7 Key Design Tips for Effective Landing Pages

What makes a landing page effective? There are numerous sources online as well as whole books that provide people with expert tips and knowledge to make effective landing pages.

What’s crucial among these landing pages best practices is design. If you look at landing pages examples and tips, you will notice that the majority of them highlights the design as one of the most important factors in creating effective landing pages.

Design pertains to how something looks or appears. In the world of landing pages, the design is essential in capturing the attention of your target audience and converting them into leads.

If you are looking to further improve your landing pages, here are 7 key design tips for effective landing pages you should follow:

7 Design Tips for Effective Landing Pages

1. Include All Elements
2. Match Your Ads with Your Landing Pages
3. Apply a Clutter-Free Approach
4. Optimize Landing Pages for Mobile Devices
5. Utilize Trust Elements
6. Ask for Less Information
7. Use Images and Videos

When designing landing pages that convert, it is imperative that you include all critical components. These include the headline, sub-headline, a brief description of the offer (for value emphasis), a supporting image, and the capture form. Testimonials and badges may be optional but they can give your landing pages a boost (more on that later in this article).

Proof compiled a list of landing pages that have over 60% conversion rate. The landing pages in the list contain at least four elements mentioned above. These landing pages clearly display how these elements work in unison to boost your conversions.

The design rules for landing pages don’t stress enough how vital these elements are in creating landing pages that effectively convert visitors into leads. Another useful tip is to remove unnecessary links or navigation buttons that might distract your visitors or prompt them to leave the site. Once your visitors are on the landing page, you have to make sure they stay on your page until you get what you want.

Always aim for consistency. In fact, according to this guide to omnichannel marketing, the fluidity of core elements is crucial for seamless customer experience.

If there is a disconnect in the message, branding, and visual aspects of your ads with its corresponding landing pages, you’ll confuse your visitors. And when they are confused, they are more likely to leave your landing page and forget about what you offer.

When your banner ads use a certain color, your landing pages must also display that color. Do your ads feature your company logo? Then there is no reason why it shouldn’t appear in your landing pages as well. When your ads are peddling pancakes, your landing pages shouldn’t be selling your visitors waffles now, should they? You might as well have a broken link because you won’t be selling any.

When you look for a landing page design inspiration, remember that less is indeed more. Your landing page must contain all the information your visitors need to make the decision to convert. That said, your landing pages shouldn’t overwhelm your potential clients with unnecessary content, images, buttons, and widgets.

A good landing page is concise, easy to comprehend, and visually pleasing. People tend to respond positively to landing pages that are not riddled with loud graphics. Landing pages designed with a white space background have more success as opposed to landing pages that are built on extreme colors and distracting visuals.

Effective landing pages “cut to the chase” and provide information that is both customized and relevant to the visitors.

People nowadays are more engaged in their smartphones and tablets, which is why your landing pages must be optimized for the mobile platform. Majority of mobile users respond to mobile ads because it allows them to instantly satisfy their desire to purchase.

What happens when your mobile ads lead to a landing page that is not mobile-friendly? They leave. For you, that means income opportunities going down the drain.

It is imperative that your landing pages are designed for mobile. This facilitates the conversion of your mobile-based visitors as it becomes easy for them to engage your landing page and convert even they are on the go.

In a world where many things can be purchased at a single click, trust is something you should build on. The first thing to do to earn trust is by providing a secure connection on your website. Thus, making sure that your website does not have any SSL connection issue is essential, followed by word of mouth. You should never underestimate the power of testimonials and trust badges. Studies have shown that consumers rely heavily on testimonials from actual users before they make a purchase decision.

Testimonials from actual people lend credibility to your landing pages and your product. In fact, 83% of 1,001 Americans said in a 2018 word-of-mouth marketing research that they are likely to purchase a product or a service if a family member or a friend recommends it. Testimonials are basically word-of-mouth but on a grander scale.

Trust badges have a similar impact on visitors. When your landing pages have trust badges from reliable sources, it means your product, your services, and your company is legit and reputable. That said, you should know where to place your testimonials and trust badges strategically so they can elicit the desired effect and response from your visitors.

Whether in the real world or online, people don’t like giving out too much information, even to people they know. Your landing pages should be well-designed to keep the information queries to a minimum. That translates to using a short registration form.

Don’t ask for personal details such as their home phone number, home address, office address, and credit card information when all you really need is their email address. Sure, it would be nice if you get extra details. But bear in mind that longer registration forms hamper your conversion rates. And you don’t want that as CRO is crucial to sustained growth.

Videos and images keep your visitors from leaving your page. You can showcase your products and services better, thus educating your visitors and piquing their interest. On top of that, images and videos that go viral can impact your conversions. Your videos get shared all over the web, your traffic increases, and conversions are off the roof. This is because interactive and visual content racks up to 4-5 page views more according to this key marketing software statistics analysis.

In a 2018 survey on video marketing of 4,000 adults, 76% revealed that they bought a product or subscribed to a service after watching a video. The same survey ranked video as the most memorable form of marketing content by 21% of the respondents. Thirteen percent picked display ads while 9% found email marketing as the most effective.

Landing pages are visual in nature. Thus, using images and videos in your landing pages to get your message across makes sense.

Learn how to create awesome video content for your landing page, as well as what tool to use in this complete guide on explainer videos.

Landing Pages: Essential to Online Marketing

Landing pages are now essential in the success (or failure) of the modern business enterprise. Inconsistent branding, flawed choice of words, and pages that can’t be displayed on a smartphone will definitely doom your online marketing efforts. With practice, persistence, and the unrelenting desire to get better, you will discover the right formula of creating the most effective landing pages and steer your business towards success.

Looking for more information on how to optimize your landing page? Check out this article from our partners on how to create landing pages that sell for more information.