Landing Pages are a primary Marketing online tool. Most of the time they are the first visual element that a visitor experiences of your brand. While landing pages are usually designed to be informative, they must also focus on the action expected – completing a form, signing up to a mailing list or purchasing a product, for example.

The biggest challenge faced by the designer is to create a landing page that looks good, but also converts well.

The Mautic marketing automation platform provides the perfect technology platform to convert an anonymous visitor into a potential lead, but the designer is the person who has the power to make that happen.

• Design for the technology platform

Landing pages may be short and to the point, or they may be long-form, engaging the visitor and providing various sources of information to help the visitor come to a decision.

Whether short or long form, navigation plays a critical role in focusing the user on completing the action for which the page is intended. If your visitors will only be spending a few seconds on the page, the design elements must help them to find their way to the relevant information and action points.

As a designer, we try to convey a story through the elements we place on the page, using structure to guide the flow between different chapters in the story, and explaining points which may not be obvious to the reader.

• Design

At Virya Group our focus is on keeping things simple. Our main goal is to create theme which are clean, functional and with minimal distraction.

All our theme designs adhere to research-driven best practices related to landing pages. By dispensing with the fluff and keeping only the essential requirements, we focus on directing visitors’ attention to the appropriate page elements.

In most cases, this will be a call to action such as a button, special offer, lead capture form or video.

It is also important to cater for any eventuality. Each theme we design comes with a library of elements to choose from. This includes design guidance on everything from the weight of fonts to the styling of a table and the dimensions of images on a photo slider.

We try to ensure that we design everything with a focus on the experience of the visitor to the landing page and the flexibility that our end-users might require when customising the ‘off-the-shelf’ or bespoke themes that we provide.

• The Form

No matter what the goal of your campaign is, a great landing page needs to push your visitor to take a specific action and in many cases, this will be through a lead capture form.

The most important element of the landing page; the lead capture form presents a trigger. By this point (thanks to your awesome design work!) visitors are highly motivated to do something (complete the form) and the task now is to make sure that it is super easy, clear, and a nice experience to complete that action.

Sometimes we might add an extra convincer reminding them what they are getting when completing the form, but we always make sure the process is smooth, easy to understand and seamless.

It’s easy to forget the importance of the button on the form – but this is a vital ‘call to action’ – and an opportunity to remind the visitor what they will receive on completing the form.

From the designers perspective a good colour contrast with the background and a careful choice of wording are the two ingredients that will communicate clearly your goal and ensure the conversion takes place. Don’t just leave it at ‘submit’!

• The Language

Here we shift our attention from pixels to people. In Mautic landing pages we want to focus on using a certain language, which builds trust between the brand, product or service and the visitors.

As a designer, we need to think like the potential customers, determining what they need to see and what we want to communicate so that they fully engage with the value proposition on this landing page. We try to keep the language simple, describing why the product or service meets their needs or solves their pain-point, with no use of complex language.

Headers, sub-headers and text are structured to highlight for the reader any important messages.

Well designed Mautic landing pages allow you to communicate your value proposition clearly, without burying the visitor under piles of irrelevant information.

• Mobile First

Mautic landing pages should be designed with mobile in mind – if they are going to be used to target a mobile audience. As this segment is growing rapidly, it is an important factor when preparing visuals for a landing page.

Mobile visitors need to have the same kind of guidance throughout the page, be able to access the same resources, and have the same compulsion to complete the action as their desktop counterparts.

Designing for mobile devices is not simply about moving blocks around to fit a smaller screen, but must focus on a deep awareness of the behaviour differences on mobile as opposed to desktop devices.

• Test

With the growing importance of fast-loading web pages and a need to do everything possible to ensure a conversion when a visitor lands on your page, the overall page size is an important consideration.

Multiple studies have shown that landing pages which take a long time to load result in less conversions.

Optimisation in this regard involves a lot of testing, but also close communication between the designer and the developer to ensure that visuals are delivered in the most efficient way – for example using a single SVG image and applying CSS to select the relevant image, or making sure that the images are rendered and provided in the resolution that is required, rather than in maximum resolution.

Testing does not stop with page speed, however. Full testing should also include running A/B tests to determine the best button placement, applying design knowledge to identify the best colour choice, icons and photos, making sure that the typography is appropriate for the purpose of the page, and of course once the page is developed, ensuring legibility, navigation flows and of course interaction on any device or browser.

When the needs of the visitor are combined with the designer’s qualitative understanding of them, and a thorough understanding of the market, the results can be spectacular.

