Your landing page is the window to your brand and plays a crucial role in converting leads into sales. A boring or uninspired landing page will not only turn these leads cold, but can drive web surfers to actively seek out competing brands. With landing pages often linked to social media channels, paid advertising or email marketing campaigns – a visually stimulating landing page is a must for brands if they wish to retain engagement.
Get to the point.
The average adult attention span has plummeted from 12 minutes to just 5 minutes over the last decade. Today, the majority of internet users will avoid reading text-heavy content and instead, skim the page until they find something of interest. Therefore, in order to maximise engagement and conversion rates when designing landing pages, it is crucial to get straight to the point. It is important to highlight the value of what you’re offering, and how it addresses consumer’s needs, interests, or problems. Implement clear headers, sub-headers, and use bullet points to make information more visually appealing. Emphasise key points by using bold text or italics, and most importantly keep the content brief and waffle-free.
Use contrasting colours.
When enticing visitors to a ‘call to action’ via a contact form or ‘submit’ button – colours play a key role. Ensure it’s easy for visitors to see where they should complete a specific action. Using complementary and contrasting colours is a great method of attracting a visitor’s attention, and directing them to exactly where you want them.
Always use your logo.
Logos are a critical aspect of marketing. Whilst the logo doesn’t need to be focal point of your landing page, it’s important that it’s visible enough that people will recognise the landing page as being a publication of your business. This is particularly important when directing visitors to the landing page from an external, non-branded source like social media or search engines. Once you have decided on placement for your logo, it’s crucial that you maintain that position on all your landing pages in order to maintain a consistent brand image.
Avoid visual clutter.
Whilst it can be tempting to fill landing pages with multiple visual graphics, A/B tests by HubSpot have repeatedly shown that the inclusion of too many images has zero impact on conversion. In fact, these visuals can often distract the reader from the core message of the landing page, and can create unnecessary friction rather than supporting conversion goals. From a practical perspective, too many graphics can also slow down the loading time of the page– which will further test the already decreasing attention span of your visitors. According to research by the Aberdeen Group, even just a one-second delay in page-load time can result in 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and a 7% loss in conversions. In order to design a successful landing page you must keep things simple, and make sure any images used support the goals of the website, and don’t distract visitors away from the pathway to a future conversion.
Be consistent.
To make sure landing pages are easy to navigate and user friendly, consistency is necessary. To achieve maximum results, companies must deter from radically altering a landing page layout every time – having a thread of consistency throughout the site can help the user understand how to navigate through the pages, thereby eliminating the friction caused by having to get the lay of the land each visit.