2113 Blog
What Makes a Good Landing Page?
Primer
A landing page is, from a design and content standpoint, a page that is put together specifically to guide a website visitor toward taking a particular action. The structure, images, and text all work together to either:
a) Generate sign-ups — for a free-trial, a newsletter, an account on the site, and so on
b) Sell users on a particular product or service, or
c) Get a click to have a user download a free e-book, or a piece of software
In order to make a good landing page, which all good NYC web design companies should know how to do, there are a few elements you should have in place in order to make your landing page as effective as possible.
Call to Action
The first element is the call to action. This is a message to the user that tries to convince them that they need to take the action you’re recommending. In many cases, the call to action is a short phrase like “Request a Quote” or “Subscribe to our newsletter,” and requires that you click on a button or enter your information into a form. Your call to action should be clear, concise, and should stand out from the other text on your page.
Headline
The next important piece of the landing page puzzle is a good headline. The goal of the headline is to catch the attention of the visitor and make sure they stay on the landing page long enough to check out the rest of it, and make their way to the “call to action.” Make your headline catchy. If possible, do some A/B split testing and check out the conversion results between two different headlines you’ve developed.
Good Flow
When someone visits your landing page, their eyes should immediately be drawn to the headline. After that, they should instinctively land on the next item in your process, whether that’s some descriptive text or the call to action. Having a good flow to your landing page means there is no confusion on the user’s part about where they should be looking next. If someone arrives on your landing page and the conversion process isn’t absolutely dead simple, they’ll leave.
Interested in working with an NYC web design company to develop and perfect a landing page, or a whole website? Get in touch with 21thirteen Design.
Examining the Two-Click Rule
We recently read an interesting piece from Gene Smith at nForm called “The Two-Click Rule.” In his post, Gene details the general behavior of corporate website visitors, saying that most wind up on a website through either search or referrals (around 80%-90%). Gene also noted that these users are entering the website on the home page, but instead on some other page.
So, where does the name “Two-Click Rule” come from? When visiting a corporate site, a user will likely click on the site once or twice and then leave. This makes the hierarchical navigation of old a lot less useful.
The solution? It’s necessary to offer easy access to the information people might want within those two clicks, which means you’ll have to rethink the organization of your pages. If a user visits a page in the middle of a “funnel,” of sorts, they need to be provided with some kind of context to let them know where they are, and they need to be able to get to where they want to go in two clicks.
Anything more than that, and you risk having that visitor leave your site.
We’re going to dig a bit deeper into this and see what we can come up with. And remember, if you have website design questions in the NYC area, don’t hesitate to give us a call at (646) 808-0391.
5 Ways to Make Your Contact Page Better
When you build a website for your NYC business, your ultimate goal is to do one of three things: convince the customer to come to your location for your product or service (if you have a location), have that customer pick up the phone to call you, or have the customer complete your contact form. The contact form, which is usually placed on the contact page, is made up of a few Web submission fields that gather information from the customer, which is then sent to you. The idea is, once you receive this information, you’ll be able to get back in touch with the customer and already know who they are and what they want.
In order to have someone complete the forms on a contact page, though, you’ll have to make the page good and give them a compelling reason to do so. Here are five tips for making your contact page better.
Cut down on the number of fields. You want to put the least amount of distance in between you and a lead. If you have a contact page with 20 form submission fields, you might discourage a bunch of people from starting to complete the forms, much less finishing them.
Don’t be nosy. Avoid asking for information that isn’t relevant; for instance, you don’t want to ask for age, gender, birthday, or any other personal information on a contact page when none of that information is required knowledge for doing business.
Hide other forms. Some websites will have forms built into the sidebar or footer. On the contact page, remove these forms so the visitor doesn’t have the opportunity to be confused about which form they’re supposed to complete.
Stay above the fold. Make sure most of, if not all of the contact forms on your contact page are above the fold (the area of your screen that is visible without scrolling). If your website visitor has to scroll to reach your forms, they may get distracted by other things and never complete the form submission in the first place.
Be obvious with the submission button. Don’t place anything near the submission button. Put it at the bottom of your form, and make the button big so that it’s hard to miss. When a user completes the form, they should have no trouble figuring out how to submit their information.
Ready for a fresh new Web design for your NYC company? Call 21thirteen Design today at (646) 808 0391.
A Few Other Website Design Trends for 2012
We covered responsive design in our last post. Wondering what else 2012 holds in store for Boston website design, and the entire Web design industry in general? Here are some of our predictions.
Increased use of custom fonts.
Web fonts are making a big splash right now, giving Web designers the opportunity to utilize different typefaces as opposed to using default system fonts available on most systems. Expect to see more of these as the year goes on.
Infographics.
These have been all the rage for the past year or two, and they’re still growing in popularity. The fact is, information presented visually is just more engaging and interesting than information shown as plain text. You’ll see a lot more infographics in 2012.
Fixed navigation.
We saw some of this in some new Boston Web designs at the end of 2011, and we’re certain that more designers are going to make use of fixed site navigation this year. It’s just far more convenient to the user when the navigation follows them on a page. The opposition that such navigation has presented in the past seems to have given way thanks to better implementation.
Ready to get started on your next design? Contact us today!
