What makes a landing page great

If they enjoy the video they've received, they might be more likely to respond to or purchase a product from a company rep who calls them. In another scenario, a publishing company that targets an audience of chief executives might create a landing page that invites audiences to sign up for a webinar hosted by an executive at a major company.

After giving their email address on the signup form presented on the landing page, the leads get an email with the webinar dates and log in information, as well as instructions on how to sign up for the publication's newsletter or subscription. If the user is pleased by the webinar, they might sign up for the newsletter or a subscription to keep up with similar publication content.

Although their purpose is simple enough in theory, actually designing a successful landing page requires some detailed planning and creative testing.

Even after launching your landing page, you'll want to pay attention to conversion rates to see how well it's doing. According to WordStream, the average landing page conversion rate is 2. To determine your conversion rate, simply divide the number of conversions a webpage generates by the number of people who visited that page.

If your conversion rate isn't close to the average just yet, don't worry. Nailing those percentages can be a bit challenging at first, especially is you have a lot of regular page visitors.

Luckily, there are a number of simple conversion rate optimization strategies that can help you boost your current rate quickly. Regardless of what your business is selling or the conversion action you hope to instigate, it's helpful to get inspired by seeing what other great landing pages look like. We don't have access to the analytics for each of these landing pages, so I can't tell you specifically how well they convert visitors, contacts, leads, and customers.

But many of them do follow best practices while also implementing a few new experiments that could give you ideas for your own landing pages. We love that on Lyft's landing page, they zero in on their drivers' main motivation: earning money easily. We also love that, in addition to the "Apply Now" form, drivers can type their city and the number of hours they might drive for Lyft in a week to calculate how much they'd make.

When visitors fill out that information and press "Calculate," they aren't taken to a new page. Instead, they see a dollar amount followed by a new call-to-action button to "Apply Now" which, once clicked, takes drivers up to the form. By offering these two conversion paths, they're able to address two different types of people in the conversion path: those who are ready to make the decision now and those who need a little more information before they convert.

Okay, so the whole idea of having a professional wingman to help you find dates and a meaningful relationship is already pretty cool. But when you're faced with the prospect of hiring one, it also raises questions. How does it work? How much does it cost? Is this really going to help me? That's why we love this landing page for Thomas Edwards, the original Professional Wingman himself, which outlines exactly what a complimentary coaching session is going to achieve.

Plus, it's clear that it's complimentary, thanks to the boldly-colored call-to-action button above the fold. Once you click that button, you aren't taken to a new page. Instead, an interstitial form appears right there. And while it does request a lot of information -- some of it a bit personal -- it also sends the message that The Professional Wingman is going to take this seriously, but only if you do, too. This landing page design has it all. It's visually appealing and interactive, offers scannable yet descriptive headers about Muck Rack's services, and uses quotes from industry professionals as social proof.

Plus, the page is intuitive and easy to navigate. The cool part about this landing page is that it can appeal to both of Muck Rack's audiences.

The top of the page is split into two, featuring their two different services side by side. Once a visitor moves his or her mouse over either of the "find journalists" or the "build free portfolio" CTAs, a very simple form appears -- and that's important, so as not to distract the user from the task at hand.

There are a few things that make this Cigital landing page work. It has simple and relevant imagery. The headline is straightforward and the description of the ebook informs viewers of the specific value they will get by downloading it.

Create eye catching headlines. Most good landing pages use the main headline to confirm the offer and use a sub heading for more explanation or value proposition aka why your offer is awesome. Contain engaging copy. Try these mind-bending words on your landing page.

Make it about the visitor. Showcase what you can do for them and how you can improve their life. We are selfish creatures after all. Make use of video where appropriate. Video landing pages can make complex products more accessible and entertain your visitors at the same time. Have an awesome offer.

The easiest way to get conversions is to simply have an offer that is incredible. Make sure your offer is enticing enough to users and that it is something they actually desire. Are easy to scan at a quick glance. When building a landing page , make it easy to scan by highlighting your main point in the headline while using sub headings and bullet points for added info.

Use fonts and colors to indicate information hierarchy. As Jakob Nielsen notes , your page visitors are wild, frantic animals looking for a quick meal, so serve it up fast! Contain relevant, quality images. Bright, eye-catching images make for a more attractive page and a better user experience overall. Consider adding visual cues to clue the visitor in to what they should do next. You can go the obvious route with arrows, or try something more subtle such as making a bright button the focal point of the page.

Look gorgeous and act classy. Looks may not be everything, but they do count for something in landing page design. Your landing page should not come off creepy, it should come off super classy. If the visitor is a chick in a bar, you want to wow her and take her home…. Match the corresponding ad text. Only ask for the information they need.

This tip also appears in our post on creating killer "coming soon" landing pages. The more fields you ask visitors to fill out in your form, the less chance you have of them completing your offer. If your conversion requires a form, get the bare minimum of what you need — you can always ask for more info on the thank you page once the deed is done. The rule of thumb is not to include more than seven fields in your lead gen form on your landing page.

Use color to their advantage. Any Intro to Art student can explain the power of color in swaying human perception. Interior design books will often suggest different colors for various rooms and moods — energizing red for a dining room to inspire dynamic conversation, yellow for a cheerful, relaxed kitchen.

This landing page design tip can help increase conversion rates. Remember earlier when I said you only get eight seconds to make an impression on visitors?

Well, in general, people process images quicker than text, so incorporating them on your landing page works to your advantage. If using an image or images, especially a banner or header image, it should be attention-grabbing and complement your offer in visual form.

You can embed a video on your page as the visual element as well. Videos are great for demonstrating complex offerings like software, for example. Will it be through email marketing? A monthly newsletter? Social media posts? Maybe Google Ads? This can help you track things like which traffic sources were successful. If you decide to do this per-traffic source route, keep the landing page design similar to the source. But to really make your landing page pop?

It turns out that neither eye gazes nor arrows can be ignored. And encourage our natural propensity for nosiness. That evolutionary trait still characterizes our peripheral vision. Interestingly, this can be especially impactful if your demographic skews male.

Men pick up on motion faster than women do, science says. They — and the elements on your landing page — need room to breathe. Finally, add movement. Featured Image: Pixabay All screenshots taken by author, November His content has been highlighted by SEJ » Digital Experience.