5 UX Design Tips for Better Landing Pages

The purpose of UX design is to blend the art of creating an attention-grabbing website design to complement the execution of a digital strategy. When you combine these two concepts you’ll have an impressive and extremely effective landing page that interests users and motivates them to convert. We’ll discuss some of the latest UX design trends that are proving to help digital marketers complete their goals.

What is the goal of a landing page?

Before we dive into the details of UX trends for landing pages, let’s review the main purpose of these pages. Many people confuse a landing page with any webpage user experiences first when they land on your website, but they are different. Some pages are meant to lead customers through the marketing funnel and give users more information about your brand or your business. Alternatively, landing pages are specifically designed to generate conversions. These pages need to encourage behaviors that:

• Collect user contact information
• Motivate the user to click the call-to-action (CTA)
• Convert visitors to customers

There are many design and content elements you can integrate to keep users engaged on your website, hit behavior goals and win them over to do business with your company.

UX Design Tip #1: Use a Visual Hierarchy

It is very important to make your content easy for visitors to read. As much as content marketers hate to admit it, people are not reading every word in a blog. Users typically read in an “F” shaped pattern on web pages to read a small chunk of information, see if they’re interested in what you’re saying, then moving on to the next piece. They scroll and scan through your content to find what they’re looking for.

Knowing that this is how visitors prefer to gather information, you can help them collect the important takeaways from your content by adding style elements that lead them to your main points. Incorporating headings into the copy around your main topics gives users a better idea of what you’ll be discussing, and adding lists or visuals breaks up the copy so they’re not just looking at a page full of text. Including these extra elements will keep users engaged on the landing page and helps them scroll through your content to find the details or advice they need.

UX Design Tip #2: Use UX Best Practices in Your Page Copy

Our content marketers use search engine optimization (SEO) to improve our writing. SEO best practices lead to quality content pieces that will rank higher in search results and give the user a positive experience. Many of the rules for SEO are based on the user experience on your website, so it makes sense to write search-engine-optimized content. For example, a few major Google ranking factors that are a priority for UX and SEO include:

• Average Session Duration – If people are spending quality time on your page and reading through your page copy, Google assumes those users are having a good experience and will rank your page higher in search. This is why it’s also beneficial to have a lot of copy on your pages to keep users engaged longer.
• Bounce Rate & Pages per Session – These metrics indicate whether users are browsing through multiple pages of your website or only reading the page they land on before leaving. High bounce rates could be an indicator that users aren’t getting the information they’re looking for on the page, which is chalked up as a bad online experience.
• Organic Click-Through-Rate – When your content shows up in Google’s organic search results and earns valuable clicks, Google will likely reward your popular pages by increasing their rank. This gives you a better position for future searches because it signals to Google that people enjoy your content.

Although our UX consulting experts believe UX and SEO go hand-in-hand, remember you’re not just talking to search engines; you’re talking to real humans. The text on your landing page should be natural and demonstrate who you are as a brand. Content is another tool to lead your users on a journey to the end goal. Website visitors want to hear your stories and make a connection with your brand. It’s never a waste of space to explain who you are, share a customer’s experience or describe an example of what a customer can expect when they choose to do business with you. By personalizing your content and providing helpful information you are evoking positive emotions out of users, which you can use to transform them into customers. Find out more about UX and SEO best practices in our latest blog.

UX Design Tip #3: Use Color Psychology

You don’t have to be a designer to know certain colors can evoke different emotions from users. Warm colors, like red, orange and yellow, create excitement or a sense of urgency, while blues and greens are calming and natural. Keep this in mind when designing your landing pages where you expect users to convert. If you’re not sure where to start, it could be a good idea to invest in UX research. UX and design professionals will help you think about the emotion you want them to associate with your brand and your products or services, then use colors that stimulate those reactions on your website. Even the color of your background can make a difference, and many designers debate whether a white or black web background has more benefits. The truth is, it depends on your brand.

Whether your landing page is mostly black, white or gray, it’s common to have a neutral page color with the most important item on the page being a contrasting color that catches the eye. Whether it’s a form that you want customers to fill out or a button you want them to click, make sure the color guides visitors so they don’t have to guess what you want them to do or where they should click. If you’re not sure which of your brand colors will grab users attention the most, perform an A/B test. Try one color for a callout button for at least a month and keep track of the conversions you get, then switch the color and compare your results after the same amount of time has passed.

UX Design Tip #4: Optimize Your Forms

Sometimes changing the phrasing on a form or changing the number of questions you ask can have a big impact on the number of conversions you earn. With UX design on your landing page, the key is to make the conversion as easy as possible. Many businesses try to get as much information as possible out of visitors, but you might be asking too much. Long forms where you have to enter a lot of personal information could deter your visitors from completing the form, costing you a conversion. Keeping forms simple and only requesting essential information is the best way to start the sales process. You can always inquire more information once you’ve started the relationship.

