The money you spend on paid ads is wasted if you’re sending great traffic to bad landing pages. A person who sees your business for the first time may not return if they’re greeted by a confusing or poorly designed landing page. This means you’re burning cash to attract viewers to your products, then exhausting those potential customers and having to start over.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is a webpage with a specific goal, usually to generate conversions in the form of leads or sales. If you think of your homepage as your physical store, landing pages are like temporary shops or farmer’s market stalls. The homepage is targeted at people who already know your brand and your website address. However, the landing page is created for a specific purpose or audience, typically due to a marketing campaign or paid traffic.
How to Build Landing Pages Around Your Audience’s Needs
While we share template recommendations for designing landing pages that achieve higher conversion rates, they are intended to be a starting point based on your target audience and their unique needs.
Conducting conversion research to gain foundational insights is a crucial part of setting up your landing pages for success, according to conversion rate optimization consultant Michael Aghard. Conversion research typically includes things like user testing, web traffic source analysis, copy testing, and surveys.
“People often forget that the landing page is part of the larger user journey,” says Michael. “As a result, they end up wasting time tweaking shiny things that don’t really matter. There are many other factors, besides the landing page itself, that influence the user’s decision-making process – everything from the ad source and device to the level of awareness and motivation. The better you understand these aspects, the higher your chances of making the right decisions and creating landing pages that truly drive more conversions.”
Analyzing Web Traffic Source and Device
Building a landing page based on the device a person is shopping on is a way to begin conversion research. Look at your site analytics to see where your web traffic is coming from and what types of devices your visitors are using.
If most of your customers are coming to your site on a mobile device, you’ll want to optimize your landing pages for a great mobile experience. Alternatively, if you find that your customers prefer using desktop, you’ll be better equipped to build a landing page that enhances the desktop experience.
Nick Sharma, CEO of Sharma Brands, recommends digging deeper into that traffic to understand what platform people came from – whether that’s TikTok, Facebook, a blog article, etc.
“Failing to make your pages relevant to the context they came from will lead to increased bounce rates and decreased overall return on ads,” he says. This kind of contextual listening enhances the overall customer experience and lays the best practices below for better success.
Understanding When Best Practices Fail
The tips mentioned in this article have worked for experts who have tested and evolved them. But beware of implementing these design elements without understanding how they relate to your overarching goals. Ben Labay, CEO of Speero by CXL, warns that “best practices fail when they lose context with the business strategy.”
Understanding what your target audience wants and needs is foundational to building landing pages that achieve high conversion rates.
Michael says, “The better you understand your target audience, the better you can build landing pages. Don’t let yourself be swayed by the latest design trends; make sure you have all the basics in place and perform thorough user research so you can make informed decisions that influence behavior instead of just tweaking the page layout.”
Thinking
In the Flow of Information Across the Entire Landing Page
Focus on the flow of information across the entire page rather than just the design at the top and bottom of the page – the process of showcasing everything a user can see on your landing page without needing to scroll down.
Regardless of what works best for your clients, you will always want to be deliberate about the type of text and content you place at the top of any landing page. But, as Michael says, “Trying to cram too much content into the above-the-fold area often leads to a very cluttered experience that overwhelms the user with too much information.”
Instead, he states, “Marketers should think less about ‘above the fold’ and more about the hierarchy of information and the flow of content on the landing page as a whole.”
Consider the following questions as you build your landing pages. The answers will rely on your understanding of the overall user journey of your target audience and the role you want the landing page to play.
- Does it answer the right questions and address the right obstacles?
- Does it manage expectations and follow up on the “promises” made in the ad source?
- Does it present the content in the right order and build momentum toward the conversion goal?
Key Elements of an Effective Landing Page Design
Now let’s break down the essential elements that go into creating a landing page design. It’s worth noting that not all the landing page design suggestions mentioned here will work for your clients. What you choose largely depends on your target audience and their needs. Identify the elements you need to achieve the greatest success – you don’t have to use them all!
1. Above the Fold Content
The top section of the page is the area that can be seen without scrolling, and it varies based on the device being used, whether it’s a computer screen, tablet, or mobile phone, which differ in screen size from model to model. Generally, it is about 600 pixels high from the top of the browser window.
