Decide the one thing a first-time visitor should do, make that the only prominent instruction, and demote everything else to text links or remove it.

The site

A home services business. The home page, on a laptop, before scrolling, contains four buttons: book now, get a free quote, call us, and download our guide.

Scrolling reveals a newsletter signup, social icons, a link to the blog, a gallery link, and a chat bubble that opens after a few seconds.

Nine instructions, each in a different colour, three of them in the same shade of orange as each other.

Each was added at a different time by somebody with a reasonable argument for it.

What a visitor does

Somebody arriving for the first time is trying to establish two things: whether you do what they need, and whether you are any good.

They are not yet deciding how to contact you, and the page is entirely composed of ways to contact you.

Faced with four buttons, they have to work out the difference between book now and get a free quote, which is not obvious and which the page does not explain.

Working that out is effort, and the cheapest resolution to effort is leaving.

The ones who stay tend to scroll past all of it looking for the information they came for, which means the buttons are occupying the best space on the page and not being used.

Where the nine came from

Nothing on that list was a mistake individually. The failure is that nothing was ever removed when something was added.

The two competing buttons

The specific problem worth isolating, since it is the most damaging.

Book now and get a free quote sit beside each other and describe different commitments.

A visitor who is not sure which applies to them will frequently choose neither, because choosing wrongly feels like it might commit them to something.

The business knew that booking was for standard jobs and quoting was for larger work, and the page never said so.

One sentence would have resolved it, and removing one of the buttons resolved it better.

A worked example

The business decided the one thing a first-time visitor should do was request a quote, since that was where their revenue came from and booking was used mostly by existing customers.

They kept one button, made it larger, and put the phone number beside it as text rather than a competing button.

Book now moved to a text link within the services section, where somebody who wanted it would find it.

The guide, the newsletter, and the social icons moved to the footer.

The chat bubble was removed, since nobody had been monitoring it for four months.

Quote requests rose noticeably, total clicks on everything else fell, and bookings from existing customers did not change, because those people were not coming through the home page anyway.

The order to decide in

Which makes this tractable rather than a matter of taste.

First, name the single most valuable action a first-time visitor can take.

Second, check where your existing customers actually go, since anything they use can be demoted without cost.

Third, remove anything nobody is monitoring, which is usually the chat and sometimes the newsletter.

Fourth, demote everything that serves a purpose other than acquiring work.

What remains is one instruction, which is the correct number.

Phone numbers are not calls to action

Worth separating, since removing them is the wrong lesson from this.

A phone number should be visible on every page, in the header, as text.

It does not compete with a button because it is not styled as one and because somebody who wants to phone is already decided.

The same applies to an address and opening hours, which are information rather than instructions.

The rule is about competing prominent instructions, not about removing contact information, and stripping the phone number in pursuit of focus makes the page worse.

What should be above the fold instead

Since the space freed has a better use.

What you do, where you do it, and one reason to believe you: a review count, a years-in-business figure, or a photograph of real work.

That answers the two questions the visitor actually arrived with, which the nine buttons were not addressing.

Then one instruction, beneath it, once they have a reason to act.

Ordering it that way is what makes the single button perform better than the four did.

Check what people were clicking first

Before removing anything, since the decision is better made on figures than on judgement.

Most analytics can report clicks on individual links and buttons, and a business making this change should look before cutting.

The usual finding is that one route accounts for most of the activity and three or four have single-figure clicks over a year.

Those are the ones to remove without argument, and having the figure prevents the discussion where somebody defends the newsletter box on principle.

Note the numbers before the change, since the point of the exercise is that the remaining action goes up, and that is only visible against a baseline.

The counter-case within the site

Some sites genuinely need two routes.

A business serving two distinct audiences, such as domestic and commercial, may reasonably offer a path for each, provided they are labelled as alternatives rather than presented as competing offers.

An emergency trade needs the phone prominent alongside anything else, because the urgent visitor and the researching visitor are different people.

And a business whose customers overwhelmingly book online should keep booking primary, which is a question about your own figures rather than a principle.

One prominent instruction, a visible phone number, and everything else demoted or removed.

What to change

  1. Count the instructions on your home page.
  2. Name the one action that matters most.
  3. Remove anything nobody is monitoring.
  4. Keep one button, demote the rest to text.
  5. Keep the phone number visible as text.
  6. Put what you do and where above it.
  7. Remove one whenever you add one.

Step seven is what prevents this recurring, since the site did not arrive at nine deliberately, it arrived there one reasonable addition at a time.

The same discipline applied to email is covered in one call to action per email.

Frequently asked questions

Why do multiple buttons reduce action?

Because a first-time visitor is establishing whether you do what they need, not choosing a contact method. Working out the difference between options is effort, and leaving is cheaper.

What is the worst version?

Two buttons describing different commitments, such as book now and get a quote, sitting beside each other with no explanation of which applies to whom.

How did the page get like this?

One reasonable addition at a time, with nothing ever removed when something was added. No individual item was a mistake.

How do I decide what stays?

Name the most valuable action for a first-time visitor, check where existing customers actually go, remove anything unmonitored, and demote everything not aimed at acquiring work.

Should I remove the phone number?

No. A phone number as text in the header is information rather than a competing instruction, and somebody who wants to phone has already decided.

What belongs in the freed space?

What you do, where you do it, and one reason to believe you, since those answer the questions the visitor actually arrived with.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Four buttons above the fold?

Keep the one that matters and make the rest text links. Total clicks fall and the action you wanted rises.

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