How to Add a Call-To-Action Button in WordPress

The CTA button is an essential component of any WordPress form. If you are missing a CTA, the submission does not get through. If you though you need a code to add a call-to-action button to your WordPress form, the answer is no. With Ninja Forms, you can easily add a submit button to trigger form submission.

In today’s tutorial, we’ll explain the importance of CTA button and show you how to add a call-to-action button to your WordPress form. Addittionally, we will show you practical examples to customize your CTA button, and how to hide the Submit button when you don’t want a user to submit your form. Let’s dig in!

How to add a submit button to your WordPress form
Best practices for effective call to action buttons
How to customize your CTA button
How to show or hide the CTA button in your form

1. How to add a submit button to your WordPress form

While there is a way to add CTA buttons to WordPress forms using code, we have an easier solution. Using our contact form plugin, you can find the Submit button under the Common Fields. Just drag and drop the Submit field directly onto your form or simply click on it, and it will automatically show up ready to roll!

Once you add your call-to-action button to your form, you’ll discover a range of settings this crucial element provides. If you don’t have a developer mode enabled, you won’t be able to see all the existing features. But don’t worry, you can unlock it for free!

Congrats! You’ve just learned how to add a call-to-action button in your WordPress form. Before we get to more exciting stuff such as hands-on practice, let’s go over some optimal approaches when it comes to using CTA buttons.

2. Best practices for engaging call-to-action buttons

A well-designed CTA button can make all the difference in website conversions because it entices visitors to take a desired action. Whether your form’s purpose is to sign up visitors for a webinar, join an email list, or make a purchase, an effective CTA button can help you complete that conversion.

While there is no magical formula to get your web visitors clicking on your CTA button and completing the desired action, there are some rules you can follow to provoke an immediate response.

Keep it short and simple

We tend to skim over the text and rarely read every single word on the page. That’s why is important to make your CTA copy easy to understand with a clear and compelling message. Try to keep the lenght of your CTA text up to four words, five maximum but that it’s nearing the red zone.

The size of the text should be big enough to draw the attention of your visitors, but not too overwhelming to overlook the rest of the important content on your form.

You should say on your CTA button exactly what will happen to visitors when they click on the button as it helps mitigate fear of clicking, leading to increased conversions. While you want to keep it simple, stay away from boring.

Use action-packed terms

Use action-packed words such as “grab” and “discover” instead of less interesting ones. Some of the action-packed phrases you can experiment with is Reserve Your Seat, Try Our Free Trial, Get Your Free E-book, and such.

You can also try the first person speech approach and use CTAs such as Get My Free Kit, Sign Me Up, and similar. Want to learn more about action-packed terms? Check other powerful call-to-action phrases here.

Make it visible

Your call-to-action or submit button should stand out from the rest of the content of your WordPress form. You want to make sure there is enough of contrast so your visitors notice your button.

Another important aspect when you want to make the submit button visible is the use of white space, also called negative space. This design pricinple improves text readability and it draws focus on important elements. The most importantly it increases an user interaction, and this is what you want.

Strive to also achieve placement that is noticeable but not disruptive to your audience. If you want to learn more about positioning your CTA buttons not only on your form but also across your WordPress landing pages, check this article comparing the position of the CTA button above fold vs below fold.

Choose the right shape and size

There are two most common button shapes: rounded and rectangular. It’s hard to say which shape performs better as it might depend on different factors and settings. Ultimately, the best way to find out is A/B testing to see what works the best for you.

There is no secret formula to knowing what should be the ideal size for your CTA button. With this in mind, just make sure it’s big enough to get noticed but not too big to look disproportional to its surroundings.

Use vibrant colors

The choice of your button’s color is pivotal and carries and carries substantial significance. In fact, if you’re going to heed just one small piece of advice from this post, make sure to thoughtfully choose your button colors. A high contrasting colors work great to make buttons stand out.

While there are some colors that proven to perform better than others, the ultimate decision depeds on your website’s design.The golden rule is to remember not to go too wild when designing your call-to-action and stay consistent with your brand. Here is an interesting and quick read on how colors affect conversion rate if you want to explore this topic little bit more.

A/B Test your buttons

A/B testing enables continuous improvement, ensuring that your CTA buttons are finely tuned to encourage desired actions, ultimately enhancing the overall effectiveness of your website or marketing campaign.

