Landing Page

1) Find What Makes a Poor First Impression?

For me, it’s initial load times. If a landing page takes too long to load, I’m impatient, will hit the back button, and go to the next one on whatever Google returned. (And this is why Google considers your website load times!)

Secondly, if I find the website doesn’t answer my question or service relatively quickly, I’m bound to move onto another option. If there are too many irrelative pop-ups or the layout seems old-fashioned and difficult to navigate, well, if you’re not contemporary, you’re probably not worth buying from.

2) Try a Short Video

I used to work in corporate and commercial media, writing and producing videos running from $2000 all the way up to $50,000 in cost. There are some amazing things you can do with 2D and 3D graphics to capture viewer attention to make a great first impression.

This Psychology Today article helps break it down. Consumers are 39% more likely to share content if it’s delivered by video, 36% more likely to comment, and 56% more likely to “like” it.

Moreover, a video is perfect on your landing page to inform your customers as well as increase your viewership. Watching a video is passive and does not take nearly as much effort as reading. It just requires less processing. Which in some areas may be bad, but when trying to produce conversions, going the route where the brain processes information 60,000 times faster is definitely the safer bet.

3) Being Too Vague and Impersonal

When shopping online, consumers usually have a good idea of what they’re looking for. It’s not like walking through a mall and “window shopping”; they’ve deliberately searched for a specific item or service, and your first impression – again, usually on your landing page – tells whether they’ve found it.

So, when they land on your site, they want to see what you have to offer and for how much. This is what’s called a value proposition. It’s not a slogan or a call to action, but can be somewhat related to both of them. It can include bullet points, a 2-3 sentence paragraph, visuals, etc.; as long as it’s concise and clear. You want a person who knows nothing about your site to see it, and in one sentence, be able to pass onto their friend exactly what you’re offering. Your Call to Action is then the medium to the conversion.

Seeming like a faceless corporate entity can also lose you some prospects as well. Despite it being an online process, consumers still want to know they’re buying and helping someone local or someone personable rather than funding the corporate machine. This can be as simple as a few sentence mission statement of the Founder/CEO, a picture, or a short bio. It doesn’t necessarily have to be on your landing page, but a bit somewhere on your site is sure to benefit.

4) Spark Interest for a Great First Impression

Just like playing the dating game, the key to starting and continuing a successful relationship (at least one of them) is sparking interest. A study was conducted where participants ranked sites of what sparked their interest, spending only 20 seconds on each site. The results, in order, were:

Logos

Navigation menus

Search Box

Link to Social Media

Primary Image

Written Content

Bottom of the Page

Take this list and conduct a vetting process for your own website. I think how these items are ranked is pretty accurate, so make sure that your pages follow this order of what’s catchy and exciting. On a budget? Think of it as a game of Risk: you don’t have to distribute your pieces evenly at the start of the game, and similarly, when starting your website on Nili Site, put the majority of efforts into what matters.

To Sum Up

A first impression is vital and near-impossible to come back from. Don’t let it go to waste, especially after all the extensive labour you’ve put into drawing viewership in the first place. I say it all the time: have an objective third-party scan your site and tell them to be as critical as possible. You don’t have to pay for it; there are enough in-laws in your family who will be happy enough to find reasons to criticise you.

What do you think are the most important factors in spicing up a website’s first impression? Why are you most likely to ignore a site, and how can it be efficiently mended?

Maintaining a modernized website is a vital aspect of any business. Just like seasonal fashion lines, online presence is a changing atmosphere that must be constantly adapted to command attention.

After a search, your landing page is the first your user will see. Similar to the cover of a book, if it’s not appealing, the viewer will assume the same goes for the rest of your site. Think of it as an audition or a first impression. So what’s in your control? How do you know what to change? One of the most influential factors, if not the most influential, is colour.

It’s the first sense that the brain interprets, and in order to have an effective and attractive landing page, its adequate integration is vital. Here are a few tips on how you can apply colour to increase viewership and time spent on your site:

Firstly, design your landing page for your demographic.

