Overview:
The creation of a convincing landing page requires a combination of strong emphasis, persuasive copying, thoughtful architecture, and constant checking. Your website will fail without all four of these.
You need persuasive landing pages if you want more leads or greater sales. Those firms with more than 30 landing pages, according to Hubspot, would produce seven times more leads than those with less than 10.
A landing page is a standalone website designed to support a particular marketing campaign or target a specific search word. They are where users "enter" in search results, email, or an ad when they click a link.
They usually encourage users to complete a particular call for action such as making a purchase, subscribing to a newsletter, or getting in touch.
So how do we create landing pages that inspire users to act without resorting to techniques of deception or dark patterns? The response lies in a combination of strong emphasis, convincing copy, careful design, and constant testing.
Creating your landing page is enticing to jump straight in. Until we start, though, we need to have a clear focus and that starts with identifying our value proposition.
Define your proposal for value:
You have less than eight seconds to catch their attention when a user arrives on your landing page. It means that the first step in developing any successful landing page is to understand what the website provides and how you can convey it clearly and succinctly. That's usually referred to as a value proposition.
Start writing a single sentence that communicates to the customer what it is that you deliver. This sentence should be composed of two parts; what problem you solve or profit from, and how you do that.
The value proposition for Skype, for instance, is:
“Skype makes it easy to stay in touch. Talk. Chat. Collaborate.”
Be cautious though. Your value proposition is quick to become meaningless. Talk of "best-in-class" or "warm and approachable," for example, is the kind of thing every organization should, and does, claim.
To avoid being too generic, ask yourself if the opposite of what you wrote will still be a viable choice. For eg, if your statement of value reads: "We offer products of high quality at a reasonable price." The opposite would be ridiculous: "We offer products of poor quality at an insane markup." So effectively, your statement of value states the obvious!
Conversely, however, if you wrote:
"We sell mass-market factory-produced goods." Not that the value proposition is not limited to this one sentence alone. Create a list of all the advantages you give to customers and then any features of your product that allow you to deliver those benefits.
Know what to do:
Every landing page requires clear calls for action. That means that you have to ask yourself, what do you want users to do?
Resist the temptation to add too many calls to action to keep your landing page focused and increase your chances of users acting. For example, asking people to follow you on social media would only distract them from completing your primary call to action.
That said, having a secondary call to action is always wise. When you did your job correctly, your landing page would have inspired other people to take action. But others aren't going to be ready.
Rather than just giving up on these consumers, offering them a secondary call for action is always worthwhile, which requires less effort.
For example, if your primary call for action is to get in contact or make a purchase, then your secondary call for action could ask people to sign up for a newsletter.
To avoid distracting from this secondary call to practice, make sure it is not too prominent. That could mean putting it down on the screen, or even as an overlay of exit-intent. That said, be on the watch. Some audiences respond to popups extremely negatively. Consequently, they should be used sparingly.
Finally, find ways to motivate people to complete the call for action. When people subscribe to your mailing list or purchase a discount through your landing page, you may be able to offer a free ebook. Even something this little can be a nudge that inspires people to act now instead of putting it off until another day.
A gift would of course not make any difference if other things put off people. To counter this, you need to consider what the problems are and find a way to solve them. This is regarded as addressing complaints.
Understand consumer misgivings:
What are the reasons on your landing page that could deter anyone from acting? Was there a shipping fee or is it likely they worry about privacy? Are you looking costly as compared to the competition?
If you can't write a list of complaints your users can have to do some user research to find out.
Don't worry it will be costly or time-consuming. A one-question survey is all you need at your landing page. When people leave the site without acting, you can ask them a single question: "When you decide not to act today, it would be nice to know why." You can either give them a list of choices they can choose from, or they can add their own choices.
When you understand the reasons why people don't behave, then you can start discussing them.
Ideally, this means eradicating the challenge, such as providing free delivery or guaranteeing money back. But failing that, in your landing page copy, you'll need to convince people as best you can. Much easier answering an argument than dismissing it.
McDonald's, for example, knows that many people believe that their chicken comes from the less desirable parts of a bird. They are answering them explicitly on their blog, instead of ignoring these concerns.
However, there is one more factor that needs to be taken into account when answering user issues. You need to ensure that you approach them at the right time and in the right way.
Privacy and protection is an outstanding example of that. When reading a privacy policy people do not care about these issues. They think about it because their email address is about to be sent. This is why discussing data security and privacy when users complete a form is so important. Users won't be checking the web for the answers; they'll just presume the worst.
With our bid laid out and objections answered, we did the hard work of appealing to the rational minds of the people. Now is the time to make them feel so way.
Shape your personality:
A lot of our decision to act happens on a subconscious basis. Nonetheless, according to studies reported in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology, in 50 milliseconds, people create an initial perception of a web. They go on to say that these initial experiences last because of the halo effect.
