown out non-spam? Probably a lot fewer times. Get ready for the same type of experience online.

The last place you want to see your emails is in the spam folder. Yet with the further sophistication and higher demands of Internet Service Providers, the probability of this happening is high. That is why deliverability becomes a critical element of a successful email marketing campaign. To help you tackle this issue, we put together some best practices for increasing email deliverability:

1. Check Your Copy for Spam-Triggering Words

Make sure your subject line and body of email don’t include any keywords that can trigger spam alerts. Some Email Service Providers (ESPs) help you identify these phrases with features such as Content Detective, SpamAssassin and ContentChecker. But the most universal piece of advice you can adopt to avoid spam-triggering words is to keep your emails out of the box. Be bold and think outside the frame of what other companies are using.

2. Suppress Against Hard Bounces

Are you keeping track of the percentage of hard bounces you get? You need to be. If that number is rising, bring it up with your ESP. Since hard bounced can really hurt your reputation, you will have to clean your list regularly. Make sure you suppress against them if that is not already something your ESP is doing on the back end.

3. Increase Engagement Levels

Mail clients have started tying the engagement levels of your email subscribers to your reputation as a sender. In response to this, you will need to keep your recipients highly engaged in order to appear reputable in the eyes of Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, etc. Do your recipients click on emails or do they delete them? Do they mark them as spam? What action do they take? Make sure your subscribers don’t get what they don’t want.

4. Set Expectations in the Welcome Email

Greet the newcomers when they sign up for your newsletter or other types of email communication. In the welcome email, set some expectations explaining why that person is receiving your messages, how often they are going to be sent out and from whom exactly. These details will help you build a relationship that goes a long way. When you sign up for GroupOn, for instance, you expect to be receiving daily emails and look forward to them. Follow GroupOn’s example and make your subscribers look forward to your emails.

5. Don’t Forget Branding

Branding is vital to how emails are being read and how recipients understand them. It helps people make the connection and say, “This is the real thing, not just a third-party email.” Include your logo in your email communication and make it clear this really is your company. Also consider including your company name in the subject line of your emails.

6. Use a Preference Center

If a recipient wants to update her email address, does she have an easy way to do that? Provide her with a preference center, in which she can make that selection and tell you what the best email is to be contacted at. Give people the option to mark how frequently they want to receive emails from you and share their favorite topics. Such a feature will show you care for your subscribers and respect their preferences.

7. Track Your Complaint Feedback Loop

You are probably tracking hard bounces and soft bounces. But do you know how many people clicked on the “This Is Spam” button? First, look into that and understand how many of these complaints you are getting. If the number is significant, you will have to take action. Remove the subscribers who have complained and stop torturing these poor souls. Also consider putting the unsubscribe button at the top of the email instead of at the bottom. (Unsubscribing is better for your reputation than having your email reported as spam.)

These best practices will help you monitor your deliverability and improve it overtime. Don’t be the piece of mail that got stuck in the spam pile and unintentionally got thrown out. Stand out.

Change is coming

Googles new PPC Local Business Listings

Googles new PPC for local business listing are coming.  Goolge has been hard at work make big changes in the Local Maps and the next change is PPC for map listings.

Along with the new map PPC change, the Google 10 Pack is the new 7 pack.  The shrinking of the 10 pack was to accommodate the room for the new PPC map listing.  Your local listings may not show the PPC listings yet but they are coming and soon.

The new blue pins designate PPC on the maps if they fall in local city map and shown in addition to the regular sponsored listings.

The new PPC ads have been controversial. Apparently being sold dependent on the market and niche at a fixed rate price, not as part of Google Adwords. This is similar to the way ads have been sold on some of the Internet Yellow Page sites (IYP).

While we’re used to seeing the IYPs struggling to keep up with Google’s influence in the local marketplace, it’s interesting to see Google trying on some of the trappings typical of the IYPs.

Obama Speaking in a small business near Washington,  said the initiatives would make it easier for smaller community banks to provide credit to small businesses, but as of yet the banks are still not loaning money.

The bailout will start with leaner, smarter, small businesses learning how to grow in this economy.  If you are holding your breath for your government bailout you will be closing your doors.

Time to be smarter, track every call back to your advertising source.  In this economy you never need to sign a contract for any advertising. If it works do more of it, if it doesn’t stop now.

• When was the last time you called a number from a billboard?
• When was the last time you took a soliciting call?
• When was the last time you used the phone book?
• When was the last time you read junk mail?

When was the last time you used Google?

Spend your money advertising were you spend your time!

• Call a number from a billboard?
• Took a soliciting call?
• Read junk mail?

When was the last time you used ?

Best way to find local customers is Google Maps local businesses your customers can get driving directions to where your location. With millions of local search being preformed every day Google Local Maps is also a great way for your company to get new local business! If you have a business that caters to local customers BeListed1st can get you on Google Local Maps in your city, a listing on Google Maps makes it easy for local customers to find you.

Large or a small Mom and Pop business it’s time to start thinking locally because that’s where your customers are looking. If you’re not promoting your business on Google Maps (and Yahoo! Local), now is the time to get started. Google Maps gets the highest search engine visibility for the highest ROI for local city oriented keyword phrases like “Carpet Cleaning Orlando”, Landscaping Clearwater”, or “Sarasota cosmetic dentist.

Google is getting smarter, even with out searching a city, Google local maps are starting to appear. Google is identifying your IP Address (its like a phone number with area code for your computer) and at some point they may even have asked you for your zip code to identify your location. When potential customers search Google, local maps are appearing if Google thinks you are looking for local goods or services.

Highest Visibility Search Results

Google Local Maps results  show up usually just below the Google Sponsored Links/PPC Ads and above the organic search results.

1. Google Sponsored Links AdWords, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads
2. Google Maps – Map and Business Listings A, B, C…
3. Natural Rankings -  Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

By using the Belisted1st Google Maps search engine optimization program we are able  to generate more business and a higher ROI. Example, we helped our client Musca Law – Miami – get listed #1 for all three, Google AdWords, Google Maps and Google organic rankings.

Belisted1st program puts your company on Google Maps gets your website in the “Sweet Spot” of  Visibility as you can see from the Google Eye Tracking Test Results. This study shows that most viewers look at the top left of the monitor first when view a web page. This is right where Google Maps are displayed.

When your business is listed prominently on Google Local Maps, usually you appear before businesses in the organic search results competing to be #1 . Bring you new customers every month with a 600% higher ROI then outbound marketing.