What Makes a Great Landing Page? Do’s and Don'ts to Know
Landing pages are easily one of the most crucial components of a website. It is the entry point of a website and the first thing users see when the home page has successfully loaded.
Careful thought should thus be given to the design of a landing page when creating or maintaining a website. According to Nielsen (2011) a well-known user experience expert, the average user leaves a website after roughly 15 seconds of browsing if the website lacks a good user experience. So when developing a website, what are some of the important factors to consider?
We run through a list of the factors below, accompanied by some explanations:
Focus points
Landing pages are often considered as focus points for users when visiting your website, because of this, having a well-designed landing page will likely entice users to continue browsing your website.
When it comes to the layout of your landing page, the areas of importance should stand out and capture a user’s attention. For example, an e-commerce website might benefit from using components such as sliders to promote a sale. One thing to avoid is the use of bloated content that may distract the user.
Purposeful layout
As much as focus points are important to highlight on the landing page, it is equally imperative to ensure that the layout of the landing page is purposeful in its design.
This ties back to the previous point in that distractions should be minimised. Instead of overwhelming users with too much irrelevant content, it is a safer bet to include components that are useful to the user’s interaction with the website. This could include components such as a navigation bar, a search bar and even authentication mechanisms just to mention a few.
Ease of use
One of the most highly acclaimed frameworks in the technology literature that speaks to the ease of use of systems is the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).
The framework was first proposed by Davis in 1989 and has undergone multiple revisions to account for the rapid change in innovative technologies – it is a framework that still holds true even with today’s modern technologies.
The model suggests that a user’s perceived ease of use is directly correlated with the user’s attitude towards using a system which also impacts the actual use of a system (Chuttur, 2009). For example, a landing page that is cluttered with poor functionality and lacks ease of use will likely drive users to seek an alternative website. There are a number of ways you could ensure that your landing page is easy to use, this involves making use of strategic visuals, consistent design, seamless navigation and flawless functionality.
Colours and themes
The overarching theme and colour palettes used on a landing page is yet another crucial aspect to consider. The use of too many colours and conflicting themes can sometimes confuse users and leave the landing page feeling quite unpleasant.
One way to avoid this is by streamlining your colour palette and theme early on in the web development process. By establishing the colour palette and theme from the beginning, it provides you with some sort of documentation to adhere to as you develop the landing page.
There are tons of online tools that can be used to determine the look and feel of your landing page, and many of them are free. A really great example of such an online tool is Material Design Palette.
Every web developer and designer would love nothing more than to obtain very high impressions and reach on their websites, these are very popular metrics used to determine the amount of engagement your website receives.
Given that the entry point of your website is often the landing page, you should probably focus a lot of time and effort in making sure the landing page is highly engaging. This takes into account all the previous points made earlier on.
Social media links are great in the event that you want existing users to share your content and on-board new visitors to your website. Platforms such as LinkedIn enable you to showcase the actual landing page of your website which in turn affords potential users to provide their feedback on your landing page.
Other than professional social media platforms like LinkedIn, there are many other platforms that you could use to drive user engagement. This includes Facebook, Instagram and so on. A well designed landing page and overall website leads to the likelihood of content going viral when compared poorly designed websites.
Include social links