Gender

Depending on your product or viewership goals, you probably have some type of target audience. If you’re not sure, it’s important you find out; your success could depend on it! The attractiveness of your website pages will persuade someone to stay and play or leave and never return.

For women

the most appealing colours consist of purple, green, and blue, while orange, grey, and brown are the least.

It’s important not to overdo it; this research doesn’t mean to splash your site with the same colours over and over again. Rather, your landing page and primary selling pages should consist of similar schemes to identify your brand. It’s still important to keep it simple and not overcomplicate.

Targeting the male demographic

Surprisingly similar to the female, blue, green, and black have shown to elicit the most positive responses, while brown, orange and purple do the opposite. These are the classic ‘manly’ colours, and should be prominent around the calls to action and the sections of your page you want to notice the most. The slang and embedded images have plenty to do with the attractiveness of your landing pages and they too must complement each other.

Age

Children hold a significant influence on where their parents’ money is spent. Use this to your advantage, and sell to them as much as you do their mom and dad. As you can imagine, the younger your target demographic, the brighter and more attention-grabbing your landing page needs to be. Children appreciate web pages that apply colours like red, orange, pink, and yellow. Discontent and depressing are more associated with brown, purple, and surprisingly blue. Of course, the hues/shades of these do make a difference as well, and these should only be used as general guidelines.

As later adolescence and adulthood arrive, the preference moves more toward cooler, less flashy shades, like a blue or maroon. In hand with this development, so does the ability to critically think and make connections. These associations include colours to emotion, feeling, and memory; for example, red with alarm, severity, and passion, green with envy, or black with sadness and grief. Many of these relationships may be personal, so aptly interpreting each colour for your landing page is impossible. It’s still vital to take the most popular into consideration.

Secondly, use your landing page to evoke emotion

Colour is a primary interpretation to consider when evoking emotion from a user. Keep in mind; your landing page design must also work in complement with your writing and images in order to maintain the feeling that the colours first presented. Many researchers have come to different conclusions about general representations of emotion as dictated by colour, but here are some summary points that most agree on:

Red: the most opposing of all, it creates feelings of love, passion, and excitement; but at the same time, anger and danger. It can increase the heart rate and appropriately draws attention as an accent, but not so much a primary
Orange: Like red, it demands attention but isn’t as overbearing. It’s aggressive and demands energy, vitality, and happiness, and in a way remains friendly. Great for calls to action and subscription requests.
Yellow: Energetic and warm, think of it like the sun. Optimism and cheer tend to arise from this colour and will generally make a person feel similar to the effect laughing has. It can act as an irritant if overused, apply it similar to orange to command attention or accent, but not as a base.
Green: Many see this as the colour of wealth, but more deeply for new beginnings outdoors, and health. It is a relaxing hue that should be used to balance design and for inspiration.
Blue: Similar to green, this colour offers calmness as well as trust. It’s one of the most favourite as a base for websites and is a great start to give your landing page attractive appeal. It’s professional while easing and friendly, but too much can create a feeling of coldness or hardship.
Purple: Mostly associated with royalty, this colour is also a sign of wealth and also a soothing agent. Use it as a base to show luxury and wealth, or if you have a primarily female target audience. Romance and mystery are also drawn from this colour, accounting for its use for health and beauty products.
Neutral colours: These include black, grey, brown, and tan – they’re the ones that can pretty much match with anything, perfect for background colours. Apply texture and grains carefully with these, as they’re boring on their own but can be used to create excitement and elicit thoughts of change; i.e., “they’ve taken something boring and transformed it into something of substance. Maybe their product will do the same.”

Now, these are suggestions, and colours are extremely opinion based. They won’t mean the same to everyone, and how one person reacts will be the opposite of how the next dose. That being said, it’s information that’s vital for your consideration and will be effective in engaging your audiences. Keeping a fresh look will consistently draw repeated visits to your site as well; so ask yourself, how can I consistently use colours to my advantage?