Utilizing animation to guide users through the form can help increase conversions as well. Showing visitors exactly where to start and how to continue, will make it easier for them to make the purchase or sign up. Some sites have forms that have multiple pages with few choices or questions on each. As a bonus, this makes the form process more efficient for businesses because you can see exactly where your users dropped out of the process.

Additionally, it’s important to include messages and labels that are easy for users to understand. You don’t want your users to have to guess what information you’re asking for or discontinue the process because they’re confused.

UX Design Tip #5: Show Transparency and Build Trust

Users want to do business with a brand that’s open and honest with them. If they feel like you’re hiding something or not giving them all the information, they will be hesitant to convert. Your business should have easily identifiable contact information so if your users have a question, they know you’re available.

Another tactic used to build trust on your landing page is including testimonials or reviews. Knowing how to respond to Google reviews affectively and including them on your page not onlyboosts SEO value, but users are going to trust the opinions of people like themselves. People know you think your business is great, but hearing others recommend your brand will help turn users into customers. Reviews provide an opportunity to showcase how your brand responds to positive and negative feedback from customers.

Giving your customers as much information as possible will help them make better decisions and show them your brand is trustworthy. One way to demonstrate your expertise is by using a video on your landing page. The options for video marketing are endless – you can use videos to show customers the exact processes you follow when performing services, give them an example of a specific product in use, show off your company culture and much more. Many people choose not to use videos because they believe it can be too costly, but even short and simple videos can make a huge difference in customers spending more time on your landing page and completing a purchase or form.

Top UX Design Mistakes to Avoid on Your Landing Page

Competing CTAs

Our UX consultants believe landing pages should have only one or two main goals to avoid confusion. You want to make the conversion process as simple as possible for your landing page visitors because if they feel like it’s too much work to contact your brand, they could go somewhere else. It can be beneficial to create separate pages for different goals, such as contacting your business, scheduling an appointment or ordering a product. This way each event has its own goal and user experience.

Huge Blocks of Text Instead of Compelling Headings

We’ve already mentioned how formatting can make a huge difference in drawing your potential customers into your content. Try to avoid plain paragraphs of text and break things up with informative and persuasive headings. This lets users skim through the page and still learn everything they need to know about your business.

Pop-Ups or Auto Playing Videos

It’s no surprise that pop-ups can deter people away from your website and therefore cost you conversions, so if it’s unnecessary, your brand should try to avoid them. Pop-ups immediately distract users from the task that brought them to your landing page. We mentioned that videos can be a great marketing tool when they’re used correctly, but auto-playing videos can be a turn off for customers. The users will probably miss half of the video while they’re reading through your content. Similarly to pop-ups, videos can distract them from actually converting if they did not choose to play them, so it’s best to embed the video and let the customers decide if they’d like to watch it.

Slow Loading Pages

Many potential customers won’t give your website a chance if it takes more than two seconds to load the page. According to Neil Patel, a one second delay in page response can cause a 7% reduction in conversions. Customers are making decisions about brands quickly, so make sure you’re doing everything you can to keep your site speed down and boost your user experience.

How to Test If Your Landing Pages Work

Create Benchmark Metrics to Test

No matter what you’re testing, it’s important to have a benchmark to compare your progress. You can use industry bookmarks to recognize how your business matches up with brands in the same type of business. Otherwise you can create a benchmark based on your average activity and work to surpass these metrics. In Google Analytics you can see different benchmarks including the bounce rate on a landing page, or you can set up goals or events in Google Tag Manager (GTM) to track conversion and video plays. These are just a few examples of the benchmark options Google offers.

A/B Test UX Design Changes and Updates

As we previously mentioned, our UX consultants recommend A/B testing to measure the effectiveness of UX design updates. Manipulating specific parts of your website gives you a great look at what your users prefer to see on your website and what helps them convert. By performing extensive UX research with multiple A/B tests you can create the ideal user experience for your website visitors.

Track Conversions

All in all, the purpose behind UX research is to earn more conversions for your business, so make sure you’re tracking your goals to see what performs best. It’s also a great idea to test the conversions for yourself once you set them up in GTM. By filling out a form or testing a conversion you can make sure it’s tracking exactly the way you want it to, and if you run into issues your business can fix it immediately.

Learn More About UX Research From the Experts at Wetech

If you need UX consulting services for your landing pages or you’re not sure how to get your brand up-to-date with the latest UX design trends, contact Wetech. Our user experience analysts will help your business meet your users’ needs and work to get more people converting on your website. Get started with UX research today!