Landing pages are one of the most important elements of today’s marketing. They allow you to make a
lasting first impression and also target specific customers. Landing pages enable you to present the
solutions to your customer’s problems. Also, they need to captivate and retain their attention in a highly
saturated, global marketplace. They are an essential aspect of your website because of the lead
generating potential. They need to gather information from the users and optimize the conversion
process. It needs to simplify the offer process and eliminate any distraction. The design of your landing
page is essential to its effectiveness. When someone stumbles upon your landing page, they need to
quickly understand what your company, brand, or product is all about. In this article, we will go over the basics of how to do just that. Here are some of the essential design principles for offering value.
1. The five essentials
First things first, what does a landing page consist of? There are some commonalities between all of them. No matter if you are trying to collect leads, drive sales, or something else, all landing pages use these five elements. We use landing pages to keep the audience focused on a specific goal. On the other hand, websites distract the viewers with multiple offers. Landing pages need to convert casual passers-by into paying customers. Here are the five elements of a high-converting landing page. First, you need to offer a unique selling proposition. Simply put, something that differentiates you from the competition. Next, the visual representation of your offer. After that, you will need to represent the features and benefits of your product or service. Social proof is very important these days. Lastly, you need to make a call to action. Let us cover these in greater detail.
2. The unique selling proposition (USP)
Have you come up with what makes you different from the competition? If not, you will need to. The truth is that the competition is immense in any industry and niche. So, why would a visitor choose your brand instead of another? This is where your USP comes into place. It needs to pinpoint why a potential customer should become a paying one. Your landing page needs to elaborate on why you represent a one-of-a-kind brand. And yes, you will need to make such a bold claim and live up to it as well. The truth is that in the online world, you only have a couple of precious seconds. The average attention span is just that short. Your landing page needs to make the most of it. that means it needs to captivate and retain the attention of a potential paying customer.
3. The visual queues
A picture is worth a thousand word. Humans are primarily visual creatures. Meaning, we mostly rely on what we can see and understand. The visual representation of what you are offering needs to be digestible for everyone. Visitors need to understand and relate to what you are showing them. Your representation will help them better understand what you are offering and what does it look like. These visuals need to tell a story. People tend to experience the visual, but also think in narratives. What is most likely to resonate with the audience? How do those visuals make them feel? How would you like them to feel about it? make your audience empathize with what you are relating to them. Put them in a scenario where they are using your product. Let them put themselves into that position, guide them in that direction, do not put them there.
4. Present the features and benefits of your offerings
Compared to the previous two sections, this is where we get into more detail. This section provides in greater detail what your products and services actually offer. Also, it should answer any questions that the potential customer may have. This part of the landing page needs to accentuate the benefits of your offerings. Describe your product with the features provided. But also, present value with the benefits those provide. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What would benefit them the most? How will they utilize your products and services? Many designers fall into the trap of writing entire novels on their landing pages. But remember one of our last sections, the attention span is very short. This section also needs to be concise and to the point. Present as much as you can in a short amount of text (and multimedia content) as possible.
5. Social proof
Social proof is a handy tool for increasing conversion. People are much more likely to make a purchase if your brand, product, or service is recommended by social media. There is a number of things you can do to generate good social proof. Display as many reads, shares, likes, subscribers, etc. as possible. This should be displayed on the landing page, if possible. Include all the most important social media buttons. Make it easy for people to leave reviews. This serves multiple purposes. Firstly, it provides feedback on your offerings. It makes space for improvement and provides guidance in the right direction. Second, it is a form of free promotion. These two benefits cannot be understated. You will need to make sure that customers have a reason to provide you with mostly positive feedback. Remember, a concept that is open to comments is a double-edged sword.
6. The call to action (CTA)
As mentioned before, there is one main purpose to the landing page. That is conversion. Meaning, it is there to turn viewers into satisfied, paying customers. Your call to action is a tactic that makes this goal a reality. Most of the times, CTAs are presented in a form of a simple but distinguishable button. Avoid the clichés such as “Click Here” or “Submit”. These are poorly received. People get the impression they are being taken by the hand and forced to do something they really do not want to. Your CTAs need to be in line with the rest of the journey through your landing page. It takes a bit of expertise and know-how from popular web designers like Hopping Mad to fine-tune the CTA. It is not just a button; it is possibly the most important one on your entire website.
7. Other considerations
Now that we have covered all the five basic elements of a proper landing page, we need to go over the necessary supporting elements. Let us start with page load times. As we touched upon previously, the attention span online is rather short. You need to present the viewer with the requested information as quickly as possible. If you fail to do so, they will simply bounce off somewhere else. That will reflect poorly on your SEO results, as well. To be more precise, if your page does not load in the first two seconds after that click, it is pretty much it. Bad page load times can be caused by many things. Maybe your website needs optimizing. And maybe the traffic towards it has simply increased. In that case, the hosting solution might be inadequate and you need to upgrade it.
8. The mobile future
Several years have passed since mobile browsing surpassed the more conventional methods. This means more people than ever before browse on the go. Sure, stationary personal computers are still being used and are not going away any time soon. And this trend is only going to gain even more traction as time goes by. This presents us with another hurdle. We need to design landing pages and websites that account for mobile users as well. The thing is, there are many mobile devices, far too many to count. Most of them are different and behave differently. Your landing pages need to adapt to their screens. They cannot be static or stationary. Again, this is where adaptive design comes into play. Provide any and all viewers with a pleasant experience, no matter what device they are using. If people have a hard time viewing your content, they will bounce somewhere else.
9. Consistency
Your landing page design needs to be in line with the overall design of the brand. People are creatures of habit. They trust what they can predict and expect. Make sure, the visuals, tone, style and value propositions are sound all around. Do not break the spell somewhere between the advert and your landing page, make sure they match. Give the customer the same attractive qualities during the entire duration of their stay.
Lastly, always test your offering before you commit and release it to the general public. This goes for your landing page as well. Maybe something needs to be tweaked or is not to your liking. Test multiple versions of it, you might be surprised what you may discover. Study the metrics as well and make adjustments based on what you find. Now that we have all the necessary ingredients, we can make the perfect landing page to make our message heard.
