How To Design A Profitable Landing Page

A landing page (LP) is a page that should force visitor to a target action, whether it is purchase, inviting friends, or any other kind of activity. Of course, there is no absolute recipe of how to make an effective website, logo, medicine, toothpaste, or a teddy bear.

To do this, you need to consider a lot of nuances, and be able to create images that will be familiar and intelligible to the target audience. Design is a creative process, where the most important things are your business knowledge attitude to the design itself.

Knowledge about how to make a good LP will help you to increase the number of desired actions committed by users on your website. Let’s unveil the must-have design elements and techniques that go hand in hand with success.

A Short Preview: The Main Definitions of a LP

Before we begin, let’s define the possible concepts of LP regarding to three main points of view:

• Technical: LP is a page that consists of the same elements as any other normal web page, i.e. of HTML, CSS, text, images, videos, etc.
• Business: LP is a page that encourages users to perform the desired action, e.g. purchase or subscription.
• From a user perspective: LP is a page on which he/she went by the link placed on another website (by clicking on the banner, from search engines, etc.)

The three most common reasons for creating a LP are:

• To force users to register or subscribe to your newsletter.
• To sell a particular product in a particular situation (for example, it could be promotional event o sale).
• To force users to download or install software.

Principles for the Development of an Effective LP

Of course, a LP is an integral element of modern business. It has the following components and factors:

Call to Action

It requests and even forces a user to perform a particular action. An example of simplest call to action is “Subscribe to our newsletter” call. CTA often proposes a user to click on an element of the page or to fill out a form.

The essential advices are:

1. 1. Express your thoughts clearly. Tell the user exactly what he needs to do (step-by-step instructions seem to be the best choice) and what will happen next.
   2. Don’t overdo. Do not abuse with CTAs, as it may cause the opposite effect.
   3. Use well-designed CTA buttons. Clickable buttons is a must, but make sure they’re made in the most creative way to get more attention on.
   4. Convince the user to make the necessary action by providing him with more useful information.

Title

A potentially profitable LP has to have an effective headline. But what does a word “effective” mean? Firstly, it should provide visitors with the information about what they have to expect from that page. A user should be convinced that he’s in the right place. Note that any title has to have the only purpose to force visitors to stay on the webpage as long as possible.

When making a title, check whether it’s enough interesting to force potential client to continue reading? Here are the tips:

1. Use simple and short headlines. Don’t waste users’ time, just explain the main idea of what they could get on your website.
2. Place the title on a prominent place and use large fonts to attract the attention of the audience.
3. Use relevant keywords, including h1 and h2 tags for headlines.

Relevance

Customers get to your LP from a variety of sources, so it should comply with each of them. It means that advertising banners should lead to the relevant product or service.

1. Create separate LPs or each marketing campaign.
2. LP should vary depending on the source. Add content, promo codes, and CATs.

Sight Lines

Well though sight trajectory guarantees that a user will see all the necessary elements to commit call to action. It accelerates the perception of information and ensures that the user will ultimately make a target action.

1. Arrange elements of a LP in a logical visual sequence. Determine the order in which you want items to be viewed and stick to it.
2. Use graphs like arrows, icons and vivid pictures to guide the user’s eye to the desired area of the page.
3. Use contrasting colors for certain components of the web page. Attract audience’s attention with the help of bright elements.

Simplicity

LP should be as simple as possible. The user can get confused and leave the page if it’s too overloaded. The more sophisticated your LP is, the less number of users will make a target action.

Everything should be crystal clear: only the necessary elements, and nothing else! The main points are:

1. Every element of the page has to push the user to perform an action. To remove the unnecessary elements and text, use the principles of reductionism.
2. One main CTA for one LP. The purpose of the page has to be very clear and force users to just one single action. The presence of other actions is allowed only to facilitate the implementation of the main one.
3. LP should have a lot of free space. Too overloaded pages may scare users.

Risk-free

Obviously, no one likes to take risks. Take responsibility for the security, privacy and fraud.

Image

1. Suggest a convincing guarantee, for example, an opportunity of moneyback in case the customer is not satisfied with the purchased product.
2. Try to predict and dispel all possible doubts. The most common concerns related to doubts are costs, security, and time.
3. If possible, offer a service or a product for free. For example, if you sell a paid service and have several tariffs, provide a free one that doesn’t involve the specifying of customers’ credit card details.

Trust Elements

To convince people that they will never meet any fraud on your website, you can use social services with tweets, reviews of previous customers, and positive feedback. The other way to improve trust rate is to show audience the awards and certificates that your business have.

• Put social data from a reputable and well-known web services.

• Use confidence associated elements in the design.

• Don’t publish the fake status, designs, or responses from other websites.

Deficiency

Another way to make your LP work is to create a sense of deficit.

If a visitor feel that this product may soon vanish from the sale, or its price will grow, it’s more likely that he will make the purchase at once.

1. Try to design a text that conveys a sense of urgency. For example, you can state that special discounts will soon run out and users have the last chance to buy goods for reduced price.
2. Dynamically update the information reported deficit. For example, you can show a count of the number of remaining goods on the main page.

LP design, as well as its structure and content, is crucial for directing potential customers to the right path. Following the simple tips mentioned above, you can design an efficient and effective LP.

Brian Jens is someone who notices the slightest breeze of upcoming graphic design and web design trends. He loves everything new, creative and interesting. Being a part of DesignContest Logo Design Contest team, Brian also freelancing and writing a little bit.