Category Archives: Design

Design, software

How Augmented Reality Is Being Used in Home Decor

Augmented reality or AR is growing at a compound annual growth of 24.4% and is predicted to be worth $950 million by the end of next year. This technology may seem futuristic, but in reality it’s being used in a variety of different markets. From construction to maintenance, AR is able to solve problems and make processes faster and easier. 

One unlikely candidate for this type of technology is the home decor and renovation sector. While a home remodel might not strike you as a space to integrate digital content with the real world, there are many innovative apps that are doing just that. 

Augmented reality apps allow you to do a variety of things, from see how furniture will look in your apartment to test out paint colors to measure the room and create a floorplan. These AR apps make the process quick, easy and attainable to anyone not just contractors and interior designers. 

 

How Do These AR Apps Work in Your Home?

Each app has a different set of directions based on its intent, but in general they can be figured out in a few steps. First you’ll be selecting the feature you want. This could be a new sink for the kitchen or a rug for the living room. Some apps allow you to choose specific products you can buy and others give you generic items to test out.

Once the product is chosen, you’ll scan the room with the camera on your phone. This will give the AR software an idea of the original space. Often times the app will direct you to scan the floor so it can gauge the depth of the room. 

When the room is scanned, you’ll be able to view how your feature looks in the home. You can adjust its size and position to how you would normally have it and see if it will fit in the space. 

animation of augmented reality in home decor

 

7 AR Apps You Can Try in Your Home

Not all AR apps are the same. They each have a different specialty. To help you decide which is best for your home, ApartmentGuide has a list of seven augmented reality apps for the home. 

Build.com

This is an app made for remodeling the home. It specializes in home appliances and allows you to experiment with different finishes and styles. 

magicplan

This AR app will help you measure how many square feet you have in your home. This is helpful when renovating or viewing a new home. It will create a floorplan so that you know exactly how much space you have to work with.

Graham & Brown

This company lets you visualize a new paint color or wallpaper on your wall without sampling it yourself. This app will also estimate how much wallpaper or paint you’ll need to complete the projects which save you money and time. 

ColorSnap

ColorSnap is perfect for those painting a room. It allows you to conceptualize a color palette and will also suggest complementary colors to try. 

DecorMatters

This app is made for redecorating your space. It allows you to view home furniture, decorations and art from popular stores like IKEA, Target, Overstock, WestElm, Crate&Barrel, Living Spaces and Ashley. 

roOomy

If you want to stage a room, roOomy allows you to create a custom design. This app is targeted towary homebuyers, renters and real estate agents.

Housecraft

This app allows you to see furniture in a space, but only provides generic furniture. This works well for people who don’t want to be pressured into purchasing anything right away. 

Design, General, New

How Artificial Intelligence is Changing The Art Industry

At the end of last year, a work of art created by an algorithm was auctioned off for the first time ever. It was a painting and, though it was only expected to sell for around $10,000, it sold for a whopping $432,500, further cemented the growing interest in AI art. Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly changing the future of technology and business practices, but it’s making waves in the visual arts sector as well. AI artists are collaborating with machine learning technology to write novels, produce fine art, expand capabilities in the culinary arts, produce music, and even help with choreographed dances.

The idea of artificial intelligence creating art has been met with many divisive thoughts from creators, artists, and collectors alike. Who technically owns the art and should profit from its sale? Can a machine evoke the same creativity that human can? Will it ultimately replace artists? Auction house, Invaluable, explores the capabilities of AI art and answers these questions in their infographic below. You can see the full article here.

Design, Marketing

The Ultimate Guide to Choose the Right Image for Your Landing Pages

 

Web design is an extension of page design, and when it comes to page design, there are plenty of rules and principles for putting together a winning website. Landing pages can be tricky; they have many elements to them that require careful consideration;

  1. The main headline
  2. Subtitle
  3. The call to action button
  4. Social Proof
  5. Dedicated content
  6. The form and fields people need to fill in
  7. and of course the main hero image

While each element is equally important and cannot work without the other, the image and the colors we use on our landing page have the largest impact on our customer’s initial impressions of us, their experience and as a result, our conversion rates.

Since our brains process images much faster than text, the first thing our potential customer sees on the landing page is the image and it is all that’s standing between your customer bouncing from the page or choosing to read more or convert.

How to choose an image strategy for your landing page

The main hero image is meant to help potential customers see the value in our offer within the first couple of seconds, understand what’s in it for them and why they should take the next step in our customer journey vs. the competitor’s.

On average we see between 4000-10,000 messages a day, we’re constantly bombarded with ads, text messages, calls and content everywhere, the possibilities and options online are endless and tiring.

This is one of the main reasons potential customers easily and almost automatically navigate from one site to another without giving as much as thought for the page they just visited. As consumers we move quickly from one competitor to another until something clicks in our brain and catches our attention. That something is the value, the “What’s In It For Me?”

whats-int-for-me

To stand out from your competitors and gain your customer’s attention (therefore increase conversion rates), the hero image on every landing page, email campaign and especially your website should project immediate value to your customer.

This isn’t an image of your product, service or features, it’s an image that highlights the emotional value customers gain from being your customers (e.g increase self confidence, get appreciated by your boss or find true love). As I mentioned at Mozcon, insurance companies don’t sell insurance policy, they sell peace of mind; a happy carefree family.

While most landing pages show an image of the product, platform or service they’re providing, we’ve ran countless tests proving time and time again that value wins almost every time.

For example, this company provides an all-in-one solution for creating birthday and party invitations. While the original landing page featured images of the different templates available and featured a product focused headline: “Custom online invitations in minutes”

original-landing-page

The variation we created visualized the party scene for our potential customers. Utilizing different colors to enhance certain feelings, an image of the park, a picnic basket and a dog this variation focused on helping people envision the perfect party, which starts with a great invitation. The results: 65% uplift in purchased subscriptions!

landing-page-variation-1

Today, I’m going to show you exactly how to do that yourself.

There Are 3 Ways to Define Your Image Strategy

Before setting down to design your landing page and randomly choose your image, take some time to follow the 3 step process we use to define the customer’s value and the images we want to test:

Step 1: Talk to your customers

The great thing about talking to customers is that they have all the answers. They know why they purchased an item or service and have a clear reason for doing so. However, most customers will give you a list of tactical reasons for their purchase. This happens due to our brain’s tendency to rationalize our purchases, we may purchase on emotion but our brain quickly finds a way to rationalize that decision. For example – buying an expensive suit, or that lamp you don’t really need is then explained by attaining a good deal for it or your sudden need for more light around the house.

