In all honesty, this was something I wanted to package as an eCourse, but instead, I decided to create a visual post to help small business owners create better Call To Action banners for their websites. We have discussed Call To Actions also known as CTA’s in these past two articles; How To Create Calls of Action and 3 Styles of Call To Action For Holiday. To make these even easier for the small business owner on a tight budget, we will make these call to action banners in Picmonkey which is a free design platform.
Sizing Matters For CTA Banners
All banners are not created equally for websites. Especially the different types of shopping carts that are out there. I highly suggest finding out the exact dimensions of your websites call to action banner area. That area is the scroll area above the fold on your website. With most shopping carts you can go into your settings area and retrieve the information. If you can’t find it contact tech support. We are using ICB Consults as the example for this step by step guide. The dimensions I need are: 3700 x 2462.
Visual Imagery of Banners
I have had a resale store and now a consulting company. Visual imagery is an important aspect of converting site visitors into paying customers. People read product reviews but images are what sell your services or products. With retail stores you can shoot a lookbook and use that imagery for your call to action banners or product images. For service images you can purchase stock photography. I purchased several stock images to help illustrate beautiful products and CTA’s.
Step 1. Go to Picmonkey.com 
Step 2. Select “edit” and how you will be uploading the image. 
Step 3. Once your visual is uploaded, if you need to resize it. Select the “resize” icon at the bottom of the side tool bar. 
Step 4. Adding imagery to my CTA. 
I am adding a screen shot of my current site to go on the iMac screen. I will select the “butterfly” on the left side of the dashboard. Then I will select “upload your own image”.
Step 5. Adding layers to your image. 
For this image I want black banners stacking on top of each other. These will be my first “layers” for the CTA banners. If you want to have an opaque bar or circle on your CTA you can add this style layer by selecting the “butterfly” then selecting the “Geometric” option. Once you find the one you want you can fade the shape.
Step 6. Adding text layers to your image. 
Adding your Call To Action banners to your site will be different for everyone as mentioned before. That is why knowing the size of the banners is very important. If you are on a tight budget and don’t personally know how to use Photoshop or Illustrator this is a really great budget friendly tool. I highly suggest upgrading to the Royal package if you will be using this often. Its less than $50 a year. If you want to see how the banner looks on my site go to www.icbconsults.com and you can see there.