Are there other elements to landing page design that you include in your process? Please comment below! Thank you again to Betty Chatzisavvidou for allowing us to share this valuable content. For a look at the original post, click here.

One of the cornerstones of any good marketing automation system and an integral piece of creating a good system for lead nurturing is the landing page.

Landing pages are those special pages you create on your website to collect the users information and in return you provide them with some “reward”. This reward can take the form of a download, a PDF, a white paper, or any number of other resources which the user is interested in. Maybe you have an awesome video that demonstrates how to perform a task. Before the user is able to watch the video they must fill out a short unobtrusive form. The form may ask just for their name and their email address, it might ask them a few other pertinent questions if it relates directly to the item they are interested in. This landing page is gold for you. It allows you to collect relevant information directly from users who are genuinely interested in what you’re offering. There’s a level of commitment the user must be willing to make to fill out a form in exchange for what you give them. This page which we’ve just defined is a landing page. And you may begin to see already why I refer to it as gold. Landing pages are golden opportunities. But if you’re not careful and if you don’t construct a good landing page then they will be wasted opportunities. Let’s look now at those things which make a strong and highly engaging landing page.

1. A Single Strong Focus

The focus of the page is one of the first things to consider when creating a landing page. Your landing page should convey a clear, easy to understand purpose. Why do you want the user to visit this page and what is the reason they are here. Answer this question and only this question. This may be the hardest part of the entire process. Do not overcomplicate the purpose for this page. Take your time and determine what the single most important reason for the page. When you come up with other ideas (and trust me you will) write them down somewhere else as other potential landing pages. Once you have defined your focus write out your page content. Remember the goal here is to keep it simple, concise and to the point. Keep your sentences short and a minimum number of paragraphs. Here’s some good examples.

RightSignature does a great job of focusing the purpose of a page to a single form. Good graphics and a simple form drive the user to a single action.

Wistia gives a great video overview (which is good since they’re a video company) and a very easy one form field button.

Acquia may ask for a few more fields but you can easily understand the purpose of the page and what you would receive in return for filling out their form.

2. A Simple Call to Action

As you write your content you will want to keep in mind what is the action you want the user to take? In most cases you’re probably going to want them to fill out a form so you can collect some information about them. But that’s not always the only call to action. Maybe you want the user to sign up for a newsletter, or schedule a meeting. Regardless of the specifics of the action your landing page needs a simple call to action. Don’t overcomplicate the call to action, don’t obscure the call to action. You don’t want your user to be confused with what they should do when they arrive on your landing page and a clear call to action will keep them comfortable that they are in control and they know what they should do. Here are a few great simple call to actions.

It doesn’t get more simple than a single button. Zoho has simplified their call to action all the way down to a single button on their landing page.

Shopify lets you create your online store with only an email and your name. Again, the focus on a very simple and yet effective call to action.

3. A Low Commitment Level

This third tip for showing your landing page some love involves making your page have a very low commitment level. You want the user to complete the call to action. If you make the page easy to understand, give the user the steps they should complete and provide them a means to do so without taking too much effort you will have a much higher conversion rate. The user may have just met your company, they may not know you or what you offer and they don’t want to jump immediately into an intense relationship. If you think about your landing page as a commitment then you want to make that commitment as easy and as simple as possible. This will reassure your user and make them more comfortable with introducing themselves. Take a look at these low commitment landing pages.

The process of shopping for car insurance can be a bit overwhelming. Geico makes their landing page simple with a very low commitment by only asking for a zip code on the first page to get you started.

Podio also makes the experience very easy by only requesting an email address. They reiterate the fact that your sign-up is completely free emphasizing the fact that the commitment is minimal.

4. A Quick Reward

Once your user has read your landing page, followed your simple call to action and made that initial commitment then they need to be rewarded and rewarded quickly. This reward is the original resource, asset or item the page originally promised. In the example given above this is the video the user came to the page to view. Providing an immediate reward is the best way to reinforce the commitment the user has made and reassure them to be confident in their decision. When you create your landing page keep this end result in mind. Be sure you are rewarding those users who are completing your call to action. This one is a bit harder to show real examples but I believe it’s rather self-evident as well.

Landing pages are a powerful resource to generate new leads for your business. Landing pages provide valuable information to you but also to your users. They receive something and you receive something. It’s a wonderful start to a potential long-term relationship. Don’t neglect this opportunity and show your landing pages some love. I hope these 4 tips will give you some ideas to help you create amazing landing pages.