You only get one chance to make a first impression — and when it comes to landing pages, visitors make up their minds fast.
According to research from Google, visitors can develop design opinions within just 17 milliseconds of opening a new site.
If there’s something wrong with your landing page design — it isn’t clear, it doesn’t make a good offer or it takes too long to load — you could risk giving those potential customers a bad impression. Using the right design can encourage customers to move forward, no matter where they are in the sales funnel.
This is why your landing page needs to make a great first impression — and how the right design can boost conversions.
1. Consistency Builds Brand Recognition
Consistency can provide a good first impression and also make your landing pages more effective.
Landing pages need to be consistent with the ad campaign they’re attached to. Otherwise, you’ll be passing on a valuable opportunity to build some extra brand recognition.
You may also confuse customers if your landing pages and ads are vastly different. Without consistency, it may not be clear why the link they clicked led to the landing page they’re on.
2. Less Intimidating Forms May Reassure Potential Customers
Your business may need a lot of information from a potential customer to move them along the sales funnel. For example, ride-sharing companies like Lyft and Uber need a driver’s name and contact info, as well as a lot of detailed information on their car and income.
Asking for all of this information at once can create a fairly intimidating lead form.
Simple tricks can break down complicated lead forms without reducing the amount of information they collect. For example, many companies organize their lead forms with multiple columns. This way, no scrolling is necessary, and a visitor can always see the entire lead form at once.
Many sites will also split an overly long questionnaire over several pages or site elements — hiding later parts of the form until the visitor completes the current section or clicks through.
3. Strong Images and Design Can Lead to Conversions
A good first impression can reassure customers and quickly demonstrate what kind of results they can expect if they work with your business.
Continental Door Co., a garage door installation company in Spokane, Washington, provides a good example. Its page is dominated by a high-quality hero image that shows off some of the company’s work. Other page elements are paired with other photos that communicate the services it provides.
The more concrete and literal a product you sell, the better chance you have of taking advantage of this kind of strategy. If you market a physical object, leaning on visual commerce can be a much better strategy than using text, shapes and colors on their own.
4. A Good Impression Can Make a CTA More Appealing
Simple design choices can lead a visitor’s eye, making a CTA much more obvious and appealing.
This landing page from Wistia, a Cambridge-based video software company, shows how effective a simple palette and strong use of color can be in encouraging customers toward a page CTA.
Subtle color choices help the CTA stand out and communicate what kind of service the company is offering. This kind of design is especially important when the service you offer is more abstract and you can’t lean as much on images of the physical product.
A video on the side of the page helps add visual interest and shows off the company’s product — in this case, video hosting software for businesses.
5. Simple Navigation Can Keep Customers on Track
Navigation- and designwise, landing pages are often some of the simplest pages on a business’s website.
This is because a clutter-free, easy-to-navigate page can help keep customers moving through the sales funnel. Effective landing page design makes it clear what your company can offer, as well as how visitors can move forward in the buying process.
The landing page for I Done This, the developer of a collaboration app, features a compelling heading, a subheading that provides some extra explanation and a highly visible CTA with an obvious purpose.
There are also minimal navigation elements at the top of the page, which helps streamline things. The fewer clickable elements there are vying for a visitor’s attention, the less likely they’ll be to get lost.
This is a pretty standard way of structuring a landing page, and it works well for many businesses. The combination of short, compelling copy that doesn’t overexplain your business with an effective CTA and engaging visuals can go a long way in convincing customers.
6. Social Proof Can Make or Break a Sale
Customers are more likely to trust your brand if there’s evidence that other people have been satisfied with the products or services you offer.
Testimonials, reviews and similar evidence can go a long way in convincing customers and creating a positive first impression.
Many landing pages include quotes from satisfied customers or snippets from reviews for this reason.
Effective Landing Pages Make Good First Impressions
Visitors form their opinion about your landing page fast — which means effective design is just as important as your sales pitch or what you’re trying to offer.
These best practices can help you create strong landing pages that take advantage of good design to make a lasting first impression.
Lexie is a digital nomad and web designer. When she’s not traveling to various parts of the country, you can find her at the local flea markets or hiking with her goldendoodle. Check out her design blog, Design Roast, and connect with her on Twitter @lexieludesigner.