So a great way to discover your value and avoid technical answers is asking them how they would feel about removing certain items from your stock or certain features from your platform. This will give you a clearer understanding of the real value people find in your service. You can also ask what may have stopped them from converting and more importantly, ask them about THEM: What are their dreams, aspirations and even what scares them – get to know them so you can offer relevant, more compelling images, colors and content.

Talk to your team

Your customer success team, your sales team and anyone who talks to your customers on a daily or weekly basis can provide key insights. They know what people complain about, what their main issues are and what people find exciting. Talk to your team, interview them and learn how they view the customer, what values they believe you offer and compare these to your customer interviews.

Analyze direct and indirect competitor sites

NO I’m not suggesting you copy from your competitors in anyway. What I am saying is that you should analyse the testimonials and especially the reviews found on your competitor’s site. This comes straight from Joanna Wiebe’s research process: See what reviews customers are leaving, what bothers them and what they care about to discover what you need to highlight on your landing page and what value you should focus on.

—

Once you’ve compiled all this data together you’ll be able to define the image strategy you want to test. The next step,  is finding these images that highlight the value and have all of the qualities you’re looking for. Below are 6 rules you should follow once you’ve defined you’re strategy and ready to choose an image for your landing page:

6 Rules for Choosing a Landing Page Image

#1 Use Real, Relatable and Authentic Images

A successful image is one that your customers can to relate to. Either by seeing themselves in the image or someone they would want to be like, someone that reflects their challenges and values, or someone they can and want to connect to.

Use authentic images of people and avoid ones that are clearly stock photos, bought for the sake of the page. Best case scenario – use real images of your customers or your team, if you can’t use those choose your images wisely. A quick google images search can show you how many companies are already using that image. Ask yourself, is this image authentic? Will my customers relate to it? Or does it look like this (in case this isn’t clear –> this is a bad image!):

team-corporate-people-group-office-company

Mailchimp’s new homepage redesign (launched just a few weeks) ago baffles me. The image is clearly a stock photo image (if not… then bad execution) that feels cold and has no relation to their headline “Being yourself makes all the difference”. Does this image represent their target audience? The colorful background with different shapes, colors and palm leaves distracts the customer and has no value that I can personally detect.  As a Mailchimp customer, personally I don’t feel comfortable with this women staring me in the eye and telling me to be myself.  This image feels fake and I have a hard time relating to it in anyway.

mailchimp-new-homepage

Gusto on the other hand, has an image of a women sitting in front of her desk smiling. Now, granted I don’t really know if this a real photo of an HR person or a stock photo but it feels real and the connection between the image and headline is clear. I can immediately resonate with it, it’s authentic and relatable to HR personnel who do it all.  Gusto makes the main image work with the strategy of the page, makes it about the customer and as opposed to the lady staring at us from Mailchimp’s new design, this women doesn’t feel alienating – she feels welcoming, someone you might want to meet. This is the difference between using authentic images that relate to your target audience vs. images that just look nice and have a “cool” composition.

good-landing-page-example

#2 Reduce Visual Noise

“With great power, comes great responsibility” – As we’ve seen, our image captures most of the attentive mind of our landing page visitor, it’s almost always the first thing we see and it’s what determines if we should hang around a take a few more seconds to read and understand the offer. This means, that other than choosing a good strategic image, we also need to think about reducing the noise it creates so it doesn’t have a negative affect. We need to make sure it’s easy for customers to quickly see what’s in it for them and asses our services. How do you do that? By following these 3 simple rules:

  • Ensure high contrast between the image and the page content so it doesn’t “drown” out the text, making it hard for people to read, like this for example:

landing-page-examples

  • Ensure the photo is distraction “clean” as possible and helps customers focus only on the most important elements of it unlike the landing page below for example. There’s so much going on within this image that it’s hard to focus on anything. Not to mention the fact that this is yet another common image used by thousands of startups to show  another “unique” office space. This image has nothing to do with the service. How exactly does an image of random people in an office make you feel that this a “new model for talent development”? Clean images, mean using only the objects that help get the message across, remove any details that can cause confusion or stress on the eyes.

landing-page-examples-1

  • Consider the colors you use – colors have an emotional effect on us and can assist us in saying things without actually spelling them to people. For example, you don’t have to say you’re trustworthy, you could (in Western cultures) use blue for that.  Also, remember to reduce the amount of colors you use so it’s easier on the eyes and easy to take in.

#3 Use Images as Direction Cues

Our main image is there to create a certain atmosphere and feeling, but it’s also there to navigate the customer in the right direction and point them towards the next step (whether it’s subscribing, downloading something or simply reading more).  You can use your main image as a directional cue to show people what to do next like the visual below.

You’ll notice that all elements (computer, paper, earphones and pens) are placed around the call to action button making that the main focal point of the page. Granted, I’m not sure this is the best image to use to sell a UX class, since it’s only showing specific elements you’re going to use during the course, but doesn’t explain why you should actually take it. However the placement of elements is done well.

landing-page-tips

Perhaps a better example is by ‘Here One’. As you can see they’re using their main character (seems authentic and wearing product) to point with his entire body towards the call to action button.

image-landing-page-tips

#4 Avoid carousels and auto play videos

While tempting, carousels confuse visitors and make it hard on them to focus on the action they need to take so don’t use them. This is actually a well known fact and many case studies have shown that rotating images reduce conversion rates. And so do automatic background videos! instead of reading your content and taking the next step, the visitor is now engaged in a moving video that’s distracting and has nothing to do with your goal. Have multiple images in mind? Test them, don’t use them all at once.

#5 Consider Mobile

Just because an image performs well on desktop, does not mean it will work or look well on mobile. First, you’ve got the fact that technically the image may look bad on mobile:

  • It may look stretched
  • Take too long to load
  • Completely dominate the page
  • Move all your content below the fold
  • or simply won’t make sense to a visitor on mobile.

Let’s look at the same example by ‘Here One’: it looks and works great on desktop. However, on mobile it’s a different story. The image of the guy and the colors they’re using make it hard to read the text. It’s not immediately clear what this product is and could be perceived as a hearing aid rather than advanced, cool earphones. The strategy of this image, doesn’t work well on mobile.

mobile-version-1-e1478795856894

#6 A/B test your Strategies

Once you have an hypothesis for your image strategy, take the time to test it vs. the one you already have. In fact, test different strategies, for example an image of your product or someone using the product vs. an customer centric image. This is not only a great way to validate your hypothesis but also a good way to show numbers, figures and facts to your team who might have a hard time getting behind this new initiative. A/B testing image strategies instead of just simple elements such as the color of the  call to action button will give you greater insights that can then be presented to your team for convincing them to get on board.

