7 Landing Page Design Hacks That Generate Leads

According to the Unbounce Conversion Benchmark Report published in 2021, the median conversion rate on lead-generation landing pages is just below 3.9%. And while for many businesses (especially in industries like real estate or SaaS), this makes for an entirely satisfactory result, marketers looking to achieve better outcomes usually aim for the 10% CR mark.

So, what changes can you make to your landing pages to optimize them to generate more leads? Well, you can do a lot to boost your business's chance of success by investing in these online assets.

This guide looks at the best design hacks you can implement to ensure that your landing pages attract and engage your target audience and generate high-quality leads you can transform into loyal customers of your brand.

The most important thing you must do before you can start implementing any design hacks to improve landing page conversion rates is to define your goals. After all, there are numerous possible objectives for lead-generation landing pages:

● You might be trying to encourage web visitors to sign up for your newsletter so that you can nurture them into customers.

● Your goal might be to get prospects to sign up for a free trial or product demo so that it becomes an irreplaceable part of their workflow.

● You could be trying to capture pre-orders for your upcoming products to improve your sales and cash flow.

● Or, you could be trying to get people to download a gated resource so that you can gather a better idea of who your leads are. That's what Gallup does, asking leads to state their job titles when downloading reports.

The value of determining your landing page goal is that it gives you a unique opportunity to align the design, copy, and CTAs with your objectives.

Moreover, this strategy is a superb way to optimize for user intent, informing how you visually present information, the type of language you use, and how the visitor journey will look for people arriving at your website via this asset.

When designing a landing page, it's easy to fall into the trap of wanting to make it look as beautiful and impressive as possible.

But here's the thing: at the end of the day, most people prefer simple, predictable, and high-performing websites over their more elaborate alternatives. So don't be afraid to go with something sleek and minimal, with lots of negative space and simple color palettes.

Moreover, do your best to actively remove unnecessary distractions — especially those that cause user frustration, like pop-ups, persistent banners, and modal advertisements.

Finally, know how people interact with websites. For instance, the NN Group discovered that web users spend 74% of user page-viewing time interacting with the content in the first two screenfuls. This data shows how essential it is to position conversion-inspiring information in the topmost section of your landing pages.

For an excellent example of a brand that adheres to these landing page best practices, check out the FOCL homepage.

● First and foremost, you'll notice that it employs a very pared-down design with a single visual and a minimal color palette.

● Secondly, it utilizes the hero section to position the most impactful webpage elements — the unique value proposition and the CTA.

● And finally, FOCL makes sure to guarantee the visibility of conversion-boosting information (the social proof below the header and the free shipping guarantee at the top of the page), knowing that it will inevitably impact visitors' buying decisions.

One of the most common conversion killers on landing pages (and websites in general) is utilizing a design that doesn't align with brand identity. Also, Partnering with a professional design service ensures your website's design elements are in sync with your brand identity, boosting conversions and building trust with your audience.
Some businesses may be able to get away with minor discrepancies between what their audience expects from them and how their website looks. Nonetheless, the better option is to use your branding strategy documentation to inform landing page appearance.

For instance, a business like Ben & Jerry's might want to use silly fonts, colorful images, and humorous copy to engage its diverse audience. It's looking great on their Ice Cream Pints landing page. However, for a software development company, a more tech-savvy and professional look may be more suitable to inspire confidence and trust in potential clients.

However, a B2B brand or a business operating in a high-risk industry like finance could never get away with similar choices, no matter how delightful they may be. That's why organizations like MarketBeat use more professional fonts, design elements that evoke ticker tapes, and do their best to present information in a way that communicates authority and professionalism.

So, when determining the design directions most suitable for use on your landing pages, think about the following two factors:

● What does your brand stand for?

Dependability? Luxury? Quality? Communicate these differentiators through your design choices to ensure your audience feels comfortable buying from your brand.

● What is your target audience looking for?

If they're still in the top to mid stages of the buyer's journey, they'll appreciate it if you focus your landing page design on delivering valuable information or resources. However, if they're ready to convert (or almost ready), a more pragmatic and conversion-oriented approach is far more likely to get them to sign up for a free trial or convince them to buy your products.

When aiming to generate leads via your landing pages, you must do everything you can to ensure that web visitors enjoy interacting with your site.

Yes, design plays a tremendous role in convincing people to read through the content of a webpage — Adobe found that almost 60% of consumers prefer beautiful webpages over their utilitarian counterparts.

But you also need to look at conversion and engagement statistics. You'll notice that technical performance has a far bigger impact on how your target audience feels about your landing pages (and how likely they are to convert):

As of May 2023, 51.52% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. So, if you want your landing pages to appeal to your target audience and generate leads, you must optimize for smaller screens.

