At Penji, we understand the power of captivating design and intuitive user experiences. Getting people to stay on your page is just step one of the equation. The second step is getting them to convert. A landing page design service plays a huge role in whether customers trust and respect your offer. But what exactly makes a landing page sure to convert? That’s what we’ll walk you through in this article.
Landing Pages that Convert
we'll tailor a landing page to your exact specifications
In the meantime, read on about the 15 best practices for creating landing page designs that captivate your audience.
1. Keep Your Landing Page Design Simple
The power of landing pages – as opposed to home pages – resides in their simplicity and focus. Rule number one for landing pages is to be concise and straightforward. And that goes for design as well.
Good landing page design is minimalist and to the point, like this one from Monoware. Get rid of all the noise that might confuse or distract your prospect from your core message. Choose one purpose for your landing page and make every piece of your design serve that purpose.
2. Make Your Design Eye Comforting
The most captivating designs are those that comfort our gaze. Everyone enjoys a soothing visual. Your landing page should have the same effect.
A combination of colors, typography, and layouts can help you achieve that relaxing effect. Don’t be tempted to fill every blank space on your page. Make peace with whitespace, and embrace thin and simple fonts. As an example, get inspired by this landing page from The Reserve.
Symmetry and alignment are also great ways to make your design more graceful and neat. People are naturally attracted to order and organization. It’s “oddly satisfying” and it inspires trust and authority.
3. Use Contrasting Colors
The choice of colors is a very important component of any design. Colors have a strong impact on our senses and for that reason, shouldn’t be picked arbitrarily.
In landing page design, colors can play a big directional role. Using complementary and contrasting colors can direct the attention of the user to the right place.
Color contrast also allows you to put certain elements under the spotlight. For instance, your CTA. Your call to action button should always be in a color that pops out of the overall decor. That change of color draws more attention to the CTA and compels people to click on it. Here’s a sample web page created by our Penji designers. As such, explore other samples our designers have produced for our clients.
4. Don’t Ignore Text Formatting
A good landing page design service knows that clutter is the enemy. And that goes for both text and graphics. As important as text can be on a landing page, its efficiency relies heavily on how well it’s presented. A condensed and long paragraph is unattractive and in most cases, repelling.
With the short attention spans and the endless distraction sources, you can’t risk having a cluttered paragraph in your landing page. Make sure that your text is concise and to the point like this example from Qatalog. Every single word should earn its way in your landing page. And of course, use bullet points.
5. Make Your CTA Stand Out
Your Call to Action is the center of your landing page. If your user clicks on your CTA, you reach your goal. Therefore, all your design effort should be focused on leading your visitors to your CTA.
One way of directing the attention of your prospects to your CTA is through the design of the CTA button. Your CTA button should be noticeable, visually pleasing, and should look highly clickable.
You can even put in some extra design effort in your CTA like color change or animation. Anything that makes your CTA attractive and fun to click on is a plus. Check out this one here from Brews & Grooves. Even if the font stands out, they use the CTA button in an unconventional way.
6. Use Compelling Images
Images, generally, have a stronger impact than words. Using an image on your landing page can stimulate emotional reactions from prospects. And yes, emotional reactions are good. In fact, if you can trigger a positive emotion, a customer is 7 times more likely to convert.
Besides emotions, a beautiful image enhances the aesthetic value of your landing page, making it more visually soothing. Make sure to use high quality and relevant images. If the visuals don’t make sense in your landing page, your prospects will get confused. And we all know that a confused prospect is a lost prospect. To illustrate, here’s the landing page from Organic Mountain.
7. Cut Down Distractions
It’s important that your landing page serves one unique purpose. Anything in your design that doesn’t directly contribute to achieving that same purpose should be removed from your page. And that includes links or navigation bars.
Distraction is anything that deviates your prospect from completing your desired action. If the function of your landing page is promoting an online course, don’t include links to your blog post. Soapply does a great job of following this tip.
Links to other parts of your website are distracting. Some would think that traffic is traffic but that’s not quite right. Each campaign should earn its own traffic.
8. Optimize for Mobile
By now, it’s pretty obvious why you shouldn’t overlook mobile design. You simply don’t get to choose the device your prospects use. Mobile optimization is crucial for your landing pages just as it is for your website.
It’s critical for a landing page design service to create responsive pages that load correctly on mobile devices. A high converting landing page is a page that looks great, loads fast, and offers a remarkable experience on any device. This is sometimes easier said than done.
9. Include Visual Branding
It’s very important to keep your brand at the top of the minds of your prospects. Remember that most of your future customers don’t know your company or brand yet.
Also, keep in mind that traffic can come from all traffic sources, including ones without context. If a prospect clicks on an ad on Twitter, they most likely don’t know who you are.