Image Checklist

Use the following checklist and process to define the images for every landing page, email campaign or website you launch:

  • Define the goal of your page (e.g – subscribe, download)
  • Evaluate current image strategy (Does it highlight the customer or yourself?)
  • Use heatmaps to determine current image (e.g – is it a focal point, are people clicking on it)
  • Conduct customer surveys
  • Conduct interviews with team
  • Analyse competitor websites for reviews and testimonials
  • Combine all data to define a customer centric image strategy
  • Choose image (using the 6 rules)
  • Launch A/B test of current variation vs. new variation

 

Over to You

Remember that the image doesn’t work alone, it’s part of a whole composition working with the copy, your fonts, colors and call to action button. All elements together should be geared towards helping the customer immediately seeing what’s in it for them and helping them take the next step.

 

This post originally published on Talia Wolf’s blog

Design, Marketing

The Ultimate List Of AB Testing

1 Comment

Creative-Design

Building a conversion optimization strategy is a process. You’ve spent time on tracking, analyzing, building a hypothesis and building your test. Moments before you launch, take the time to go over the following AB test checklist to make sure you have everything you need and to ensure your test results are meaningful and scalable.

Everything you need to do before launching:

The first thing to do when you decide to start testing is ask yourself where you’re going to test. That’s where planning comes in. Usually you want to start where you can both have the biggest impact and also learn the most. Oftentimes, this is at the top of the funnel where there are the most users, but take a look at this section and see what works best for you.

  • Measure your website’s performance (Read more about where to start and what to track)

  • Use heatmaps to understand user behavior (Read more about heatmaps to increase conversion)

  • Define your goal – (e.g – registrations, sales)

  • Define KPI’s – what will you track?

  • How long will it take you to reach significance? Make sure to chose a part of the funnel that will generate results and matter.

  • If you have other tests planned or ongoing – would yours conflict?

  • Choose the best platform for your test

CREATIVE CHECKLIST

The design process of a test is where you make the difference. Knowing what to test and how will be the difference between a successful or failed test. The steps you take to optimize your assets will determine if your test results in relevant or non-essential conclusions. Here’s what you need to make sure of before you complete your new variation:

The Call to Action Button:

  • You have one call to action (CTA)

  • Your CTA is above the fold

  • The text on your call to action contains no more than one or two words

  • Your CTA is clear – people will know what to do immediately

  • The call to action button stands out – in color and size

The Content:

  • The content focuses on value – not features

  • Your headline matches your message on ads

  • Your title is actionable and tells people what to do

  • You’re using one font type

  • Your unique selling proposition is clear

  • You’re using social proof – testimonial, customer logos, reviews

  • Your keywords are relevant to your SEO needs

  • All text is HTML for SEO

  • You are mobile focused

  • You have no or a minimum of links on the page

The Main Visual:

  • You have no more than 2 main colors on your page

  • The visual compliments your USP

  • The visual directs user attention to the call to action

  • The visual projects trust and reliability

The Registration Form:

  • Requires a minimum of fields to get started

  • Required fields are easy to distinguish from non required fields

  • Highlights your USP and why people should sign up

  • You have a confirmation page/layer

  • You send a confirmation email to signups

PRE-LAUNCH CHECKLIST

Before launching your test, there are a few important elements you have to check. This AB testing checklist may take sometime to go through but once you move forward with your test, you’ll know it has been set up in the best way. You should always be sure that the changes you made are working well and are trackable:

 

  • Your goals are set up in Google Analytics

  • Your goals are set up in AdWords (if relevant)

  • Your Google Analytics tracking code has been implemented

  • Google Analytics events have been set

  • Images are rendering correctly

  • Adwords account is connected to analytics (if relevant)

  • Ecommerce tracking is enabled (if relevant)

  • Goals are firing within Google Analytics

  • Segmentation is correct: your experiment is appearing to the right audience

  • Page load time is at minimum – use Google’s speed test tool

  • Variation is compatible with all browsers using BrowserStack

  • Demographics and Interest reports are enabled on GA

  • All links work (and send to the right page)

  • All links open in new tab

  • Links have anchor text

  • Image size is at minimum

  • Variation is compatible with mobile or excludes mobile traffic

  • You’ve QA’d the entire funnel of your variation (not just the page you’re working on)

  • Heatmaps are working well

  • You’ve located any 404 non existing pages

  • Lead box is working correctly

  • Your main title is in H1

  • Experiment parameters are setup

Time to launch that test!

THE AFTERMATH

A test isn’t complete until we’ve reached conclusions, analyzed our results and have a plan for our next steps:

  • Test for a minimum of 7 days – to make sure there aren’t any changes due to special occasions or unknown criteria

  • Make sure you reach statistical significance. Don’t be quick to the trigger – allow tests to run to their full extent until you’ve reached significant validity

  • Analyze the data and draw conclusions

  • Get the team involved – the best way to keep testing is to showcase your results to others and get them on board with testing

  • Take the next steps – optimize

TOOLS

There are many tools that can make your job easier and faster:

  • Hotjar – The all in one solution for heatmaps, surveys, analysis and visitor recordings. If you haven’t tried it yet you’re definitely missing out.

  • Invision – Use invision for better communication around design and creative. Comment and collaborate on creative projects with your team and clients.

  • VWO – Like Optimizely, Visual Website Optimizer allows you to edit pages via its sleek user interface and AB test them without needing developers or designers.

  • Webmaster tools – Google’s webmaster tools lets webmasters tell search engines about their site to make it understandable by bots and maximize visibility to people.

  • Kissmetrics – Analytics platforms like these, in conjunction with Google Analytics, can give you access to extra-accurate and different types of reporting

  • Site speed checker – Speed checkers such as Google PageSpeed tool allow you to assess the load time of your page and learn of ways to optimize it

  • Test Significance Calculator – Sometimes, for one reason or another, we run AB tests outside of a true testing platform and just wind up with raw data. Having a significance calculator allows you to determine statistical significance in these scenarios.

 

This post was originally published on Conversioner blog

Design, Marketing

Here Are Some Of The Most Important Conversion Optimization Numbers You Should Know About

It is that time of the year again when everyone rushes to sum up the year and plan for the next. So these past few weeks we have been working on getting as many numbers as possible to understand the current conversion optimization statistics. Understanding what marketers are doing, how shoppers are behaving, what devices people are converting on and more importantly what to look forward to in 2015 can be a crucial part of your plans for the upcoming year.