Not all visitors to your landing page will scroll down, whether they are on desktop or mobile. In fact, the majority of site visitors likely won’t scroll at all.
2. Landing Page Copy
Your landing page copy consists of the words on the page, including product descriptions, calls to action, headlines, and meta title and descriptions. Use a bold headline that focuses on the problem to kick off your landing page.
When writing your landing page copy, consider the customer voice. Use reviews and social media, and incorporate the words and phrases your audience uses into your landing page copy.
Remember to showcase benefits over features. For instance, if your landing page promotes a waterproof phone case, explain how people can take photos while swimming when highlighting the IP water resistance rating.
Finally, your landing page copy should be written in accordance with your brand voice. Consistency is crucial, even when it comes to targeted promotions and campaigns.
3. Images and Colors
Similar to text, images, fonts, and colors should be consistent with the brand. While you may have more flexibility in landing page design, it’s still important to provide a cohesive brand experience across all touchpoints.
Your landing page design should take into account colors and fonts, as well as provide space for well-placed images. Many people start with their landing page text and then develop the visual assets to ensure harmony between the text and images. Remember that images can also include illustrations and videos in addition to product photos.
4.
Customer Reviews
One of the simplest yet most impactful changes made by Ezra Firestone, founder of Smart Marketer and co-founder and CEO of BOOM by Cindy Joseph, was placing customer testimonials at the top of the box rather than the product name.
Here’s what it looks like:
The customer review is clearly displayed, adding social proof to persuade users to convert.
The quotes at the top build trust without leaving people searching for reviews, allowing your current customers to speak for you. Just be sure to select quotes that directly address a benefit or pain point that each product solves.
Additionally, consider including an entire section dedicated to your customer testimonials so that shoppers can read opinions from actual people who have bought your products. Make sure to display some bad reviews and mid-level reviews so that others can get a full understanding of what they like and what they don’t.
5. Call to Action (CTA)
Every landing page needs a call to action to be effective. The CTA should drive users to take the action you want them to take. Depending on your landing page, the CTA could say something like “Learn More” or “Buy Now” or “Sign Up.” You may also include pricing information here, if relevant.
If you’re wondering where to place the call to action, that also depends on your audience’s needs. You’ll determine that based on testing the placement of the CTA to see what drives conversion rates best. Generally, you’ll want to have a CTA at the top of the page and throughout the landing page, depending on how long the page is.
Landing Page Design Examples
Let’s take a look at some real landing page design examples for inspiration for your own page.
1. Brightland
Brightland sells premium extra virgin olive oil from California. It has received positive praise from magazines like Women’s Health, which they use in their paid social media ads.
Brightland uses a product bundle page as a landing page. The design is simple and clear, showcasing the factors that set it apart upfront. It also highlights the five-star rating.
2. Olipop
Olipop sells healthy beverages with plant-based ingredients and prebiotics to support healthy digestion. In this example of a Facebook ad, it directs users straight to the product page, rather than a separate landing page. The design is bright, fun, clean, and simple – all features of Olipop’s visual brand identity.
3. Path
Path is a virtual photo editing studio with a Shopify website. Path offers basic product photo editing services. One of the channels they use to market and communicate with customers is email. Path has a dedicated landing page to drive email newsletter sign-ups.
You can see that the page is clearly focused on the goal – increasing sign-ups – and does not provide much distraction to hinder achieving that goal. The page is not easily accessible from the company’s site, but it can drive targeted campaigns to promote newsletter sign-ups to this page.
How to Create the Best Landing Page Design
You have caught the attention of a potential customer, and now you have a few seconds to communicate what makes your brand and products unique. It’s a tall order to convey that in a few words or images, and even harder when prospects have little context about your brand.
Here’s how to design better landing pages that achieve higher conversion rates:
1. Optimize the checkout box for conversions
Ezra considers the checkout box to be the most important part of your product landing pages. It’s a real box on the page that contains a significantly improved set of conversion assets including the purchase button. What is the checkout box?
Box
The purchase is a small part of every landing page that needs to have a big impact. It’s simply the conversion engine for your landing page.
In general, when looking at it on desktop, the purchase box includes a set of product images on the left, your summary and sales copy, pricing, rating stars, and a purchase button or Shop Pay button with the unique offer for sale below the button on the right. Below is an example of a purchase box on desktop.
