Increasing user conversions through effective landing page design
A landing page is a web page that users “land” on when they click the link to your website. It is generally the first page that a user sees and experiences when they show up. Usually, landing pages have at least one call to action — something you want the user to do which would benefit your business. This could be buying a product, downloading an app, or subscribing to a newsletter.
A user visits your site on a mission. They come with a purpose or an aim they hope to achieve, and it is your duty as a User Experience Designer to figure out that purpose, grab their attention, get them to stay a little longer, and eventually perform an action that is usually the goal of the business.
Great user experience is usually a value loop. When a user trusts, enjoys, and find value in your product, they patronize you and get their friends to patronize you as well, delivering value ($$$) to your business. You give value, you get value. Here’s how to ensure your landing page is giving the right value.
Decision Making
From the moment a user gets on your website to the moment they click on your call to action, there is something that goes on in their minds; decision making. The user decides to take that line of action based on the value they believe they’d be getting from your product or service.
The decision-making process usually goes like this:
Purpose — Context — Trust — Action
Let’s find out how this works and how you can influence each step.
1. Purpose
As I stated earlier, users show up on your website with a purpose. This purpose varies from person to person but most times they want to know what it is that you do.
Let’s assume you are a Health Insurance Company called Health Insured (very creative, I know) and your user is Rachel. Now Rachel sees Health Insured somewhere and wants to know what they’re about, so she visits your website. What is the purpose of her visit? To find out what it is you do.
How do you ensure that the moment Rachel hits your landing page, she knows exactly what you do? You design a great hero section.
The first words Rachel is hit with give a great summary of what Health Insured does. Then there’s a little more text that expands on that summary that Rachel may or may not read(do not neglect it though), but the image, she’d definitely look at. The image you put up should throw more light on what you do. Random pretty images won’t do. The image helps your case so it should be enlightening.
Once Rachel has a surface understanding of the service you offer, she’d like to know a little more, probably get some context…
2. Context
It isn’t enough that Rachel knows you offer health insurance services. She’d like to know a little more about how you operate. She is trying to get more context so you need to tell her in detail, how you operate, how much you charge, and what she stands to benefit from choosing you.
Your user has specific needs which you’d need to uncover through research. You do not want to begin giving loads and loads of information that the user may not understand or be interested in. This is where progressive disclosure is best utilized. There’s only so much a user can consume per time so only reveal information that will help guide her decision.
Joe Natoli described information presented to someone who isn’t interested in it or isn’t ready to process it as noise. You do not want to go feeding noise to your user now, would you? Rachel seems like a great woman. She deserves better than to be fed noise.
If you’ve cooked up great content for Rachel that effectively answers the questions she may have, it will mean that Rachel is at this point, another step closer to closing the deal with you. There’s just one more thing, can she trust you?
3. Trust
Rachel (and I) will hate to pay out money to a company every month and when there’s a hospital trip, the company offers nothing but sob stories. Or worse, they stop picking up calls or responding to emails. Rachel’s concern at this point is deciding whether you are worth trusting.
You need to show her that you are. One way to do this is to display testimonials from other clients. Share stories, quotes, and pictures of clients who have used your service and had a great experience (with their permission of course).
If you are a B2B you can also include top companies that use your product on your landing page. Users are more inclined to trust you if they see that Microsoft also trusted you. They’d also believe even more in the quality of your product or service. You’d have successfully convinced them and won their trust which means it is time to get them to take action.
4. Action
You’ve won Rachel’s heart and she has finally made her decision; she’s going to get her health insured by Health Insured! Hurray! Now if she can only find that button…
Don’t make Rachel look for the call to action. You should have it at strategic points on your landing page. It should be in your hero section, it should be placed next to your services and also right after the testimonials or any other form of social proof you have on display. Rachel might make her final decision at any point and you want to make sure there’s a button handy for her to use.
Calls to action vary based on companies and the services they offer. You should decide what is best for business goals at that time, to ensure you’re getting the best value from Rachel’s decision. This would mean that before you begin to design, you must first establish business needs and goals as well as the “why” of the project (if you’d like me to talk more about establishing business goals or needs, send me a direct message on Twitter)
That’s it! You’ve successfully designed a landing page that has converted two users already (Rachel and I😉). This shows you do not need a lengthy landing page; you only need an effective one!