Research shows that page load speed directly influences conversion rates. According to Google, a 10-second increase in site load times boosts the chances of a visit turning into a bounce by 123%. Moreover, Google has confirmed that site speed represents a core ranking factor (which can increase or decrease the chances of your landing pages appearing at the top of SERPs).

According to research, 96.3% of websites have accessibility issues, preventing a sizable chunk of users from seamlessly interacting with these pages.

And the worst part? Most of these issues are easy to fix — low contrast text, missing ALT text, empty links, and missing buttons are all UX obstacles you can easily prevent with just a little bit of work. You can use an accessibility testing tool to get an exact read on the accessibility issues existing in your landing page.

Last but not least, note that copy readability scores can have just as much impact on your lead-generation efforts. So, aim to use text that's easy to understand, concise, and engaging. You don't want to alienate prospects with too much industry jargon.

What's the best way to convince your audience to convert? Show web visitors that you understand their needs and offer a solution that effectively removes their pain points.

Most brands try to do this by focusing on the copy — which is, admittedly, hugely impactful in terms of conversion rate. But remember that visual cues also contribute to (or detract from) how positively web visitors react to your USPs.

In short, you need to use design to emphasize your promises to remove specific user pain points.

For example, lifestyle brands like GILI must come to terms with the fact that they're not just selling physical products. They're trying to convince their prospects to invest in an entirely outdoorsy, sporty lifestyle by purchasing a paddle board. So, the brand uses a combination of copy and visuals to communicate the breadth of the experience its solutions offer.

Yes, the paddle boards are stable, durable, and versatile. But, even more importantly, they're a gateway to adventure. This message is beautifully supported by the breathtaking visuals GILI uses throughout its website.

Wyzowl discovered that 89% of consumers were convinced to buy a product and 79% to download an app by watching product explainer videos. With this in mind, video could be a powerful conversion booster to add to your landing pages, especially if you're introducing visitors to complex or innovative solutions.

A look at the Levels homepage, for instance, shows how the brand employs a website header video to describe the way a continuous glucose monitoring device works, a strategy that's far more effective at getting visitors to sign up for the waitlist than trying to explain the concept through copy alone.

Winning your target audience's trust is essential when trying to generate leads or drive sales. In fact, a 2022 report from Trustpilot found that 66% of consumers say they're often influenced by reviews during their buyer's journey. So, it's only natural that one of the most effective design hacks to generate leads is to enhance your landing pages with instances of social proof.

And the best part is that this can be really simple. Something as basic as communicating the number of your customers and showing off your brand's average star rating — like on the Shop Solar Kits homepage — can convince your prospects to place their faith in your brand.

Testimonials, especially those that address the main benefits of your solutions, like the example on the Figma Design landing page, make for equally powerful conversion boosters to use throughout your website.

Or, if you're looking for a visually streamlined way of communicating your brand's dependability and trustworthiness, build trust via association. Show off the logos of some of your brand's famous customers, like in this example from the Remote website.

Lastly, don't forget that a streamlined user experience inevitably leads to higher conversion rates.

Explore opportunities to make your forms and pages more user-oriented. Show your prospects that signing up for your newsletter or free trial doesn't come with invisible strings attached. And make it super easy (and risk-free) for web visitors to sign up via your forms.

For example, shortening lead-generation forms and not collecting unnecessary data like phone numbers can tremendously boost the chances of web visitors turning into leads.

However, if you need more information to successfully nurture subscribers into customers, do something similar to McKinsey and allow your audience to choose what type of communication they receive from your brand. This strategy will tremendously improve their overall brand experience and minimize their chances of associating your brand with spammy emails or irrelevant communication.

Alternatively, you could also enhance the lead-generation potential of your landing pages by breaking sign-up forms into smaller bits. Using breadcrumbs, like on the Bean Box website, allows you to capture user emails early on in the process or, even better, provide the data required to deliver a personalized experience to your potential customers.

Finally, when aiming to improve lead-generation landing page conversions, you must also have the required tools to ensure the validity of the customer data you collect. After all, a fake email address won't do your brand much good. So, don't hesitate to use the Clearout Email Verifier to ensure that all your hard work results in actual benefits for your business.

Generating leads and converting customers is never easy. Whoever thinks it's easy doesn't know the kind of work that goes into the process.

However, it is true that some design tricks can help you capture more high-quality prospects whom you can transform into satisfied customers.

Following the tricks outlined in this guide is an excellent method to go after your lead-generation goals. And once you've done that, you can slowly start upgrading your email marketing efforts to make the absolute most of this high ROI marketing method.


Author's bio: Natasha is a lady of a keyboard and one hell of a geek. She has been working for, and collaborating with, individual clients and companies of all sizes for more than a decade. Natasha specializes in writing about design, branding, digital marketing, and business growth.