2. Capturing Stunning Product Images
The images you include of your products are likely the only thing potential buyers have when considering purchasing your products, especially if you are a direct-to-consumer brand. Images are how the buyer imagines the item without being able to preview it themselves. If you don’t capture the photography to fully showcase how amazing your products are, it will be very hard for customers to do the same.
3. Expanding Product Descriptions
The product description you include in the purchase box should be a concise text that immediately clarifies what your product actually is. You have more space below the page to provide details that directly address any objections that may prevent the customer from completing the purchase.
The eyewear company Peepers excels at this: at the top of the page, there are plenty of product images, and below you will find the details and description that mention all the benefits of using Peepers lenses.
4. Including Testimonials and Unique Selling Propositions
Testimonials go a long way with shoppers, and some won’t buy any product without them. Rabbit Hole testimonials, non-GMO product claims, or certified B Corp recognition are three examples. If you have any certifications, place them on your landing page.
You likely have some amazing unique selling propositions (USPs) for your products. If you haven’t written them yet, take some time to develop what makes your product different from the competition. This exercise takes time, but your USP copy will influence how your brand is positioned in the market overall and how you organize your landing pages.
5. Adding a Suggested Products Section
You have the shopper’s attention; why not sell additional products they will love? If they see something they like, you’re providing a quick and easy way to add it to the cart. You can add a component to your store to do this. If you’re using Shopify, ReConvert Upsell & Cross Sell, Honeycomb Upsell & Cross Sell, and One Click Upsell – Zipify OCU are all great apps you can check out.
6. Including a Trust Bar and Reason Section
Has your brand been mentioned in a press outlet like Forbes, The New York Times, or Wired? Displaying those logos on your landing pages with quotes from the articles is known as a “trust bar.” Those publications add credibility to your brand, and mentioning them goes a long way with shoppers looking for more information.
The reason section is another section that Nick created. Instead of embedding the reasons to buy your product throughout the landing page text, Nick recommends highlighting it clearly in its own designated section. The title could simply be “Why [Your Business Name]?” with a paragraph of benefits below. Or you could choose some icons that represent the different key factors of your brand and write text to accompany each one.
Testing Your Landing Page Design
Once you have landing pages that are working and receiving meaningful traffic to your site, you can start testing different parts of your landing page design to ensure it’s converting at the highest possible rate.
It’s not just about finding the best-performing phrase; however, Ben notes that “if you are testing, you won’t want to test opinion proof, but rather test hypotheses related to customer problems or business opportunities directly.”
He says
Ben, tests should be directly proportional to the factors associated with the growth of your business model. If you want to acquire more customers, monetize your Instagram, or retain current customers, the landing page testing experience and hypotheses should change accordingly.
Creating a Beautiful Landing Page Design Using Shopify
Shopify has all the tools, apps, integrations, and templates you need to start designing your landing pages. Start from scratch or with a template, customize it to fit your unique brand, and manage everything from anywhere. You can also browse thousands of Shopify apps to add features and functionalities to your landing page, helping you increase conversion rates and maximize your investment.
Are you ready to build your business? Start your free Shopify trial – no credit card required.
Frequently Asked Questions About Landing Page Design
What is landing page design?
Landing page design is a web page designed to convert visitors into leads or customers. It has a specific goal and is designed with a clear purpose in mind. Landing pages are often used to collect leads, promote products or services, or provide information to potential customers. They typically include a form to collect contact information, a headline, and a call to action.
How to create a landing page?
Choose a platform like Shopify or Squarespace to create your landing page. Design your page with a headline, a call to action, and any other necessary elements. Use an effective headline. It should be concise and engaging. Add content to your page, such as images, videos, and testimonials. Use keywords and best practices for SEO to ensure that your landing page can be discovered by search engines. Test your landing page and optimize it based on the results.
What should a landing page consist of?
A landing page typically consists of a headline, a brief introduction, a call to action, and a form for visitors to submit their contact information. In addition, a landing page may include additional elements such as videos, images, customer testimonials, offers, and more. Ultimately, the goal of a landing page is to generate leads, so it should be designed to collect as much information as possible.
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