Logo Designs That Incorporate Letters
Logos are an important part of a New York City company’s branding strategy, and often serve as the visual connector to a company. When someone sees your logo, the hope is that they recognize it as yours and draw the line to your company, the services or products it provides, and its persona. One of the more clever ways to make the connection easy is to create a logo that works in one or more letters from your company’s name. We’ve collected several different logos that we feel do an excellent job of creating a logo or symbol from a letter.
Which one do you like the most?
A+: A simple but effective logo that works a “+” (plus sign) into the A.
Matrimony: Works the hand-holding bride and groom into the letter M.
Geotronic: We really like this one a lot. A microscope is worked into the letter G, and doesn’t look a bit out of place.
Pelican: A fairly simple design, but memorable thanks to the pelican head that becomes part of the letter P.
Water Drop: Incorporates a drop of water into the bottom of the W — very neat idea.
Wine: Creates a “W” out of two wine glasses.
Looking to have some Web or graphic design done for your company? Get in touch with 21thirteen design for your company’s New York City Web needs.
Responsive Website Design: What Is It?
A somewhat recent but popular trend in Boston website design is responsive design. The purpose of responsive design is to minimize the development time necessary to support multiple browser viewport sizes, so the same website can be seen regardless of whether you’re using a widescreen desktop monitor or an iPhone. A site designed with responsive design will shrink images, and adjust or remove certain page elements automatically so that the main content of the page is viewable on a smaller display. This allows one website to be used for all devices, and eliminates the need to develop a specific website for a specific device.
Here are a few examples of great responsive website design. Open these websites in a browser window, and adjust the window size from wide to narrow, and then back. Notice how all of the page elements adjust or vanish to adapt to the width of the browser window.
Take Advantage of Your “About” Page
With all the hard work that goes into website design, as well as content on all of a website’s pages, once page constantly seems to be overlooked — the “About” page. This is a shame, too, because this can be one of the most important pages on a site, especially for a visitor who is looking to develop some kind of bond with a company, or needs to feel a certain “vibe” before they make a move. With a properly completed “About” page, you could potentially gain some customers that would’ve gone elsewhere — all from a page that you didn’t give much credence to.
So, what should you consider adding first to your “About” page? A good idea is a succinct company history — succinct being the key word. Don’t write out an entire novel about the origins of your company, but fill the visitor in so they have some background and can get a feel for the attitude and personality of your company. Some example topics: How was the company founded? What’s its mission? What does it do now and what will it do in the future?
Another great way to develop a connection between the website visitor and your company is to introduce the visitor to some of, or all of, your employees. A “Meet Our Team” section could include a photo of the employee, a blurb about their job functions and perhaps some personal tidbits; these can really make the visitor feel like they know the company personally.
Some other items you could add to your about page, if you’re interested, could be some statistics about the business your company is in — if this is done in infographic form, that’s even better. You don’t want to bore the reader to death, so infographics are a good way to boast about sales numbers or flattering stats without putting the visitor to sleep with a bunch of numerical figures and percentages.
Are you a Boston business looking to step it up in the website design department? Get in touch with 21thirteen Design today at (617) 963-0291.
Images and Search Engine Optimization
If you’re not optimizing your images for search engines, you’re missing an extra opportunity to show up in the search engines. You can make a few changes to some of your image attributes and increase your odds of showing up in search.
- Give your image an appropriate file name. Avoid “img203484.jpg” and, instead, opt for a file name like “car-repair-coupon.jpg”.
- Enter text into the “alt” attribute.
- Use the “title” attribute of the image, much like you would the “alt” attribute — to describe the image.
- Place relevant keywords in your content as close to the image as possible.
By taking these steps, you’ll increase the search engine visibility of your images, and can possibly increase traffic to your site as a whole.
Why A Blog Is A Must For Your Business
More businesses are launching blogs every single day, but there are still a few holdouts who don’t see the value in doing so. Brian Gardner of StudioPress and Copyblogger fame put together a list of 5 Reasons Why Your Business Should Have a Blog.
The first item Brian hits as a reason your business should have a blog? Traffic.
“There will always be a correlation between traffic and sales. The more traffic you have coming to your website, the more likely it is you’ll make a sale. With that said, having a blog you update frequently will allow you to direct targeted traffic to your business website, thereby increasing the chances you’ll make a sale.”
Indeed, traffic is a big reason to blog. Other important reasons to consider include the fact that blogging helps you appear credible in your field, and it also gives you another customer service channel to reach your customers.
Whether you’re buying in to the blog hype or not, put your skepticism aside, and build one anyway. Write a few posts demonstrating your expertise, and a few posts offering tips or advice to current or potential customers, and track your traffic with an analytics application. If your content is useful and well-written, traffic is sure to go up.
Targeting Your Content
Want to make your content better? Do you want to make your user feel intelligent when viewing your content, like everything they need to know is jumping onto the screen in front of their eyes, right when they need it?
There are a few things you need to keep in mind.
- You need to understand the user’s context. What’s bringing them to you? If you understand that, you can write to them appropriately.
- Your content needs to be useful. If you understand the user’s context, your content needs to build on that and be useful to their particular situation.
- Exercise clarity and consistency when writing your content.
- Remain concise, even though it can be tempting to write and write and write.
Stick to these concepts when developing your content and you’re bound to see improvements.