Here are some very interesting numbers coming up from this year’s companies and spenders:

  • 63% of marketers optimize websites based on intuition & best practices.
  • 73% of companies have no idea why consumers abandon their shopping carts.
  • Poor A/B testing methodologies are costing online retailers up to $13bn a year in lost revenue.

Here’s what you all should look at in the conversion optimization statistics infographic below:

2014:

  • What marketers are doing
  • How Customers Are Spending
  • Conversion by traffic
  • Conversion by Devices
  • Mobile Apps Numbers
  • Where & When to Invest in Social Marketing
  • Making Videos Convert
  • Retail Numbers and Stats

2015:

  • What’s next?

Conversion-optimization-numbers-2014

This post was originally published on Conversioner blog

Design, Mobile

42 Tips And Tricks For Mobile Landing Page Optimization

mobile-colors

We’ve all heard the phrase “you only have one chance to make a first impression”, this is even more true when it comes to mobile landing pages. At the most basic level a landing page is the first interaction a customer will have with your website.  Getting that first impression right is critical.  Earlier this year we published the post, responsive design is not a mobile optimization strategy focusing on the importance of creating dedicated mobile landing pages for your mobile traffic and not using responsive design to convert visitors into customers.

Mobile Statistics:

  • Smartphone mobile commerce revenues amounted to 14.8 billion U.S. dollars this year. (Statista) (tweet this)
  • By 2016, mobile local search is expected to make $3.2 billion in revenue compared to desktop’s $10.2 billion. (Kelsey report)
  • 50% of smartphone users have made a purchase via their phone (Prosper Mobile Insights). ()
  • 73% of smartphone users say they used the mobile web to make a purchase instead of using an app (JumpTap.com). ()

Below are 42 mobile landing page optimization tips that will set you on your way to convert more mobile visitors into paying customers divided to:

  • Strategy
  • The Basics
  • AB Testing

The Strategy

1. Know where to start – Creating an entire mobile web site is expensive and tales a lot of time. The best way to get started is by tracking analytics and understanding the pain points and drops in conversion you currently have. Once you’ve understood those, you’ll know where to start. The most important elements you want to track for mobile conversions are volume of traffic, demographics and buying patterns.

2. Understand your customer’s goals – Make sure you understand how your goals differ with mobile and desktop users. Do you want them to have the exact same experience? We use web differently than mobile, the experience is different and sometimes we use 2 or 3 devices at the same time for completely different reasons. Figure out what your visitors are doing on your mobile site, understand what they’re trying to achieve and create a user journey that helps them get there faster and quicker.

3. Define Your Goals – Once you’ve defined and understood your visitor’s goals, define yourlanding page goal and design an experience with that goal in mind. Remove side information, multiple call to actions buttons and other gimmicks. Focus on the most important elements of your landing page and how they help visitors complete your goal.

4. Change their life: There are thousands of companies doing the same. People spend very little time on mobile sites and need to understand your value proposition in a matter of seconds. Remember to focus on the customer and their benefit. Less: “We are the best in the world” more: “This will change your life”.

5. Define the desired action – know the one desired action you want visitors to take on your mobile landing page and lay out a clear call to action that stands out and logically moves visitors to the next step.

6. Say it at the top – A visitor should be able to identify what’s in it for them quickly without needing to read complicated texts and stories. Make sure to have your value proposition at the top of the page. Your headline and call to action should be above the fold (what visitors see when the land on the page) and give your visitor the information they need quickly.

7. Be clear about the outcome – it’s important that visitors clearly understand what they will receive if they provide information and how you will use that information once it is collected.

The Basics

8. Forget about scrolling – Create pages that fit within the boundaries of a mobile screen that eliminate the need to scroll. This should apply to both landscape and portrait modes.

9. Design for landscape and portrait – most people think of the portrait view when designing mobile landing pages, but depending on how your visitor orients their phone they may also be seeing your mobile site in landscape mode.  Make sure your mobile landing page scales for both.

10. Use Localization – GPS-enabled devices allow for specific, localized content that can reduce friction and increase conversions. In your registration forms you can detect your visitor’s state and city by the zip code they insert. Make the “zip code” your first address field to leverage on this option.

11. Remove external links – By removing the external links to other parts of the site you can control the visitor’s journey and focus them on your call to action. Remember, new tabs open immediately in mobile and navigate the visitor away from your target. Make it a quick and easy journey for your users without luring them to other places.

12. Clean out the clutter – Focus on what’s important, keep the page as clean as possible, minimize friction and keep buttons as far away from each other as possible. The less clutter, text and colors, the more visitors will complete the funnel.

13. Maintain consistent flow and design –Don’t surprise your visitors or try to fool them, use the same messaging and design on your mobile landing page as they saw in the ad. Be consistent with the messaging, this will assist with converting visitors once they’re on your page and improve your ad’s quality score.

14. Don’t make people pinch and zoom – The focus point of a landing page is determined by you. The way you design your landing page will determine what visitors do on your site. By making them pinch, they, not you, choose where to focus on the site.

sleekmakeup

15. Click to call – Many of mobile searches are aimed at immediate contact. By using direct “click to call” buttons instead of a copy-pasted number you allow for quick conversions and an easier path your visitor. Make sure to set up your phone tracking to track incoming calls before starting out.

16. Adjust the Keyboard – make sure you use the proper keyboard for each form field. When a visitors needs to insert a number or an email, they should be able to do so quickly without changing their keyboard output.

17. Keep your forms minimal – Registration forms are frustrating on all devices, when it comes to mobile, even more so.  Avoid open text fields when possible, as writing on mobile can be exhausting. Make sure your form is large and clear, using the full extent of the screen, and keep fields as well as the submit button large enough for clicking with a thumb (missing the right field because its too small can be a drag).

18. Simplify search – make it easy on your visitor to find what they need quickly. Have the search element in a key position to ensure people find what they want fast. (Remember it’s not the most important feature so don’t let overtake other elements).

Etsy

19. Carry your visitor’s identity – The vast majority of smartphone conversions come from either a direct link or email marketing. Use emails to carry the identity of your users into your mobile platform.

20. Allow to “shop later” – Sometimes we just don’t have the time or energy to complete our registration or purchase process. Make it easy on users to complete their journey on other devices and convert later. Offer a simple way to complete the funnel on another device via email or save-to-cart functionality.

21. QA, QA, and QA – Just because you tested the mobile site on your mobile phone doesn’t mean it works on everyone else’s. Before starting out check Google Analytics to discover the most common mobile screens your visitors use. Make sure to check your landing page on multiple devices and track it over time.

22. Ask for less – to minimize friction and increase conversion, ask for less from your visitors. Get the most important information you need to start a process and get additional information later. Screens are small, time is short and people won’t stay there if your funnel is hard work.