It’s important that your landing pages include your logo and reminders of your brand, like this one from Sundaze Skincare. Don’t make your logo or brand the center of your design. Just make sure it’s in a strategic placement that people can’t miss.
10. Make Your Headline Impossible to Miss
Besides the overall feel of your landing page design, your headline is one of the first elements that grabs people’s attention. It’s the very first text they read. Remember first impressions? The headline plays a huge role in making a good first impression.
It’s important to understand that the headline is more than just text. Your headline structures the layout of your page. It helps your readers skim through your landing page easily. Here’s another sample landing page design created by one of our designers.
Think of including subheadings as well if you have long text. They are the backbone of your landing page design.
11. Be Consistent
You need to be consistent in two ways. First, your landing page offer should match your ad’s promise. And second is visual and brand consistency.
Visual consistency is all about maintaining a layout that your prospects and customers are familiar with. Partnering with a landing page design service allows for consistent branding. If people see your designs repeatedly, they will start to remember you.
Now, this is not about having the exact same layout in all your landing pages. Feel free to get creative in your designs, but make sure to include elements that remind people of your brand. For example, putting your logo in the same place, or using common colors in different landing pages, like this one from Vitl.
12. Establish Trust
Landing pages are generally your first contact point with your prospects. More often than not, people who visit your landing pages don’t know anything about you or your business. And that is why your landing page should inspire trust and credibility before anything else.
Do you know what people blindly trust? Other people’s reviews.
If you want people to trust you and your business show them what other people say about you. Social proof is a great way to get indecisive people to convert. See how Tower28 added social proof in their design. Aside from reviews, you can also use media shout outs or certifications.
13. Use Video or Gifs
Videos and gifs are like glitter to landing pages. They add a fun element to your page.
Videos are known to increase engagement in general. Their ability to stimulate emotions and their entertaining nature make them irresistible. In landing pages, videos can increase your conversions rate by 86%. Here’s how you can use video on the landing page in a sample created by one of our designers.
Keep in mind to include a video or gif that’s highly relevant to your landing page. Don’t add videos for the sake of entertainment. Your video should add value and showcase your value proposition.
14. Add Scarcity Elements
The fear of missing out can serve as a great motivator to take action. Adding scarcity elements to your page pushes people to act fast.
Many times, we come across a webinar that we want to attend or an ebook that we would love to read but we just leave it for later. We all know that later never happens. And this is why timers and one time offers are great. You can take inspiration from this one by The Coconut Cult.
15. Run Tests
The more experimentation you run on your landing page design, the more targeted your page will be.
Following what works best for other people is not enough. What matters is finding out what works for your own audience. And the only way to get there is through A/B testing.
Create various versions of your landing pages with subtle differences. Make sure to A/B test one element at a time. Gather as much data as you can and continually optimize your landing page for better results. You could try A/B testing like how Hubspot does it with their landing pages.
How to Use a Landing Page Design Service
Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on how a landing page design service typically works. Keep in mind, this will be different than working with a freelancer or a design firm – They’ll typically want to speak with you and the process may take longer. With a service like Penji, you simply put in your request and our design team gets to work.
Step 1: Create a Design
Once you sign up for a Penji plan, you can log-in and create a project already. To start, click New Project. Afterward, you’ll see a form where you need to fill in details. Here, provide your Project title and select a Design category.
Tip: Type “Landing Page” on the title. The Custom page section will automatically choose Landing page, then you can click Next.
From here, you’ll describe your project. You can be as simple or elaborate as you wish. But the more details you give, the better the designer can sculpt the landing page to match your vision.
Once completed, select the Level of Customization, File Deliverables, and Associated Brand. Once done, click Create Project, and you’re all set!
Your project will then be assigned to a designer, and expect to receive the first draft within 24 to 48 hours.
Step 2: Review the Landing Page Design
When the designer finally submits the first draft, you can review it. From here, you can either have it revised or download it. If it needs improvement, you can use the built-in point-and-click feature on the platform. All you need to do is click on the design and leave comments on how the designer can enhance it.
Also, in any Penji plan, you have unlimited revisions too. So, revise until you’re 100% happy with it.
Step 3: Download the Design
Are you 100% completely happy with it? If so, all you have to do is click the blue Download button. That’s it! The files will be saved to your computer, and you can finally use the landing page design for your campaign.
Get Unlimited Designs (Including Landing Pages!)
Crafting a captivating landing page design is crucial for driving conversions, engaging visitors, and achieving your desired goals. By combining an aesthetically pleasing layout, persuasive copywriting, intuitive navigation, and clear call-to-action buttons, you can create a seamless user experience that leaves a lasting impression.
Acquire more leads and convert them into customers with well-designed landing pages. For only $499/mo, you can request web page designs, app designs, illustrations, and more on Penji. Sign up today and request your first landing page design.