By experimenting with different variations, you can pinpoint the most effective design, color, size and text that resonate with your audience. This method provides valuable insights into user preferences and behaviors, allowing you to make informed decisions based on actual performance data.

There you go! In addition to acquiring the skill of how to add a call-to-action button in WordPress, you now possess insights into the essential practices that contribute to the success of your forms and encourage users to successfully submit them. If you want more tips to increase your website conversion rate, check the conversion rate optimization guide by Hotjar here.

3. How to customize your call-to-action button

Ninja Forms is designed to inherit the style of your WordPress theme to match your page aesthetically. This means if you want to customize the look of your form, you need to make changes in your stylesheet of your WordPress theme, or find an easier solution: styling plugin.

Ninja Forms offers the Layout & Styles add-on that let you customize your CTA button, but also the rest of your WordPress form.

While we are going to show you some pratical examples how to customize your submit button, we also have a multiple styling tutorials for your CTA below:

To customize your call-to-action button, install the Layout & Styles add-on. This plugin will add additional section to your Submit button field called Styles featuring the following sections: Wrap Styles, Element Styles, Element Hover Styles. You’ll probably experiment the most with Element Styles and Element Hover Styles.

Element Styles section allows you to style things such as background color of your CTA button, text or border of the button. Element Hover Styles is section that lets you customize the look of the button when user hovers or click on the button.

Now, we’re excited to present examples of CTA buttons customized with our Layout & Styles add-on in our short video below.

Want to use the same styles on your WordPress form buttons? No problem. Check the settings for each button below so you can replicate it on your WordPress form:

Contact Us Button: What we customized?

Element Styles:

We set the background color in the color picker, selected the border style, border width, and used the Advanced CSS section to write our own custom CSS rules.

Element Hover Styles:

We did the same as in the previous Element Styles section but we added additional CSS property translate in the Advanced CSS section.

Subscribe Button: What we customized?

Element Styles:

We selected the button background color from the color picker and made our button rounded using the border-radius:25px; in the Advanced CSS section.

Element Hover Styles:

We selected the button background color from the color picker and copied the same CSS property to make our button rounded. Additionally, we used the transform:scale(1.05); to change the size of the element on the 2D plane.

Leave Us Feedback Button: What we customized?

Element Styles:

We selected background color, border color and text color from the color picker. We also set the padding, the border width and the border style from the dropdown. Additionally, we enabled the Advanced CSS settings to write our own CSS rules.

Element Hover Styles:

We picked the background color and text color from the color picker.

✨ Quick tip: Transform CSS property lets you rotate, scale, skew, or translate an element. CSS border-radius property allows you to add rounded corners to elements.

So, what do you think about upgrading the appearance of your CTA button with the Layout & Styles add-on? Elevate your button’s appearance today and witness a boost in conversions in no time!

4. How to show or hide the CTA button in your form

Why on earth you would want to hide the call to action button on your form? Glad you ask! Perhaps, you are receiving a lot of spam submissions from disposable email addresses or someone has been harassing you and you want to prevent them from submitting your form.

You might want to also hide the submit button if it turns out that completing the form isn’t necessary. For instance, if customers come to your support channel with questions and you provide the answers before they submit the form, it’s a win-win situation for both parties.

Whatever your situation is, the Conditional Logic add-on does the job for you! This impressive integration empowers your forms with intelligent automation, allowing you to determine which form fields, including the submit button, you want to display or not.

If you want to learn more about turning your WordPress forms into smart forms, check our tutorial How to Create Conditional Fields in WordPress.

Congratulations on your mastery of the Submit button!

Well done on becoming proficient with the CTA button in your WordPress form! The CTA or call to action button is an essential part of your WordPress form. Customizing it can significantly boost your ability to generate new leads and increase conversion rates for your online business.

Remember, even the smallest adjustments on your CTA button that might look trivial at the beginning can have significant impact.

Now that you know how to add a call-to-action button in WordPress, be sure to explore other Ninja Forms fields for your form-building endeavors below:

Are you new to the form-building business? Download our free core plugin and discover why is Ninja Forms one of the best free WordPress form plugins on the market.

Don’t miss out on the chance to unlock the full potential of your forms without the need for an upgrade. Give our contact form plugin a spin and support small business such ours in the WordPress community!

How to Add a Call-To-Action Button in WordPress

Table of contents

1. How to add a submit button to your WordPress form