23.Keep copy to a minimum – Most visitors will not want to read through several paragraphs of text.  Surface the most important information on your landing page and quickly move visitors to the next step in your conversion funnel.

24. Emphasis your call to action – The call to action is the first thing a visitor should see on your landing page. Provide a quick way for people to follow your call to action and make it easy to complete the funnel. Make your call to action button visible and easy to click on with a touch screen.

Check out the example below by Naked Wines:

  • A lot of text
  • The call to action button is cut

wines

25. Optimize your forms – To make it as simple as possible for visitors to complete your forms, test breaking them into multiple, simple steps.

26. Keep titles short – Keep your title no longer than 3-4 words to maintain a one-line headline and not more.

27. Build for limited data – Mobile data connections can be slower than home broadband connections. Users can run out of patience waiting for your mobile site to load. Make sure to keep it relevant for mobile users and light.

28. Stay away from flash –it may look nice on web (and doesn’t convert), but it won’t on mobile. HTML5, GIFs and JPEGs highly recommended.

29. Take location into account – We use our smartphones while watching TV, driving, shopping and other various locations. Make it easy on the eyes & use icons for faster navigation (include short explanatory text).

30. Embrace social behavior – Social login have high conversion rates and are a great way to encourage visitors to interact socially with your product.

31. Offer exclusivity – The majority of people prefer to checkout on desktop screens. To increase conversions try offering mobile exclusive sales to reduce friction and increase sales.

iconixx

32. Design for action – Design all clickable elements as buttons (not just text links), make them big enough and add white space around them to emphasis them.

33. Less is more– Use as less text as possible and eliminate all unnecessary design elements – leave only functional elements.

34. Personalize your message – smartphones offer a lot of important information on visitors. Incorporate features that are available on mobile like GPS and location-based information for the users, for example: Shipping to Washington!

35. Take font into account – make texts more readable. Use larger font, bigger line-spacing and letter-spacing to allow for easy reading and skimming.

36. Optimize for SEO without damaging conversions – Avoid using a lot of text on your mobile landing page and introducing clutter by using an expandable-div. This will make pages shorter, and visitors will be able to click on what interests them.

AB Testing on Mobile

37. Test KPI’s – Before setting out to start testing, establish your business goals and translate them into digital KPIs (e.g – signups, purchases, downloads). Once you’ve determined your KPI’s make sure your tracking is set up correctly.

38. Reach significance – while running tests make sure you run them until you reach statistical significance, Google Experiments will tell you when you’ve reached it or you can use this A/B test calculator.  Reaching significance will ensure you learn as much as possible from your tests and know they’re correct.

39. Exclude irregular days – conduct your tests in an environment that will give you the most authentic results. Avoid testing during holidays, events or paycheck days.

40. Be systematic – To achieve clear results and understand the meaning of the test results, make sure to run one test a time or, if you have sufficient traffic run simultaneous tests with different test groups.

41. Test Strategies, not elements – After you’ve taken care of all the technological issues and elements that can increase conversion, be sure to start testing strategies to better understand your users. Testing button colors or titles will only get you to a certain point. In order to gain larger wins and learn more from your tests, you need to start testing emotional strategies.

42. Use a checklist – with so many things to remember prior to launching your campaign it is best to use a checklist to make sure no important steps have been missed.  A checklist also ensures that you and your team are following a consistent process for each new campaign.

Wrapping up

Responsive design is not a mobile optimization strategy. To get more out of your mobile visitors, creating dedicated landing pages and different user journeys for them is key for success.

Do you have any mobile landing optimization tips of your own? I’d love to hear your comments!

 

This post was originally published on Conversioner blog

Design, Marketing

15 Landing Page Design Examples And What They Can Teach Us

Most  marketers spend the majority of their time and budget on driving users to their sites and landing pages, but very little thought is given to the experience the user has once they reach there. In fact, companies typically spend $92 to bring customers to their site, but only $1 to convert them (Eisenberg Holdings). This lack of attention and investment in landing page optimization is a huge missed opportunity for organizations.

landing-page-examples

 Learning From Others

A great place to get started in optimizing your own pages is to look at common landing page examples and mistakes that many companies are making on a daily basis. In this article I’ll explore 15 landing pages’ major mistakes and offer different tests you can run to increase conversion:

6 Elements Addressed in Each Landing Page Design

1. Call To Action (CTA) – This is the most important part of the landing page as it is the end goal for what you want the action you want the user to perform. The CTA should be the first natural object a visitor sees. An effective landing page services on clear objective (e.g. sign up, leave their contact information, download a whitepaper, request a demo, or buy now). The call to action should represent the only action you can take on the landing page, which means removing any menus or links on the page. The CTA should also stand out from all other elements by using high contrast, bright colors, and strategic placement. Lastly, make it absolutely clear what the user will get when they click on it. For more information on CTA’s, check out this detailed article on Call to Action Buttons.

2. Messaging – An effective landing page talks about benefits, not features:
Putting the customer in the spotlight, not your product or service. Good messaging conveys the change a customer will experience in their daily lives with your product, not how amazing your product is. This message should also be conveyed in a matter of seconds. Providing convincing information to allow a visitor to make a decision. Understanding the experience a visitor needs to go through is key to higher conversions.

3. Registration Forms – If the goal of your page is to capture leads or contact information, your landing page will have a registration form. Creating an effective, and high converting registration form involves several factors and there are several ways to increase their conversion:

a. Minimize your request – ask for the minimum possible
b. Be precise- Explain the reason for singing up and be specific.
c. Call to action – make sure to have a clear call to action that indicates the next steps that need to be taken.
d. Guide the user – Help users understand where they are, and where they’re going. Use indicators, explanation fields and don’t surprise the user.
e. Consider social signups – Following the minimizing requests necessity, introduce social connect for easier signup.

There are many other elements to take into consideration, and we’ll discuss them when we dig deeper in to our landing page examples.

4. Page Structure– The look, feel, and overall structure of a landing page will have a large impact on how it performs, and ultimately conversion. Minimalist design tends to perform better, so be sure to maintain a clean landing page with clear navigation and little distraction. The most important content should be placed at the top of the page, or “above the fold.” This way a user does not have to scroll in order to get all of the necessary information to convert.

