Button design is about recognition and clarity. You want your visitors to look at your buttons and immediately understand what they are supposed to do.

Buttons are most commonly rectangular. They can have sharp or rounded corners, beveled edges or shadow effects. You may argue that these are too conventional, bland or boring, but remember, it's what most users know as buttons. If you want to go with a different shape, you need to make it visually obvious that it is a clickable button - if they don't look like buttons then your visitors won't know they need to click on them.

Yes, The bigger the button, the more attention it draws. But it should be positive attention, not negative. You want a button that is big enough it's highly visible (ie. easy to spot at first glance). But if the button becomes too big and draws too much attention, it becomes an annoyance – it can come across as overly-aggressive. So, go big but not overboard.

A blue button will not stand out on a website that is primarily blue. Using stand out colors can help make your buttons stand out. Aim for colors that have a high contrast relative to the surroundings of the button.

The text inside your needs to be large enough that visitors can read your buttons quickly and easily. But don't go too big as it will overwhelm the button and the rest of your web page.

Try not to use fancy fonts, they can make the button text difficult to read. Sans-serif type of fonts is good for buttons as they are the most readable. Examples of sans-serif fonts include Arial, Helvetica, Franklin Gothic, Open Sans and Century Gothic.

We have all seen it, the shopping cart icon on the Add to Cart button. Often, these decorative elements help improve the visibility of a button.

Examples:

A rule of thumb is the decorative elements should emphasize the purpose of the button, not distract the user.

Examples of effective button designs:

Placing buttons in prominent locations such as the top of your web page can lead to higher conversions because users are more likely to notice them and take action.

When placing a button in the center of your web page, make sure there are no other main elements around it. This way, attention is focused on the button.

If you need to include multiple button choices, give weight to the primary button, ie. making the primary button more prominent. You can do so but making the primary button bigger, use a higher contrast color, or you can also grey-out secondary buttons. Grey buttons are generally poor for conversion – they look disabled. By greying out the secondary buttons, you're putting your visitor's main focus back on the primary button.

Also, try to limit the number of buttons with different call-to-actions on one page. For example, if the focus of your page is to get visitors to purchase your product, your primary button should be Add to Cart. Placing other buttons (such as Join Newsletter, Sign Up, etc.) on the same page would create a distraction - when visitors are distracted, they tend not to click on the button you want them to act upon.

Rule of thumb, your primary button should always be the biggest and brightest and try to limit the number of buttons you place on one page.

When placing a button in the center of your web page, make sure there are no other main elements around it. This way, attention is focused on the button.

Button is one of those things where more is not always better.To get your visitors to convert (ie. click on a button), you need to provide the utmost focus. By having too many buttons on your web page, you are introducing distractions and when visitors are distracted, they tend not to click on any buttons.

An excellent example is social media buttons. You do not need to include all buttons for all social media sites. Limit the number of buttons to 3 or 4. If you're not too sure about how many social sharing buttons you should have, you can to start by looking at your Google Analytics referral traffic to see which social sharing sites drives the most traffic to your website.

When you use words like I, Me and My, you are helping your visitors complete the sentence "I want to _______."

Clicking on the button then becomes the most logical thing to do – they are just doing themselves a favor (ie. claiming what's rightfully theirs).

Your button copy needs to make your visitors compelled to click on the button immediately. Your goal is to get your visitors to do something right away as opposed to later. You can create this urgency in your buttons by using bold, commanding and time-sensitive words: Now and Today.

Don't use ten words when three will do the trick. Short, simple and straightforward doesn't necessarily mean boring or bland. You can play with word ideas to cater to the marketing you're targeting. For example, if your website sells tea, you can change your Add to Cart button to Brew It.

Another way to increase click conversion is to tell visitors what they will gain by clicking on the button.

Click triggers are basically the extra boosts you put around your button to entice people to click it.

Click triggers are most often found on trial buttons and download buttons. For example, a free trial button might say "30 day trial, no credit card" in smaller text beneath the main "Start Your Free Trial" button text. This is valuable info that will encourage users to click through to begin their trial.