What Makes a Great Landing Page?
If you’ve ever been on the strip of Las Vegas, you know how overwhelming it can be. The number of flashy lights, the club promoters swarming you, or the call to action, such as buy a Twisted Freeze and get a free chalupa. While this experience can be thrilling, you can end up leaving as a result of too much to choose from.
Similarly, we’ve all had this experience when browsing the internet. Whether it be too many calls to action (CTA), misleading navigation, or an overload of social proofing. When it comes to the landing page, the simpler the better. You’re trying to keep your customers on the site, not scare them away with a half off light show at MGM grand nightclub… but we digress.
In today’s world, sometimes we can find ourselves overloaded with so many choices, that we end up choosing nothing. That’s why it is crucial to design a great and simple landing page that provides value, creates consistency, offers social proofing, and thought-provoking UX writing.
We’ve broken down the keys that should be at the core of every landing page:
Simple UI
Uncluttered white space is essential to any great landing page. The CTA button could fly around the page freely. It should feel like a breath of fresh air. Poorly designed UI can result in frustrated customers and potential customers will be lost.
Airbnb homepage
Airbnb is always a great example of showcasing clean and simple UI design. This landing page gives users the ability to quickly find, and search for a place to stay, right at the top of the page. They provide users with a visible yet subtle search bar. There is enough room to fit in the important pieces of information when searching for a place. You don’t find yourself digging around for information, everything is immediately clear. While the search bar is easily accessible, Airbnb provides a visual to explore something new. It’s not overwhelming but it encourages the user with a call to action that’s accompanied by a beautiful visual.
Value Proposition
Users shouldn’t have to work hard to understand what a website is offering. They will most likely not work hard to give you their money and time. Providing users with the benefits front and center can be very important to retain customers.
It should be specific, what are the specific benefits your target customer will receive? It’s pain-focused, how will your product fix the customer’s problem or improve their life? And it’s exclusive, how well does it highlight your competitive advantage and set you apart from competitors?
Slack Homepage
Slack, the popular workplace productivity and messaging app focus on proving their credibility and productivity through their website. Slack provides value to users by stating how they set themselves apart from their competitors. For example, the website shows users that it has “All your tools in one place.” It is evident that simplicity is at the core of Slack’s value proposition.
Slack Value Proposition
In this example, Slack again reinforces the simplicity of their services and slack does just that. They understand that they don’t want to overwhelm their users and stick with their value proposition of simplicity, with “one platform for your team and your work.”
Slack addresses several common pain points while presenting everything on their website effortlessly. Their mantra of “Be Less Busy” is nicely summarized with their clear and concise.
Consistency
Consistency throughout a website is a known key to success. This can help predict a user’s assumptions about the interface, creating a sense of familiarity and dependability. It increases usability, gets rid of any possible confusion, and evokes a pleasant experience.
Duolingo Website
provides consistency through its website and mobile application. Elements within such as the buttons, typefaces, colors, and illustrations are visually consistent throughout, creating a sense of ease for users. This makes it easier for users to navigate through the product.
Social Proofing
Most people will reference the behavior of others to guide their own behavior. Whether we admit it or not, we tend to look at reviews or star ratings of a product to justify or feel comfortable with a purchase. On landing pages, social proofing can increase credibility as well as stimulate adoption and acceptance.
Zoom
Zoom displays social proofing on their landing page stating “ Zoom is Ranked #1 in Customer Reviews.” This provides users with the ability to see how other customers have liked or disliked their services. Again, providing that comfort and reassurance that they too could have a positive experience with the product.
Killer UX Writing
It’s safe to say that even before you start putting writing on the landing page, you have to know the target audience, narrow down a style guide, and understand the goals of the company and product. This way we can tie UX writing back to our other landing page key, consistency.
Ux writing is like having a dialogue with the user. Figuring out how you want to go about having that conversation is crucial to making the user feel comfortable on a landing page.
Headspace
Headspace speaks with the customers very well. They manage to speak with customers in one clear voice across multiple channels. They make this evident even on their privacy policy page, as their tone comes across in a calm and welcoming manner.
They maintain a warm tone throughout their website, not pushing the user but offering to teach them about meditation in a quick summary. The user can understand the benefits of what Headspace is providing because their UX writing is clear and concise.
Different strokes, for different folks
We believe that all of these keys are at the core of creating a great landing page. While these will help tackle your next creation, each scenario is different depending on your audience so it’s best to mold these tips to your specific scenario. We can confidently say that with these examples, you will have an easier time creating a stellar landing page.
If you are looking for the right agency to help you with your landing page journey, Black Flag Creative is dedicated to helping you sail the rough seas of the digital world as smooth and calmly as possible. Whether you need a landing page, custom web design or even an app, Black Flag Creative can pave the way for you and your digital presence.