5. Images – I know, I’m probably like a broken record by now BUT: Our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text. The Image is IMPORTANT.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and having an image that captures your visitors’ attention, or stirs emotion can make or break landing page performance. Some things to keep in mind:

a. Use imagery to add meaning: either to the brand, or to the content
b. Get more meaning from fewer graphics
c. Use images deliberately to support your message and communication goals
d. Remember the landing page’s goal and the users’ goals, and apply graphics in subtle proportions

6. Colors – Believe it or not, color has a powerful influence on our emotions and decision-making abilities. Colors are a great way to communicate emotions in a matter of seconds. Checkout this extensive article on color psychology.

So, lets take a look at these landing page critiques and learn as much as possible from them. I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on the landing pages. If you’d like to have your landing page critiqued next, send a quick email to [email protected].

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GolfLinked

Landing page examples

I know I’m not the targeted audience, BUT:

What’s in it for me? So this is the BEST app for connecting golfers. Great, but how is it going to change my life? Circling back to messaging –> it should be about the customer not the app. What’s in it for the user?

Let’s talk about the image –the image is one of the most dominating elements on your landing page and can be used not only to convey a message but to direct users attention to other important elements. The image shows a golf player with his back to us (which makes it impersonal) but further more, the image is distracting. In fact the first thing a visitor notices on the page is the iPhone and not the call to action, which is what we want them to notice.

The Call to action is placed on his butt. Enough said. No one wants to click on anyone’s butt.

Stop emphasizing your logo and even worst making it clickable, companies do this all the time. It’s attention grabbing, if you’re not Apple or another huge brand there’s no need to highlight your logo. Move it out of the spotlight.

The use of colors – Green is a great color for creating a fresh, clean and new feeling.  Green also serves as a great natural color that is easy on the eyes.

What to test:

  • Have your image facing/pointing at the call to action button – it will focus the visitor’s attention in the right direction. Finding an image that works for golf isn’t easy at all, we ran a similar test last year.

 

HookFeed

Landing page Examples

The headline is really vague. My customers are my business? What do you do? Why should I use this product? It doesn’t give me enough of an insight to how this will make my life much easier. I’m not sure how segmented are the visitors arriving on this page, but it lacks a more in-depth explanation.

Great use of social proof quotes, especially from Stripe’s co-founder. People love to feel others like them are using the same products and services as they are.

Nice call to action, contrasted from the rest of the page, stands out and it is the first natural elements my eyes focus on.

Extremely Confusing Funnel – The call to action button opens a confusing list of options. You’ve just gotten people to tryout your free trial but instead you’re confusing people and asking them for too much.

Hookefeed 2

  2 Elements You Can Test:

  • Before showing them a list of prices, start by collecting their email details that way you can follow up on them if they leave.
  • Once they’ve entered their email address, send them to the product and have your list of offers in a layer above it. This way, customers will feel they’re just a step away from reaching the product and will complete the funnel.

 

Present

Landing page examples

The image of the girl conveys a great feeling of excitement and adventure. For an app that wants to get you excited about capturing your life in video, it does a great job. One comment: Flip her! Get her to look the other direction.

The messaging is great – “A social Video Diary, capturing your life’s journey.” I know what this is, I know how it will improve my life and I can get this in less than 5 seconds.

What do you want a visitor to do? Find out more, download the app or subscribe? All 3 buttons on the page have the same weight and it’s not clear what the target is.

What To Test:

  • Flipping the girls image to look at the CTA
  • Try using the “Win an iPhone 6″ competition as an exit pop, so that when people come to leave they have a last minute proposition.
  • If you want to subscribe Android users to a mailing list, you can do that with a simple link under the “Download App” button asking: “Android user?” a click on that can open a subscribe window.

 

StampReady

landing page example

 

What is your call to action? Are you trying to get people to watch the video? Or register?

Everything’s grey. You need to use your design and colors to point the visitor in the natural direction of the call to action.

Nice work on the signup form, it’s short and to the point. I would however change the color of “Register account” to something different than grey, more actionable and I would think about changing the messaging on the call to action to something more exciting.

stampready 2

The messaging doesn’t tell me anything. What are you offering? Why is StampReady better for me? How is it going to simplify my life? I’m also not sure about having the name of your company in the headline. The headline is meant to give you the big picture in under 3 seconds, unless you’re a well known brand, that won’t work.

What to Test:

  • The image/video in the background says nothing about the service. As you’re already showing a video as your main call to action, I would have a static image in the background that would give more of a feeling of what StampReady is for its customers.
  • Add a clear call to action
  • Change the messaging
  • Add color to page

 

PeekCalendar

landing page examples

What’s the CTA? “Watch the video” or “Get it”? choose.

What do you want me to look at? This is similar to the previous comment. There’s so much going on with colors, images, text, screenshots, buttons I have no idea what the flow is, what I’m suppose to do or what your app does.

I’d definitely test one main image, or if you’re set on having 2 then less colors, more focus. Also, note how you can barley read the “watch the video” text, it almost blends in with the background…

Where’s the emotion? Where’s the “This is the answer to all your scheduling turmoil’s?” (and there are soooo many!!) A pair of hands holding an iPhone with a calendar that looks just any other isn’t the answer.

Love the title, calendars are extremely hard to manage (like email) and I like the reference to it being humanized for actual people to use.

Things to test:

Find the right image

  • Test using a screenshot from the app that shows the actual difference and value you bring
  • If you can’t, then test using an image that conveys emotion (no screenshots or iPhones), just an image that says “this is how you will look like/feel once you use our app.”

 

Munchery

landing page examples

The use of images could be optimized. A great way to direct users attention to the call to action button is using the images themselves as indicators. For example, instead of having the corn facing outwards, have it facing the call to action button. Basically all elements on the landing page should point to the call to action.

I’d definitely look into focusing the user on one message only that explains the service quicker.

Actionable call to action messaging: “View Menu” – I know exactly where I’m heading with it and it gives a safe feeling.

Great use of colors to provoke emotion, arouse the taste buds and basically make people hungry.

What to Test:

  • The Messaging doesn’t explain the product.  In fact, you have to read the fine print to really understand what Munchery do ‘Wholesome Meals In a Snap’ could be a site with recipes… There’stoo much text and it’s hard to take in. Try reducing the text “Order expertly…” and see if you can use it as your headline.

 

Frank & Oak

Frank & Oak

The messaging is completely vague. Why should I discover Frank & Oak? Similar to the case of StampReady, putting your brand’s name in the headline is like answering a question with a question. You’re basically asking people to read more and investigate, people don’t have time for that.

Too many ‘Call to Action’ buttons. Both their colors are in complete contrast to each other and the background and I don’t understand what you prefer I’d do: Signup with facebook or my email? It’s extremely important to have one call to action, if you want to give people another way of signing up offer it under the large call to action button in a way of a link.