In other words, a site's branding and esthetics form our views of the actual product, given the fact that there is no causal connection between the two.
And, in practical words, what does that mean? It goes to show, for a start, how much aesthetics matters. More importantly, it means that we need a clear vision of what we want to express first impressions and then be sure that our design does exactly that
Decide about what you will cofide:
A good starting point is to build a shortlist of terms conveying the ideas that you want users to get when they visit your site.
There will be some Common Terms. For starters, you'll probably want your landing page to convey "trust" Many of the words however will depend on the audience and bid.
If you have your word list, and the designer has created a concept they hope will express those terms, the next step is to check.
Test yourself:
If multiple solutions have been developed by the designer then a simple preference test works well. You may ask the customer, for example, which of your designs they find more "approachable".
You may run a semantic differential survey when there is only one template, in which you ask users to score a website against the keywords. Is a concept more "approachable" or "inapproachable" .
You can do a survey for that
Aesthetics, of course, isn't the only factor when planning. You must always ensure that your visual hierarchy is right too.
Create Your Visual Hierarchy:
Putting up a clear visual hierarchy for your landing page will ensure that users see the right information at the right time, and are not distracted by irrelevant or secondary content.
ANSWER THE RIGHT QUESTIONS AT TIME:
The first step is to make sure that the correct information is displayed to the user in the right position on the website. To do so you need to consider the cycle of thinking that is going through the minds of people as they view your landing page.
We can't be sure of that of course, as everybody is different. Also, usability tests may give us just a hint. We can do a generalization educated though.
Usually while visiting a landing page a user subconsciously poses a series of questions. These are, in order: What is provided on this page? (Value Proposition) How's that going to help me? (Benefits) How does a bid work? (Features) Why should I confide in this page? (Social Proof)
What, then, will I do? (Call to Action) It is therefore important that every visual hierarchy for a page represents, to a certain degree at least, the order the user asks these questions.
For example, a typical hierarchy for landing pages could look like this:
Having the content flowing correctly on the website is just half the fight when it comes to building a strong visual hierarchy. The second challenge is to ensure users display the most important elements of the device.
We can draw attention in several ways to important screen elements, including but not limited to: Positioning Color Size Imagery Animation Negative space. However, the most successful strategy is probably to eliminate other distractions on a display.
SIMPLIFY YOUR INTERFACE:
To accomplish this, consider following a three-step approach, where every item on your landing page from the logo to the privacy policy connection is regularly checked.
You will be placing three questions for every item in turn.
Start by asking if I could remove that item? When I cut it out, what would be the consequences? Will those consequences be more damaging than the cognitive load increase produced by additional screen elements? If not, the easier to delete it.
If you feel the content is too important for the consumer or the conversion aids, then the next question you need to ask is can I hide this element? Can I. it on a subpage, under a tab, or in an accordion?
This approach works well for secondary content, which is not something most people would be interested in though it is useful to some users who want more information.
Finally, if you can't hide content because it must be known to all users, may I ask to shrink the element? Customers may want to learn about your refund policy, for example, but it isn't as relevant as the functionality or benefits your company provides. And it makes sense to deemphasize it visually because it is less conspicuous.
Together with other design techniques, this simple approach will allow you to build a page with a clear visual hierarchy that draws the user's attention to the most important elements of the screen, such as calls to action. To be sure you will be checking though.
Check The hierarchy visual :
Fortunately, there is a simple and inexpensive way to check whether users interpret the essential elements of the device. It is known as a five-second test.
This check includes, as the name suggests, showing users the template for five-seconds before removing it. Instead, you ask the user to recall what elements they recall.
You can gain a greater understanding of how effective your page hierarchy is in drawing attention to things that matter the most, by paying attention to what the user recalls and the order in which they recall elements.
Indeed, testing will be critical when it comes to designing a great landing page, even after you launch it.
The survey, Iterate, and Test:
During their first attempt, no team can build the perfect landing page. There is always scope for progress, which is why checking post-launch is such an integral part of creating the most effective landing page.
If you launch your new landing page, you must use a session recorder such as Hotjar or Fullstory to track it carefully. These tools allow you to look at your page's user behavior, which can recommend changes.
Using A / B testing, you can check minor improvements in copying, imagery, and color, while prototyping and evaluating more substantial changes by usability testing.
Whatever strategy you follow, it will eventually be a process of monitoring, replication, and checking that will ensure every landing page's long-term success.
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This article is contributed by Ujjainee. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science . She likes most about Computer Engineering is that it allows her to learn and be creative. Also, She believes in sharing knowledge hence is very fond of writing technical contents for the same. Coding, analyzing and blogging are things which She can keep on doing!!
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