Tips 4 Designing Landing Pages That Will Attract & Keep Users

Maintaining a modernized website is a vital aspect of any business. Like seasonal fashion lines, online presence is a changing atmosphere that must be constantly adapted to command attention.

After a search, your landing page is the first your user will see. Like the cover of a book, if it’s not appealing, the viewer will assume the same goes for the rest of your site. Think of it as an audition or a first impression. So what’s in your control? How do you know what to change? One of the most influential factors, if not the most effective, is colour.

It’s the first sense that the brain interprets, and to have a useful and attractive landing page, its good integration is vital. Here are a few tips on how you can apply colour to increase viewership and time spent on your site:

Firstly, design your landing page for your demographic.

Gender

Depending on your product or viewership goals, you probably have some target audience. If you’re unsure, you must find out; your success could depend on it! The attractiveness of your website pages will persuade someone to stay and play or leave and never return.

For women

The most appealing colours consist of purple, green, and blue, while orange, grey, and brown are the least.

It’s important not to overdo it; this research doesn’t mean to splash your site with the same colours over and over again. Instead, your landing page and primary selling pages should consist of similar schemes to identify your brand. It’s still important to keep it simple and not overcomplicated.

Targeting the male demographic

Surprisingly similar to the female, blue, green, and black have elicited the most positive responses, while brown, orange and purple do the opposite. These are the classic ‘manly’ colours and should be prominent around the calls to action and the sections of your page you want to notice the most. The slang and embedded images have plenty to do with the attractiveness of your landing pages, and they too must complement each other.

Age

Children hold a significant influence on where their parents’ money is spent. Use this to your advantage, and sell to them as much as you do their mom and dad. As you can imagine, the younger your target demographic, the brighter and more attention-grabbing your landing page needs to be. Children appreciate web pages that apply red, orange, pink, and yellow colours. Discontent and depressing are more associated with brown, purple, and surprisingly blue. Of course, the hues/shades of these make a difference, and these should only be used as general guidelines.

As later adolescence and adulthood arrive, the preference moves toward more fabulous, less flashy shades, like a blue or maroon. With this development, so does the ability to think and make connections critically. These associations include colours to emotion, feeling, and memory; for example, red with alarm, severity, and passion, green with envy, or black with sadness and grief. Many of these relationships may be personal, so aptly interpreting each colour for your landing page is impossible. It’s still vital to consider the most popular.

Secondly, use your landing page to evoke emotion

Colour is a primary interpretation to consider when evoking emotion from a user. Keep in mind; your landing page design must also complement your writing and images to maintain the feeling that the colours first presented. Many researchers have come to different conclusions about general representations of emotion as dictated by colour, but here are some summary points that most agree on:

• Red: the most opposing of all, it creates feelings of love, passion, and excitement; but at the same time, anger and danger. It can increase the heart rate and appropriately draws attention as an accent, but not so much a primary
• Orange: Like red, it demands attention but isn’t as overbearing. It’s aggressive and demands energy, vitality, and happiness, and in a way remains friendly. Great for calls to action and subscription requests.
• Yellow: Energetic and warm, think of it like the sun. Optimism and cheer tend to arise from this colour and will generally make a person feel similar to the effect laughing has. It can act as an irritant if overused, apply it similar to orange to command attention or accent, but not as a base.
• Green: Many see this as the colour of wealth, but more deeply for new beginnings outdoors, and health. It is a relaxing hue that should be used to balance design and for inspiration.
• Blue: Similar to green, this colour offers calmness as well as trust. It’s one of the most favourite as a base for websites and is a great start to give your landing page attractive appeal. It’s professional while easing and friendly, but too much can create a feeling of coldness or hardship.
• Purple: Mostly associated with royalty, this colour is also a sign of wealth and also a soothing agent. Use it as a base to show luxury and wealth, or if you have a primarily female target audience. Romance and mystery are also drawn from this colour, accounting for its use for health and beauty products.
• Neutral colours: These include black, grey, brown, and tan – they’re the ones that can pretty much match with anything, perfect for background colours. Apply texture and grains carefully with these, as they’re boring on their own but can be used to create excitement and elicit thoughts of change; i.e., “they’ve taken something boring and transformed it into something of substance. Maybe their product will do the same.”

Now, these are suggestions, and colours are incredibly opinion-based. They won’t mean the same to everyone, and how one person reacts will be the opposite of the next dose. That being said, it’s information vital for your consideration and will effectively engage your audiences. Keeping a fresh look will consistently draw repeated visits to your site, so ask yourself, how can I always use colours to my advantage?