Call to Action (CTA)

A call to action is the button or link that asks the visitor to take the one next step, like Start free trial or Book a demo. Nobody says the full phrase in meetings; it's the CTA, spoken letter by letter.

The term is older than the web. Ads have always ended with an ask (call now, mail the coupon), and the web inherited the vocabulary along with the job. On a page, the CTA is that ask turned into a button.

The picture shows the standard arrangement: one loud button, Start free trial, and one quieter link beside it, "or take the tour." The pairing is deliberate. A page works best with one primary CTA, with every other ask stepping back to secondary. The dark button is for people ready to commit; the link catches everyone who isn't yet.

When two buttons shout equally, the page has decided nothing, so the visitor has to. Most of the craft here is subtraction: fewer asks, less competition, one obvious next step. The primary CTA's classic home is the hero, sitting above the fold where every visitor sees it.

You'll also hear "CTA button," "primary button," and "primary action" for the loud one; the quieter alternative is the secondary.

When someone asks "what's the CTA on this page," they're asking what we want the visitor to do next. If you can't answer that in one sentence, neither can the page.