What to test:

  • The image is a controversy, on one hand it’s doing great use in pointing towards the call to action. On the other hand, he has his head pointing down and he looks sad. Depending on culture, an image of a person staring at the user is too intrusive, but no eye contact whatsoever creates the sense of detachment, depression and seclusion. I’d test a different image, still pointing at the CTA but something more cheerful.

 

Mixioapp

Mixioapp

To understand Mixioapp I had to do some scrolling, downloading and watching.

The messaging isn’t clear enough to understand how this works or when. The amount of text under the main headline is basically telling visitors “Don’t read this!”

The call to action button almost doesn’t exist. Located on the far top right corner in the same white color that all other elements on the page are in, it’s hard to see how people even notice it.

To play fair, I checked the page on my mobile device and was surprised to find that although it is a downloadable app, there was absolutely no call to action to be found. Basically, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to be told how to use this app. Not to mention to be told what this app is…

The use of color on the landing page is important. Mixioapp’s messaging is all about taking pictures while on an adventure or just on a daily basis when magical things happen. Green represents fresh, new and growth, which is just what their targeted audience needs.

 

One Hour Translation

One hour transaltion

 

It’s easy to get what you do, but the first thing that appears on this landing page is clutter. The amount of colors and things going on this page is overwhelming.

The amount of call to action buttons is distracting and hard to comprehend. There’s no room to breath. Do you want people to fill in the form? Or do you want people to click on ”Get an instant quote”? The page can benefit from some cleaning up and redefining the goals of the landing page.

The amount of text is also an issue, all the text is on the right of the page and as a result you get is headline attached to a subtitle the additional text, the form and the security icons. Keep in mind that people may need al this info in bullets + the text needs more spacing.

I cannot say this enough: Marketing isn’t about the product or service, it’s about the change you make in a consumers life. Being the world’s fastest translation agency is fantastic but it’s about you, not the customer. I’d definitely mention it, but would try and test over headlines with a more targeted message to the customers.

I love using icons to ensure trust and security; the use of badges and certificates is a great way toenhance brand security. In One-hour translations’ case I would suggest repositioning them in a place that would give them more emphasis.

What to test:

  • A good way to emphasis an element is to give it some white space. Whitespace will help differentiate between the important and the less.
  • Cleaning the page completely. Removing text, all the elements and amount of colors.

 

 Dynado

Dynado

 

It took me too long to understand what Dynado is offering. “Better All-In-One communications” could be so many products… why are there random words highlighted below the headline? It makes it extremely hard to read the text and understand what they do.

There are literally hundreds of products out there today doing team management and communications. I have no idea why Dyando is better than others.

Using random stock photos of people around a computer does not help their case. Most companies use a task management and communication tool for teams that are remote… they don’t sit around looking at a computer together so I’m not sure what they were going for here.

What to test:

The call to action button has two issues that I’d fix:

  • The first is the text – the title of the page says Dynado and the headline of page uses the word ‘Better’ as part of the sentence, so most people have no idea that “Better” is the name of the product and it’s very confusing.
  • The other thing I’d test is the color of the button, I don’t usually do these kinds of tests (before testing strategies) but the white text on the neon green button make my eyes squint.

 

daPulse

dapulse

 

I decided to critique daPulse as a second point of view on team collaboration platforms (full disclosure, I used to work with these guys):

The messaging is great, as mentioned before the world is crowded with different platforms and products and it is extremely important to stand out and say how your product benefits the customer. This is true to all industries, your competitors are doing the same as you more or less and it’s up to you to show your customers the emotional benefits in purchasing your product or software. It’s not about being the best product, it’s about making a change in your customers life.

Appealing to managers on a personal level and telling them they’re going to become amazing managers is what categorizes daPulse as different (Great job!).

The signup area is a little over crowded, I would definitely test moving the “free 30 days trial” sentence below the form and giving it less emphasis. Visually, I’d also enlarge the top part of the page to give it more emphasis and in turn enlarge the signup area.

Notice how the image in the background amplifies the “connecting remote teams” theme; although not a clear image and I’m not quite sure what the gold in the corner stands for, the idea of worldwide collaboration is clear and precise.

What to test:

  • I’d consider using the testimonials and trust elements in a more prominent position on the page (right now it’s at the bottom).
  • I don’t know how targeted and segmented are the visitors arriving on this page but I’d consider further clarifying what it is that you do by adding a subtitle.

 

The John Maxwell Team

John Maxwell

The first thing that comes to mind when looking at this page is: A coach of what? Very vague headlineand I’m not sure why it is in quotes. I’d move the part about “leadership” to the headline.

Starting a video automatically is extremely annoying. Don’t do it.

The registration form is short and to the point, I would however merge the first and last name fields. I’d also work on the text above the fields, as it is very hard to read clearly.

The messaging of the entire page is about life’s transformation and then the call to action button says, “click here to get started”, I’d consider trying “Change your life today!” or something along those lines.

What to test:

  • The call to action should also be a contrasting color to the rest of the page. I’d also consider adding some type of background color.

 

Cricket IP Security Cameras

Cricket

The use of the color Green on the call to action button is very good as it is the general direction in which a visitor will look at.

The list of benefits is great but I can’t read it. White space is crucial here, and I’d also increase the headline to make it more noticeable.

Great use of security elements and icons blow the call to action.

What to test:

  • I know they’re selling security cameras but that image is just terrible. No emotion, no interest and no purpose other than showing the visitor what the camera looks like. When talking about security you want to make visitors feel secure and peaceful before even purchasing the product. Show them how safe they’ll be once they acquire this camera.

 

Last but not least

dating-app

A company that will be launching their dating app in 1.5 months sent this landing page to me and asked me to review it. Their goal for now is to sign up people, so that once they launch they can send them the news and get them engaged. As there’s not a lot to go on, this will be short but I do have some important comments.

This is a screen capture from a standard screen, which means you have a bug and it needs to be fixed, as I can’t read that sentence at the bottom

The hierarchy of elements on your landing page doesn’t make sense. It seems that your logo and company name are more important than the sign up form. I’d enlarge the signup field and button and give it much more weight. In addition the black stipe stands out more than other elements on the page and is hovering all the attention. I’d consider changing the color, moving it lower in the page.

What does “invite me” mean? This again to do with the messaging, you need to put yourself out there and not by compering yourself to your competitors. Explain what happens when you signup, what is the value and why it’s worth your visitors while.

What to test:

  • Your messaging gives the visitor absolutely no value; you’re basically just saying you’re an alternative to Tinder. Nothing about your product, why it’s different or how it will make a change in the world of online dating. There are literally thousands of online dating platforms; you have to give people a reason to signup, because right now there isn’t one.

