The Clickable Search Engine Marketing Blog

Over the past month and a half, I’ve read each of Hanny’s weekly posts about building effective landing pages. In fact, I got to read them before just about anybody else. As Clickable’s graphic designer, it’s my job (among many other things) to take the Word doc he sends along and put it into the email template you see each week. But as I read these posts, I couldn’t help feeling that something was missing. Tips about how to tell users that your offer will solve their problems? Check. Tips about how to describe your offer? Check. Tips about how to provide support? Check.

But there was one thing I didn’t see in this series about landing pages: any mention of design! I had to step in.

Graphic design is obviously a huge and complex topic, but have no fear: this isn’t going to be a primer on everything from typeface to photo crops. Just five tips that you can immediately use to make cleaner, more attractive landing pages:

1. Whitespace is your friend

The first and easiest mistake you can make in graphic design is to feel that you need to "fill up the space." You don’t. Rather than starting with a blank slate and trying to fill it up, figure out exactly what elements you need on the page, and position them in the cleanest, most attractive way possible. As in the design below, this often means surrounding particularly important elements - like phone numbers and contact forms - with a good deal of whitespace. It makes them more prominent, and draws the user's eye to places you want them to focus.

2. Avoid light type on dark backgrounds

Perhaps because it was a default option in the early days of blogging, a surprisingly large number of Web sites use light type against dark backgrounds. Whatever the reason for this trend, avoid it. If you’ve spent time following Hanny’s tips about what to write for your landing pages, you don’t want the words obscured by the background. Dark type on light backgrounds is easier to read than light type on dark, and the text on your landing page must be easy to read.

3. Clearly set out your headlines and subheaders

Some words on your pages are more important than others, and this should be clear from the design. In the example below, "Elevated Member Benefits," "Elevated Markets" and "Elevated Technology" are the high-level points the page is communicating. For users who want more details, there are bullet points below. But, the really important stuff is in larger, more prominent type, just like it should be.

4. Don't use Flash

By using Flash for all or a portion of your landing ipage, you are asking the user to wait for your message. Those with slow connections might not want to wait for it load and leave before they ever see it. Others might have Flash turned off, or never installed in the first place. The sooner everything loads, the sooner your message can be seen-and a conversion made.

5. Don’t clutter your page with too many images or icons

Use images and photos, but not too many. Graphical elements are the most prominent parts of any landing page (sorry writers!) but the effect is lost if there are too many. A logo, a photo or two, maybe a few clear icons that help communicate your points - that should about do it. Anything else will be an unnecessary distraction.

Of course, this is a very short list about a very long topic. What have you found to be the most important elements of an attractive landing page?