How to design the best landing page: our tips

Are you looking to create a landing page that really stands out and captures the attention of your visitors? Design is an incredibly important aspect of any landing page or website, as it can have a huge impact on the success of your campaign.

A well-designed landing page can help to boost conversions, increase engagement, and encourage visitors to take the desired action. On the other hand, a poorly designed landing page can be confusing, off-putting, and ultimately lead to high bounce rates and low conversions.

So, if you need to know how to design the most beautiful and effective landing page, you've come to the right place! Today, we're going to share with you some of our top tips for designing the best landing pages, along with some awesome examples to help inspire you. We'll also be diving into the key elements that make up a great landing page, from the headline and copy to the imagery and call-to-action. Get ready to learn how to design the best landing page for your business!

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a standalone web page that has been designed specifically to achieve a marketing objective, such as generating leads or driving sales. Unlike a traditional website, which typically has multiple pages and a variety of different goals, a landing page is focused on one particular action that you want your visitors to take.

The purpose of a landing page is to provide a streamlined experience for your users, with a clear call-to-action (CTA) that prompts them to take a specific action. This might include filling out a form, making a purchase, or downloading a resource.

One of the key benefits of landing pages is that they allow you to track and measure the success of your marketing campaigns. By creating a unique landing page for each campaign or promotion, you can monitor how many people are visiting your page, how long they're staying, and how many are completing the desired action.

When it comes to designing a landing page, there are a number of key elements that you'll want to include. These might include a clear headline that grabs your visitor's attention, persuasive copy that explains the benefits of your product or service, eye-catching imagery or video, and a prominent CTA that stands out from the rest of the page.

What are the steps we follow in Acid Tango to design the best landing pages?

Always remember: a landing page serves as the gateway to an online business or campaign. It is the first point of contact for potential customers and plays a crucial role in capturing their attention, piquing their interest, and ultimately driving them towards the desired action. To achieve this, a customer-centric approach is of paramount importance.

This kind of focus begins with a deep understanding of the target audience. By delving into their preferences, motivations, and pain points, businesses can tailor their landing pages to meet their specific needs. Through comprehensive market research, data analysis, and user feedback, businesses gain valuable insights that inform design decisions and shape the overall user experience. By empathizing with the target audience, businesses can create landing pages that address their concerns and provide compelling solutions.

And it’s not over: a customer-centric design instills trust and credibility in the minds of visitors. Landing pages that are thoughtfully crafted with the customer in mind foster a sense of reliability and authenticity.

Of course, the user experience (UX) plays a pivotal role in determining the success of a landing page: after the analysis, designers need to focus on creating a seamless and intuitive user journey specifically for his or her clients’ customer. By optimizing the layout, navigation, and information hierarchy, businesses can guide visitors towards the desired call-to-action with ease.

So, let’s discover together in detail the 4 most important steps and the tools we use, in Acid Tango, to design the best landing page:

1. Explore and Analyze

In the process of creating the best landing page with a customer-centric approach, the initial step is to explore and analyze various aspects related to the project. This phase is critical as it sets the foundation for the entire design process and ensures that the subsequent steps are built upon a solid understanding of the hypotheses, ideas, competitive landscape, customer needs and behaviors, as well as market trends.

Let's delve into the key activities involved in this step:

• Discovery Workshop (Alignment, Value Proposition): it serves as a collaborative session where, with clients, we align their goals and visions. It provides an opportunity to define the value proposition, identify the unique selling points, and establish a clear direction for the landing page design. This workshop helps ensure that everyone involved is on the same page and working towards a shared vision.
• Technology Exploration (Constraints): this involves exploring the available technology platforms, content management systems, and other tools that can be utilized to create a seamless user experience. By assessing the technological landscape, the design team can determine the feasibility of implementing specific features or functionalities within the landing page design.
• Research Plan: it outlines the objectives, methods, and timelines for conducting research activities, ensuring a structured and systematic approach. The research plan may include components such as audience analysis, competitive analysis, customer journey analysis, and market trend research, which we will explore further.
• Organizational Analysis: this analysis involves delving into the company's mission, values, brand guidelines, and overall identity. By aligning the landing page design with the organization's identity, the design team can create a cohesive and consistent user experience that reflects the brand's essence.
• Market Trends: by keeping an eye on market trends, they can identify opportunities to incorporate innovative elements into the landing page design and ensure that it remains relevant and competitive in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
• Audience Analysis (Interviews, Surveys): conducting interviews and surveys helps gather insights directly from the audience, enabling the design team to uncover pain points, motivations, and expectations. This audience analysis forms the foundation for creating a customer-centric design that caters to the specific requirements of the target audience.
• Competitive Analysis: by studying competitor offerings, the design team can identify unique selling points and design elements that could be incorporated or improved upon in their own landing page design. This analysis helps ensure that the final design stands out and offers a superior user experience.
• Field Studies (Ethnographic): this hands-on approach allows the design team to gain firsthand insights into how users engage with similar products or services. By observing users' pain points, motivations, and decision-making processes, the design team can uncover valuable insights that inform the landing page design.
• Customer Journey Analysis (Pain Points): mapping out the customer journey helps identify critical touchpoints and pain points along the user's path. In this way, the design team can tailor the landing page to address these pain points and create a seamless and engaging user experience. This analysis helps streamline the user journey and increases the likelihood of conversions.

2. Ideate and Define

During this second stage, we explore ideas, define concepts, and shape them through the definition of the ideal customer journey, and information architecture, before testing the hypotheses.. This step sets the base for the design process and involves testing hypotheses to ensure the effectiveness of the final design.

