5 design tips to create landing pages that convert (with examples)
The creation of effective landing pages is an important part of any successful digital marketing strategy. And, while there are a lot of differences in the way they look, as well as various techniques used to attract visitors, they all have the same fundamental purpose: to convert to the next stage of the buyer’s journey.
Making a good landing page isn’t rocket science, but it does take some work. In this article, we will guide you through 5 essential design tips that will help you not only grab the attention of visitors, but also convert them into your next customers.
What steps to take before creating a landing page?
For starters, a landing page, as opposed to a homepage, is a web page that has been specifically designed for a prospect to land on. The user is referred specifically to this page by clicking on a CTA (Call-To-Action) in an email, an ad, or through another channel.
The purpose of creating an effective landing page is to increase a conversion rate, whether that means generating more leads, direct sales, downloads, or signups.
Before we dive into the essential design features of a landing page, you have to develop a landing page strategy to ensure you’re optimizing for the right audience, keywords, and goal.
- Study goals:
Before you write, design, and build your landing page, start with a solid strategy by answering these crucial questions:
- Who is my target audience?
- What are the campaign goals?
- What do visitors need from your landing page?
- How will visitors get to your landing page?
Answering these questions will help you have a clearer understanding of the reason why you’re creating your landing page in the first place.
- Research your audience:
Understanding what kind of visitors you want to attract to your landing page will help you better tailor the content. Your target audience will influence different aspects of your campaign, including:
- What kind of CTA you should use
- The description you should provide
- Whether you should add special elements, like images or videos
- Your tone, approach, and your brand’s look and feel
Even if you think you know who your buyer persona is, it’s still a good idea to check your website audience. Tools such as Competitive Research help you easily visualize valuable information on your location, language, traffic geography, and many other valuable data points.
- Find the right keywords:
When searching online, people use keywords to define what they’re looking for, which is why you should never underestimate the power of keyword research. By identifying and using the right keywords and phrases, you will create content to attract traffic. If the keywords are aligned to the product or service you’re offering, this traffic can result in better conversion.
It’s always a good idea to check what kind of ads are already ranking for your target keywords, since this will help you understand the needs of your target audience and track your competitors in how they are addressing them.
- Optimize your website for mobile:
Research shows that mobile traffic represents 54.8% of all traffic worldwide. So, it comes as no surprise that it’s highly advisable that your landing page should be responsive to the dimensions of a smartphone or tablet without unnecessary pinching or zooming for the user.
Adjust your width so that text, CTA buttons, videos and images will always fit the screen, no matter the size or orientation of the device. Don’t forget about loading speed, accessibility, and other important aspects of mobile optimization.
What are the key features of a landing page?
The overall look, feel, and structure of your landing page will have a significant impact on its success and how effectively it can drive conversions.
The primary purpose of your landing page should be to make it as simple as possible for a visitor to convert. Ensure that all elements contribute towards that goal, whether it’s filling out a form, making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or countless other actions.
- Consistent branding & color: Color psychology can be applied to your brand logo, website, or blog, but also to landing pages. When it comes to a landing page, you may be better off selecting lighter, muted hues for your main background colors, and saving bright pops of color for elements such as CTA buttons to make them stand out.
Source: Dunkin Donuts
- Clear & compelling headline: You’ve got less than 15 seconds to grab a person’s attention on a landing page—which means the headline is probably the most important thing you will write. Make sure it’s memorable, clear, and solves the problem your visitors care about most.
Source: Asana
- Persuasive subheadlines: The next element you need to create for an effective landing page is the subheading. If the headline makes the visitor look, then the subheadline should ensure they stay. Particularly when the user is scanning the page, the subheadings should be doing a powerful job to deliver the key details.
Source: Apple
- Supporting copy: In general, landing pages tend to convert better when they’re straightforward and easy to read. Avoid complicated business jargon, keep your sentences short, and try to cut out any unnecessary text that you don’t actually need on the page.
