According to Oli Gardner, there are seven principles that will help you achieve higher conversions when it comes to your website’s landing pages. I first learned about Gardner in a video interview presented during a Digital Marketing Masters Class. Gardner goes into detail on all seven of the principles (Attention, Context, Clarity, Congruence, Credibility, Conversion, and Continuance), but one struck me as the most interesting – Attention. This might be because it is the only one that started with a letter other than C….no really, we’ll learn about that in the following paragraphs!
Anomaly – Being Different Isn’t Always Bad
As in my example above where I was drawn to Attention in Gardner’s seven principles to increase web conversions, I was drawn to it because it was slightly different than all of the other principles. It was the only principle to start with a letter other than C. I know that is simple, and that it doesn’t really mean anything, but it caught my eye and drew me in. When one thing on a landing page is different than everything else it can be used as a tool to subtly draw a reader into that piece of content.
Remove Distractions
Distracting elements around your page will pull attention from what’s important, your content offer. When you create a landing page with a call-to-action or CTA, you need to remove all elements of the page the could potentially distract your reader from converting (clicking the CTA). Remove the menu items, footer information, and sidebars so the only link option for the reader is the CTA button.
Consistency
If your company uses landing pages often you should be keeping them consistent in look and feel. For instance, consider a product page to be a landing page. If each product page has the same layout, fonts, and functionality your visitors will know exactly where to look for the “add to cart” button and know what to expect. In the case of a true landing page, the same idea works – don’t make your visitors have to re-learn how your pages work.
Dominance
Size does matter. That’s right – there is a size hierarchy in web design and user experience. If an element on the page is much larger than everything else on the page your readers will be drawn to that item and naturally think that it holds more importance. Your CTA should be larger than other text around it, and even use a contrasting color to make it stand out even more.
Although there are many more different aspects of the Attention principle it is easy to see how we can continue to learn and grow with this particular tool. This principle makes the content creator think about how the user will experience not only the written content but also the visual content on the page. We can use these principles to guide and direct the user through the landing page experience, and ultimately create more conversions and meet our goals.