Think with me for a second about the last website you visited.

Why did you go there in the first place? And what did you end up actually doing?

Websites today are like Golden Corral –  there’s all that gorgeous food, but if you eat too much, you’ll get an ulcer.

• Too many buttons (not to mention a million social sharing widgets)
• Lots of distractions and shiny objects
• Lots of clutter – coupons, meet the team, product page, company info, shopping cart

People are getting tired of the mess. Today, it’s all about giving the visitor an incredible user experience when they land on your page. So it’s time we all take a step back, breathe deep, and rethink our landing page designs.

Read more to learn how the 3 F’s of landing page design can radically retain your website visitors and increase your conversion rates…

3 F’s of Incredible Landing Page Design

The user experience (“UX” for you techies out there) is made up of three factors: Focus, Feeling, and Functionality. These three factors, working together, gives your visitors a complete perception of your brand (but maybe not the one you want to give off).

That’s why understanding these three factors is muy importante to having a successful landing page design.

Focus

Building the Focus of your landing page starts with defining something called the desired user action. It is important that we understand this concept in order to be effective marketers.

The desired user action is the behavior you want your visitors, viewers, readers of your website to do once they land on your page.

Ask yourself the question, “What is the point of this webpage?” Do you want your customers to:
– Interact with content
– Participate in an event
– Begin a product trial
– Share information
– Opt-in to a newsletter or other digital content
– Purchase a product

This is by no means an exhaustive list of what users can do once they land on your page, but you MUST define your desired user action before you even attempt to optimize the Focus of your landing page design.

Here’s some examples of brands focused on one desired user action:

Redbull (desired user action: Interaction)

The only thing you can do on this page is watch videos. Redbull wants you to focus on their content over thinking about their energy drink product.

Sucre (desired user action: Opt-in/product trial)

Sucre’s landing page is simple, functional, and pretty. Notice there is only one button, along with a beautiful, clean design promoting the offer. How many people do you think got to this page and didn’t opt-in to this sweet deal? I’m willing to bet that it’s not many!

Samsung Tab (desired user action: Education)

Samsung’s main website is very busy. They recognized this and created a stunning landing page to promote one of their most recent products, the Galaxy Tab tablet device. Literally, the only one thing you can do on this page is browse images and info on the device – you can’t even buy! (clearly, “buying” is not their desired user action)

Feeling

Did you know it only takes seven seconds to make a first impression? That’s right – just 7 seconds.

Because of that, the feeling your visitors receive when viewing your landing page is very important to user experience. It’s also important to keep the feeling that your landing page brings to the reader consistent with your overall branding. Make the colors, fonts, images, banners, and the style of your content very uniform all the way through.

Here’s some examples of how to accomplish good branding on your landing page while still giving your visitors the feeling you want, along with some pros and cons of using the design:

Branding Style #1: Prominent company branding

• Pros: parent/primary company is clearly defined
• Cons: might be a little more difficult to create a clean design with more than one logo displayed on screen

Branding Style #2: No secondary branding

• Pros: primary company is clearly defined, encourages interaction with landing page
• Cons: easier to make a clean design, but the branding might get lost by not being prominently displayed

Branding Style #3: Prominent landing page branding

• Pros: enhance the marketing benefits of displaying your brand in the header
• Cons: detracts from the parent company’s branding

Branding Style #4: No company branding

• Pros: Content only opens the doors to full creativity, easier to create a clean design
• Cons: easy to loose sight of your brand’s overall message and feeling

Function

Functionality is all about the behind-the-scenes work when creating a hyper-focused and intriguing landing page.

What does your landing page actually do?

Keeping the desired user action in mind, Function addresses how you actually deliver the tools that allows visitors to opt-in, interact with content, view images and videos, etc.

When you are adding buttons, interactive features, and forms on your landing page, each individual piece must have an explicit purpose for being there.

Ask yourself, What’s the purpose of clicking on this button or filling out this field? Does it take the visitor to a purchase page, or maybe a product demo?

Everything that the user can interact with, click on, type in, and press must relate back to the desired user action and the bottom-line of your landing page – otherwise, don’t put it there!

Always remember – determine the Focus of your landing page, give it an explicit Feeling, and with every Function you put on the page, make sure it relates back to your desired user action.

Your Turn

Have you found landing pages to be effective when looking for a desired user action? Tell us in the comments below!

Meet David A. George

David A. George I'm a UX + Growth Marketer passionate about people, music, intelligent UX, Android, and breathing underwater. I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn, Twitter, and on my website.