Unity, Clarity and Speed for Powerful Landing Pages

Do you know how long you’ve got to grab your visitor once he’s arrived on your landing page?

The exact time of course depend on an array of factors but the common response to that question in three seconds. That’s three brief moments you have to convince the user he’s arrived at the right place and you’re someone worth doing business with. Fail to do that and he’ll click away.

When you consider how much effort it took to attract that visitor, that’s painful. Whether you spend money on a pay per click ad or put in the time and effort optimising your site to rank well, it’s money down the drain if it doesn’t convert.

It gets worse. When he clicks away, you haven’t just lost a customer. You’re also sending a message to Google that you don’t have what the searcher is looking for and that’s negative for your rankings.

Making an Impression

Clearly you have to make a major first impression on your visitor and persuade him to stick around.

Among the key first impressions you need to make is stating clearly who you are what you offer and stand for. This should be apparent in your header graphic and tag line. Next you should apply the three criteria of unity, clarity and speed.

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Unity

Does your landing page express one big idea? Your visitor arrived there for a purpose. Does his first view of your landing page convince him you’re offering what he wants?

Offer him too much choice he’ll get confused and leave. Everything on that landing page should be designed to achieve one major goal whether a sale, sign up or comment.

If you’re creating a website for an online vendor or retailer, Amazon is a good model to follow. In their “customers who bought this also bought” section, they limit the offerings to six.

Clarity

Web users come with varying degrees of online skill and experience and you need to cater for them all. It’s always good design and architecture policy to simplify menus and make navigation clear. Then use clear bullet points to present your key information.

Speed

Today’s web users are busy and spoilt for choice so be sure your site loads fast. Very few surfers will wait around for your beautiful graphics to load so make sure your images are optimised.

Whatever you do, don’t hit your visitors with an annoying pop up asking for his email address as soon as he arrives. You need to build trust and demonstrate value first.

If your landing page is under-performing and you have a high bounce rate, try examining it in terms of the above criteria. It could be just what you need.

When you’re looking for specialist web designers, Sydney’s Smart Media offers a comprehensive set of professional services including, SEO, design, online advertising, and digital marketing. Get in touch today.

About Nathanael Vanderkolk

Nathanael Vanderkolk is the Director of the Smart SEO Company, a SEO Agency in Sydney, Australia. Smart SEO Sydney has a keen awareness of the latest approaches to online marketing. Follow him on , Facebook and Twitter.
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