The key activities involved in this step are:

• Idea Exploration: in the ideation phase, the design team generates a wide range of ideas and concepts for the landing page. This creative brainstorming process encourages out-of-the-box thinking and allows for innovative solutions. Ideas can be inspired by the client's goals, customer insights, industry trends, and the research conducted in the previous step. Through idea exploration, the team can consider various possibilities and approaches for the landing page design.
• Customer Journey TO-BE: it involves mapping out the ideal customer journey, considering the touchpoints, interactions, and emotions that users should experience when engaging with the landing page. By visualizing the customer journey TO-BE, the design team can identify gaps, pain points, and opportunities for improvement, ultimately creating a more user-centric and engaging experience.
• Information Architecture: we focus on creating a logical and intuitive hierarchy that facilitates easy navigation and access to key information. The design team considers the flow of information, the placement of elements, and the categorization of content to ensure a seamless user experience. By developing a solid information architecture, the landing page becomes more user-friendly and efficient.
• Concepts/Hypotheses Validation: we involve user testing, feedback sessions, or prototyping to gauge the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed ideas. By gathering user insights and feedback, the team can refine and iterate on the initial concepts, ensuring that the final design meets the user's expectations and aligns with the project's goals.
• Product Roadmap (MVP Prioritization): by defining a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and setting priorities, the design team can focus on delivering the most essential elements of the landing page first. This approach allows for quicker iterations, early feedback, and an iterative development process that ensures the landing page meets the core needs of the target audience.
• Internal Strategy Planning: this step involves mapping out the overall strategy for the landing page design, discussing the project scope, and establishing the objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success. Internal strategy planning ensures that everyone involved in the project is aligned and working towards a common goal.

3. Design and Validate

The third step in creating the best landing page is the design and validation phase. In this stage, we define the interface design and branding if needed. We then facilitate usability testing with real or potential users before implementing the solution.

These are the main activities:

• Product Definition (Wireframes, Wireflows): wireframes provide a visual representation of the landing page layout, outlining the placement of key elements and content. Wireflows depict the user flow and interaction between different screens or sections of the landing page. This step helps refine the structure and functionality of the landing page design.
• Design System (Brand, Language, Tone, Color, Logo): this stage includes determining the brand guidelines, such as the logo, typography, color palette, and imagery. The design system ensures consistency and coherence throughout the landing page, aligning it with the client's brand and creating a cohesive user experience. Additionally, defining the language and tone of the content helps establish the desired brand voice.
• Library or UI Kit: creating a library or UI kit helps maintain consistency in design elements and speeds up the design process. It includes a collection of reusable components, such as buttons, forms, icons, and navigation elements, that can be easily incorporated into the landing page design. By using a library or UI kit, the design team ensures a consistent look and feel across different sections of the landing page and streamlines the design workflow.
• High Fidelity Designs: these designs include refined typography, imagery, and UI components, providing a realistic preview of the final product. High fidelity designs help stakeholders visualize the end result and make informed decisions about the design direction. They serve as a reference for developers during the implementation phase. And remember, in this phase it is really important to prioritize accessibility.
• Interactive Prototype: an interactive prototype brings the landing page design to life, allowing users to interact with the interface and experience its functionality firsthand. This prototype enables the design team to validate the user flow, navigation, and interactions before moving forward. By gathering feedback from users and stakeholders, the team can identify any usability issues or areas for improvement, ensuring a seamless user experience.
• Animations: strategic use of animations can enhance the user experience and engage visitors on the landing page. Yes, thoughtful and purposeful animations can create a dynamic and engaging experience, capturing the attention of users and guiding them towards the desired call-to-action.
• Responsive Design: responsive design ensures that the landing page adapts and displays optimally across various devices and screen sizes. By considering the mobile experience during the design phase, businesses can provide a seamless and user-friendly experience to all visitors, regardless of the device they use.
• Usability Testing: this testing can be conducted through interviews, surveys, or observation of user interactions. Usability testing helps identify any pain points, navigation issues, or areas of confusion, allowing the design team to make necessary refinements and optimizations before the final implementation.

4. Agile Development

The fourth and final step in creating the best landing page is the agile development phase. In this phase we prioritize the features or select the service touch points to implement the product and create functional documents to deliver high-quality software products.

This is what we can do, depending on what the client:

• Front-End Development: this involves coding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to bring the design to life in the browser. Front-end developers ensure that the landing page is responsive, user-friendly, and visually appealing across different devices and screen sizes.
• Back-End Development: it includes database management, server configuration, and integrating external APIs or services. Back-end developers work behind the scenes to ensure the smooth operation and performance of the landing page, handling data processing, user authentication, and other server-side tasks.
• App Native: native app development involves using platform-specific programming languages and frameworks to create a seamless and optimized user experience within the respective operating systems.
• Commerce Platforms: the development team may integrate with existing commerce platforms or build custom solutions to facilitate online transactions. This can include integrating payment gateways, inventory management systems, and order processing functionalities to enable smooth and secure online transactions for customers.

And then what? There are two steps that are fundamental

1. Testing: it is a crucial aspect of agile development. It involves rigorously evaluating the functionality, performance, and usability of the landing page to identify and address any issues or bugs. Testing can include functional testing, regression testing, performance testing, and user acceptance testing. By thoroughly testing the landing page, the development team ensures a high-quality product that meets the defined requirements.
2. Quality Assurance (QA): it is an ongoing process throughout the development phase. QA professionals review the code, perform automated and manual tests, and ensure that the landing page meets quality standards and adheres to best practices. They also collaborate with the development team to identify and fix any issues or discrepancies, ensuring a reliable and error-free final product.