11 Best Practices for High-Converting Landing Pages

Users take only 0.05 seconds to judge a website. That means your landing page, the strategic pitstop designed to convert visitors into customers, needs to slay from the get-go.

By this we mean, it has to be so good that when your ideal customer strolls onto your landing page, they’re not lost and confused, but pumped and ready to take action—either to throw their credit cards into the ring or at least click that enticing sign-up button.

How exactly do you make this happen? The answer is in the landing page design. Lucky for you, we’ve rounded up the top landing page best practices that experts (like us!) use to create high-converting landing pages that transform casual passersby into paying customers.

Let’s get started!

1. Don’t Bury the Good Stuff 

The area immediately visible without scrolling (a.k.a. “above the fold”) is prime real estate on your landing page. Rule one of landing page best practices is to maximize the use of this space—this is where you want your main value proposition, call-to-action, and other relevant info to live. 

You want to make it instantly clear what you’re offering and what the visitor needs to do next. The average human has an attention span of about 8.25 seconds, so if you don’t capture their attention by then, you can just say goodbye to your conversions.

With that said, if you nail the above-the-fold content, you increase the chances they’ll eagerly scroll further.

2. Use Strategic Visual Cues 

Speaking of scrolling—did you know you can influence visitor eye movement by using strategic visual cues like arrows, contrasting colors, whitespace, and image positioning? 

Keep this landing page best practice in mind next time you want to create a good landing page: subconscious directional signals can subtly guide visitors’ gaze toward your desired focal points and call to action. 

When implemented skillfully, these landing page elements work behind the scenes to create a smooth, intuitive user journey that funnels attention exactly where you want it.

3. Show Off With Product/Service Demos

When it comes to best practices for landing pages, telling is good, but showing is phenomenal, so let your product or service visuals do some of the heavy lifting. 

Embed product demos, screenshots, videos, or interactive visuals that give visitors a tangible feel for what you’re offering. Tapping into this “try before you buy” psychology makes the difference between what’s a high-converting landing page and what’s not.

Pro tip: You can take this a step further by leveraging the power of influencer marketing. Seeing real people they trust interact with your product can build trust and authenticity, making your landing page design (and thus your offering) more relatable.

4. Flaunt Stellar Social Proof 

These days, social proof comes in clutch for building trust and credibility with prospects. To make high-converting landing pages, sprinkle in glowing testimonials, customer logos/videos, trust badges, media mentions—anything that establishes you as a legit, respected industry player. 

Just make sure it feels authentic; people can sniff out phony reviews. 

Pro tip: Don’t underestimate the power of real customer experiences! Feature high-quality user-generated content (UGC) like customer testimonials, product photos, or short video reviews directly on your landing page. This adds a personal touch and builds trust with potential buyers.

Read more: Why Are Video Landing Pages So Effective? (+Examples)

5. Let All Roads Lead to CTA 

One of the key landing page best practices you need to remember for your next marketing campaigns is to keep the design free of obstructions. A good landing page design should be a one-track experience free of distracting menus, links, and navigation that could derail potential customers from clicking the CTA button.

Remove unnecessary links and any other exit points. You want all roads to lead directly to your desired call-to-action with no tempting exits along the way. 

6. Write Clear and Persuasive Copy

With your visitor’s attention firmly captured by your visual appeal and social proof, it’s time for the copy to deliver the knockout punch. Speak to your target audience’s pain points, desires, and aspirations to forge an emotional connection that’s sure to upgrade your conversion rate.

Here are some best practices for a great landing page copy:

• Keep things clear, benefit-driven, and easy to scan with tactical formatting like subheads, bullet points, and callouts. 
• Use persuasive power words that tap into buyers’ emotional drivers. 
• Avoid overcooking it with cheesy hype or fluff.
• Don’t be afraid to inject some personality into it.

7. Prioritize Lightning-Fast Load Times 

Sluggish pages are a conversion rate killer, plain and simple. In fact, conversion rates drop by an average of 2.11% for every additional second that a page takes to load. That’s why one of the most crucial landing page best practices is to ensure your landing page loads fast.

Optimize images, enable browser caching, minimize redirects—do whatever it takes to ensure your landing page loads at lightning speed. If visitors encounter lag, you can bet they’ll be heading for the exits before fully engaging.

Read more: Checklist for Improving Website Speed Performance

8. Optimize for Tiny Screens 

Mobile accounts for over half of website traffic these days, so your desktop landing page design isn’t going to cut it. If you want a conversion rate machine, ensure your landing page sections render flawlessly and are thumb-friendly on every mobile device through rigorous testing and optimization. 

You’ll lose massive conversions otherwise!

9. Keep Forms Short

Landing pages are great tools for lead generation, but cumbersome forms can slam the brakes on conversions faster than a flat tire on a highway. One of the top landing page best practices to ensure your landing page functions as it should is to make collecting leads stupidly simple with ultra-brief forms.

Remember, the easier it is for visitors to complete your form, the more likely they are to convert. Here are some tips to make a good landing page form:

• Pre-populate fields with information you already have about the visitor, like their email address if they came from targeted marketing campaigns.
• Provide alternative sign-up methods like social logins (Facebook, Google) to reduce the need for manual form filling.
• Use progress bars or visual cues to show visitors how far they are through the form-filling process to keep them motivated to complete it.

10. ABT: Always Be Testing

The quest for a high-converting landing page is never truly over. If the goal is continuous improvement, one of the best practices for landing page design is continuous testing. 

Run A/B and split tests to tinker with versions of your headlines, layouts, CTAs, and other landing page elements to see what performs best. Then keep tweaking relentlessly based on conversion data and visitor behavior insights until you’ve squeezed out every ounce of effectiveness.

11. Stay Consistent and On-Brand 

Imagine clicking on a Facebook ad promising “Effortless Email Marketing” only to land on a page about website analytics software. Talk about a confusing experience!

When someone clicks through from an ad or marketing email to your landing page, the last thing you want is for them to feel misled or confused. Landing page best practices tell you to keep your messaging consistent across all channels to ensure a smooth transition from ad to landing page. 

The headline, images, and copy should align with the initial promise that drove visitors there in the first place. This builds trust and reinforces that they’ve arrived in the right spot—and that’s exactly what you want!

Launch High-Converting Landing Pages With The Influence Agency 

These landing page best practices are best seen in action. Why do it alone when you can enlist the masters of conversion rate optimization?

At The Influence Agency, we eat, sleep, and breathe landing pages that convert like crazy. Our team of digital marketing and web development experts has years of experience meticulously crafting and optimizing landing page designs that keep visitors glued and guide them seamlessly toward your goals.

Let the experts show you how it’s done. Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help you create high-converting landing pages!

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