This concludes this month’s landing page examples and critiques. I hope you get a few ideas from these landing pages critiques and I’d love to hear about them. If you have any questions about my comments let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear them.

 

This post was originally published on Conversioner blog

Design, Marketing

Here’s How To Increase Conversions Using Color Psychology Methods

Colors, can have a tremendous impact on a consumer’s decision to purchase. With today’s 3 seconds to convince visitors to convert kind of world it’s important to use colors, images and messaging the best way we can. As our brains process images 60,000 times quicker than text, color can have a huge impact on your landing page’s conversion rate. In the following article we will explores the emotional power color has on our brains and decisions, along with tips for how you can incorporate color psychology into your landing page designs.

The Emotional Power of Color

Colors are a way of communicating certain messages and feelings in a matter of seconds.  When we use the right colors, they can have an emotional effect on our visitors and direct them in to action.  According to Kissmetrics, 85% of shoppers place color as the primary reason for why they buy a product and color increases brand recognition by 80%.  People are also said to make subconscious decisions in under 90 seconds, and color is a great way to trigger action.

Emotional-triggers-of-colors

Segmenting Colors by Gender & Age

In general when we design our landing pages we don’t put a large emphasis on gender unless we’re targeting our product to a specific gender. We use colors to portray specific emotions and make a memorable experience for our client’s users. Depending upon the type of product or service you offer, and the industry in which you operate, gender preferences may play heavily into purchase decisions.  It pays to understand which colors persuade a particular gender to stay on a page or make a purchase.

According to research from Sherwin-Williams colors that appeal most to women are blue, purple and green while orange, brown, and gray are least appealing.

Earlier this year we worked on a women’s ecommerce store selling prom dresses in the US. in this test we introduced the color pink to project calm, hopeful and positive feelings towards shopping prom dresses online. The color pink was introduced to more than just the banner or background, the images on the page were given a pink hue and were all directing to a certain type of experience – our goal was to help women (mothers and daughters) experience the delight of shopping online in a world of calm and positive emotions . These changes and others increased revenues by 86%.

Before:

Web-colors-1

After:

Web-colors-2

According to the same research from Sherwin-Williams, men preferred blue, green, and black, while brown, orange, and purple were the least loved.  Again, again and again we see that the emphasis shouldn’t be on the gender or age but on the experience you’re creating for the visitor.

When designing your landing page you should also take into account the age of your audience.  You may already have a clear sense of the age of your audience, or if you are using Google Analytics, you can find this information under the Audience tab.  Children and younger generations tend to prefer warmer colors that are associated with positivity and high energy.  These include red, orange, pink, and yellow.  Brown, purple, yellow, and blue are generally associated with sadness and negativity by children.

 

Colors & Types of Consumers

 

Color also has a unique ability to attract certain types of consumers and impact shopping behavior.

  • Impulse shoppers tend to gravitate toward black, red orange, and royal blue.  This is evidenced by the colors found in fast food, outlet malls, and clearance sales.
  • Shoppers on a budget tend to be influenced by navy blue and teal.  This is evidenced by the typical color schemes found in large department stores and retail banking.
  • Traditional buyers are drawn to pink, sky blue, and rose.  Clothing stores will use these customers to attract traditional buyers to their shops.

Designing For Emotion

Color is one of the most subtle and effective ways to instill a specific emotion.   Colors can make us feel happy or sad, relaxed or hungry.  Different research shows that certain colors elicit particular emotions, and by understanding the psychology of color you can establish an emotional connection with consumers.

Yellow

Yellow is a great color to give a gentle energy to a landing page. It is mainly used to inspire happiness, laughter, hope, and sunshine. However, you should use yellow sparingly as it can also irritate the eyes if it is overused. In the landing page below we used the color yellow and other yellow elements to generate fun and sunshine.

QR1

Red

Red can be a great way to draw attention to an element, like a call to action, but use in moderation as the color can become overwhelming.  Red can can bring out emotions of  passion and love, as well as anger or danger. Red also has a tendency to cause us to feel hungry, which is why you see fast food chains like KFC and McDonalds make heavy use of these colors in their branding.

Green

The use of the color green can be done to emphasis regeneration, clean, health and wealth.  Green is commonly found in financial institutions, as it is indicates growth, financial health, and possibility. Earlier this year we introduced the colors green to establish a look and feel of wealth, relaxation, fresh and new. Green is also known as being the easiest color our eyes can process making it easier for us to focus on other elements on the landing page.

This increased conversions by 65% in the first round.

From:

Original-Landing-Page

To:

Landing-page-variation-1

Orange

Orange is more inviting than Red, but still grabs attention.  Orange is one of the most common colors for creating call to action buttons. Earlier this year we discussed Fanta’s use of the color orange and

Blue

Seeing the color blue causes the body to release chemicals that are calming, which causes it to evoke feelings of soothing, calmness, and spirituality.  Dark blue is commonly found in corporate designs because it promotes stability and professionalism.  Lighter blues give a more relaxing and friendly feel.  Take Twitter and Facebook, for example.

Blue-landing-page

Purple

This color is associated with creativity, royalty, nostalgia, and wealth.  Like blue it can also have a calm and soothing effect, however depending on the shade it can also be used to create intrigue.  Purple can be used to make a design appear more luxurious or wealthy, and is often used in beauty and anti-aging products.

 

The Impact of Color on Conversions

There are plenty of examples where a simple change in the color of increased sales and conversions, since other than copy, design and color play a huge role in the success or failure of any landing page or product. Although changing an elements color on a landing page can have great impact on conversions, it is very hard to analyze results from these types of tests and scale from them. Deciding on the colors of your landing page or brand is more than just the color of your Call to Action button, it’s a strategy. Since colors portray emotions, you can use them in a way that communicates a certain experience.

I just got back from Europe and witnessed all of the McDonalds chains around me in Green. It intrigued me to understand why such a strong brand known for its RED color would change to Green and apparently McDonalds is swapping its traditional red backdrop for a deep Green — to promote a more eco-friendly image in Europe. The power of color.

McDonalds isn’t alone, in a marketing study, Heinz changed the color of their signature ketchup bottle from red to green and sold over 10 million bottles in seven months, resulting in sales of $23 million.

What’s Next?

With all of the information and data provided you should be able to start incorporating color psychology into your landing page designs in order to see which colors resonate with your target audience.  It’s important to understand that work does not end with simply creating a landing page and that continual testing of copy, layout, imagery, and particularly color is need to truly impact conversions.   How have you incorporated color into your designs?

 

This post was originally published on Conversioner blog