26 Sep 08 Simplicity Sells: Landing Page Optimization
Inspiration point: 5 Landing page design changes
John from PPCHero posted an excellent set of landing page tips centered around the idea of simplicity. His #1 tip “Keep call-to-actions above the fold” is common sense advice designers seem to break 60%+ of the time.
I especially liked his analogy comparing a landing page to a river. The rocks in the stream are compared to barriers which naturally divert visitors away from the end goal of becoming converted visitors. This reinforces an idea from one of my previous posts, simplify your landing page by removing your sidenav.
He also mentioned an idea that has been taking off in the design community over the last several years. Use white space to draw focus to key elements. I couldn’t agree more. A well designed element floating in a sea of beautiful white space will not get overlooked.
One area of simplicity that very commonly gets overlooked is the length of your ad copy. Why does it require 1,000 words for so many landing pages to get across the idea that you should “buy a widget”? I have seen studies of longtail ad copy performing pretty well. Rand Fishkin gave us a nice example of a “scroll forever” page during Pubcon 2007 in Las Vegas. Still, I can’t help but think that if you test long enough your ad copy will progressively get shorter and shorter.
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