Source: Wow Skin Science
- Clean layout: The advantage of a landing page is that it eliminates all the other distractions you find on regular web pages. Give your visitors a single path forward. This means avoiding featuring navigation links to other pages, headers, footers, or any other calls to action.
Source: Miracle Brand
- A strong offer or promotion: Visitors want to hear about how you will be able to solve their problems, how your product will help make their lives easier, and why this will benefit them. Don’t just list a bunch of features and call it a day—try to think about things from your target visitor’s perspective.
Source: Atterley
- Simple forms: If you’re including a contact form, consider how you can make it shorter and easier for visitors to fill out. Longer forms with more fields tend to have lower conversion rates, while the best-converting forms tend to just have one field—email address.
Source: Toptal
- Direct call to action (CTA): While CTA buttons like “Learn More” or “Get Started” can work—they’re also pretty vague. Visitors won’t know what to expect when they click a button like that. Just don’t forget that they’ll need to receive something valuable in exchange for time and information.
Source: Patagonia
- Rich media: Visual content is an essential component of landing pages that actually work. As you select and place your images, keep in mind that pictures should be large, relevant to your product or service, and, of course, high-quality.
Source: Piktochart
- Reviews & social proof: A testimonial or review can help potential customers feel reassured while visiting your landing page. Social proof such as people posting about your product on Google Reviews, Instagram, Facebook, or even YouTube videos can also be very influential for anyone looking to buy your product or service. If there’s a way of integrating social proofing via feeds or embeds then it’s definitely worth considering.
Source: BuzzSumo
What are some design tips for creating high-converting landing pages?
Now that we have covered the strategy and structure, you want to make sure that visitors will be attracted to the visual elements of your landing page and persuade them to take action. So, how do you create a more appealing experience for first-time users?
1. Videos
There are several types of videos that work well for video landing pages. Choosing the best one depends on what information will best persuade your audience to convert:
- Background videos:
Landing pages with large hero background videos have become increasingly popular over the years thanks to sites such YouTube and Vimeo. Videos are also very interactive and help demonstrate how your product or service works quickly and easily.
Source: Y.Co
In this case, Y.CO, a specialized yacht services company, provides the opportunity to explore yachting in the most compelling way possible—beautiful landscapes and happy people living their best life. Again, this demonstrates how effective video backgrounds can be for your business when used correctly.
- Explainer videos: A perfect way to introduce your brand, what problem your company solves, and why you’re the best option for solving that problem.
Source: Wizzki
- Promotional videos: Great for driving brand awareness. These videos present your products/services in an attractive way and convey their value to your audience.
Source: M&S
- Brand videos: Great for telling your company’s story. These videos focus on the business as a whole and show your audience what the company stands for.
Source: IKEA
- Testimonial videos: Also a great method for nurturing leads who like to do their own research. These videos give prospects a relatable and valuable perspective from fellow satisfied buyers.
Source: Phelps Agency
- Product demo videos: Show viewers in more detail how a product or service works. This is a good video type for nurturing leads who like more information before making a purchase or for existing customers who are looking for useful resources.
Source: The Lip Bar
Remember that the goal of using a video for your landing page is to give prospective customers the information they need to make a decision or take a next step.
Now, let’s see what it takes to properly use a video on your website.
4 essential steps in using videos in landing pages
- Write a script:
Great video-making starts with great scriptwriting. Before you launch into video production, make sure you have a clear storyboard set up and a complete script written. Ensure the video for your landing page is created with regard to the industry, buyer persona, product/service, and your overall goal.
- Choose a thumbnail:
Thumbnails grab the viewer’s attention and give an idea of what the video will be about at a glance. You can either make your own and upload, or choose a screenshot directly from your video. Increase click-through rate (CTR) by keeping the design simple and consistent with the style and key theme of your video content and landing page.
- Optimize for SEO:
Using videos in your landing pages is another critical element when looking to improve your SEO strategy.
Doing keyword analysis for your videos is pretty much the same as doing an analysis for a blog or webpage. When it comes to your videos, you use the relevant keywords in the title of your video, the meta-description, and the tags.
However, using video SEO successfully, requires more careful thought than just adding numerous videos to your site:
- Consider your Core Web Vitals score:
The Core Web Vitals score—Google’s 2021 update–assesses three pillars when it judges your site: loading speed, responsiveness, and visual stability. It’s a key consideration when embedding videos in pages, as they can increase page load time.
- Keep your video as small as possible: With video SEO, you want to reduce the amount of data mobile users have to use to view your site by reducing the amount of buffering time. To aid in this, any videos you embed directly into your site should be compressed, and background videos should not be looped indefinitely.
- Consider lazy loading if you have lots of videos on a page: If videos are the primary form of content on a page, consider loading all assets asynchronously so that it doesn’t take too long to load the first render of the page and make it interactive to users.
- Ensure the video is clear: All users, regardless of their device and screen size, should be able to understand the video. Your videos have to be responsive and adjust to different screen dimensions with the proper ratio. Ensure you include the dimensions in the CSS file for your embed, and set the proper width and height to help the browser allocate the correct amount of space in the page while your video is loading.
2. Minimal design
A landing page doesn’t need too many things on it to have an impact, so try to keep everything under the logic of “less is more.” Clean, minimal design is all about streamlining both written and visual content so that it doesn’t visually overwhelm a visitor when they first visit your page.
This has two main benefits:
- Optimized speed: Less elements mean faster load times, which can increase conversion rates.
- Improved cognitive load: That’s a fancy way of saying that people’s brains will understand what’s going on much faster.
Source: Envato Elements
This simple design from Mi Reality allows visitors to quickly digest the details that matter.
3. Bold & oversized typography
Large typography is currently among the most popular font trends in web design. Using big and bold typography can make a huge impact on design when it’s used to draw attention to key information or headlines.
When it comes to creating websites with oversized typography, designers usually avoid decorative fonts and instead go with neutral and simple scripts.
Source: Emergence
A perfect example is how investment firm, Emergence, created a clear, plain typography to complete the modern look and the feel of their landing page. The typography elements are playful and bold while still having a professional look and feel.
4. Live chats & interactive elements
The importance of personally connecting with potential and existing customers wherever they are and whenever they reach out to you is a fundamental part of the business process. Building a relationship or connection with a visitor can provide them with the trust and encouragement they need to become a valuable lead or customer.
Live chat integrations allow you to connect with people faster and in real-time, to answer questions, and persuade them to convert.
Source: eBay
Unsurprisingly, ecommerce giant, eBay, understands this, utilizing the power of personalization in its own live chat service. Straight away, when you open a live chat window on a landing page, you’re greeted by name, making the visitor feel like eBay knows who they are and is eager to help.
There are lots of other interactive elements you can incorporate. For example, web animations.
Source: The Cool Club
The Cool Club is a fun-to-use website with a variety of intriguing micro-interactions. To play a new card game, go to the Home page, and click the card box. You can also get different themed playing cards by hovering over the card boxes at the bottom of the screen.
This website features a number of interesting hover effects as well as a number of adorable dancing animal animations. The user is guaranteed to spend more time while engaging with these interactive elements.
5. Custom illustrations
Another landing page trend that’s sure to grow in popularity in 2022 is the use of custom illustrations. This comes as no surprise as they have the added benefit of being able to visually communicate a variety of aspects of your offer, as well as being eye-catching and original.
Source: Asana
Project management software, Asana, features playful characters that, besides being colorful and visually appealing, convey the brand’s intended message.
If cost and time are prohibiting you from having custom illustrations created, there are high-quality stock illustrations you can find online that could be a great fit for your landing page.
Make your landing page visually engaging
You’ve just learned about the best landing page design tips and tricks that you can apply to your next landing page project. Always keep in mind that visitors look for a straightforward, relevant, and visually appealing landing page that can answer their questions quickly and easily.
