How To Create A Personalised And Trustworthy Landing Page?

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This post will discuss the importance of personality and trust in brand communication, particularly in landing page optimisation. There are five strategies for presenting a user-friendly landing page and a personable business that you can apply to improve your conversion rates. Some techniques are going to be shared as well so you can add more value that gets a visitor to convert.

Landing page optimisation is a continuous exercise of testing. When we meet someone new, we unconsciously process minor, inexplicable cues. For no specific reason that we are aware of, we either like the person or we don’t. An example of this unconscious decision making is the fact that we tend to trust someone who is confidently poised, has an open air, and speaks calmly, slowly, and directly. People are less trusting of people who appear weak, closed off and not very good looking.

Landing pages are no different. When someone lands on your landing page, the decision to stay takes between three and eight seconds. This decision is made half consciously and half unconsciously. Half of it is based on the value that is communicated quickly and clearly, and half of it is based on those indefinable factors that just “connect” with your landing page traffic or don’t.

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A good landing page example from Crikey

Your landing page needs this “je ne sais quoi” – that indefinable something that puts you a notch above your competitors. Let’s check out five strategies that add personality, increase trust, make your page a friendly one, and overall, can increase your page’s conversion rate and your business revenue.

1. Use Friendly Colours

Colour psychology is the exploration of how colour impacts our perceptions, reactions, and emotions. In marketing terms, it’s about using colour tactically to increase engagement, cause a desired action, and create an emotional connection or specific feeling related to your business or your product.

Colour triggers the most innate part of our selves. We see green and are calmed because, in the days before supermarkets, green meant water and life. We see the colour red, and genuinely, our heartbeat speeds up, causing us to act more quickly on our feelings. Colour can make your landing page friendly and increase your click-through rate. The right colour scheme puts your landing page visitor at ease and is the basis for a good first impression.

It’s all about what you want to communicate with your landing page – the “look” you’re going for. Here are a few recommendations based on colour psychology:

  1. The Professional Look: Shades of gray, white, and black – green for CTA. Black and gray evoke sophistication and sincerity when used in partnership with a crisp white (avoid beige, brown, and tans, as they’ll wash out your page).
  2. The Youthful, Startup Look: Dark blue, light blue, gray, and white – orange for CTA. Blue is (across both genders and all age-groups) most people’s favorite colour. It is said to create the sensation of trust and security. Lighter blues are calming, while darker blues denote professionalism and sincerity.
  3. The Environmental, Eco-Friendly Look: Green, white, and brown – red or orange for CTA. Green communicates health and wellbeing. More recently it has started to indicate the eco-friendly movement and environmentalism.
  4. The Female-Focused Look: Purple, white, and beige – orange or yellow for CTA. Purple is the favorite colour of 23% of women, and 0% of men. It communicates womanhood, maternity, and comfort. Interestingly, it increases in popularity as women get older.
  5. The Male-Focused Look: Black, red, and gold – red for CTA. Solid black landing pages with vibrant reds communicate strength and permanence, appealing to masculine sensibilities.

Each of these colour schemes requires you to know your business’s target market. This also is an essential part of language in landing pages. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to use the wrong colour scheme, particularly when optimising CTA buttons. The right amount of contrast can focus your visitor’s attention, while too much contrast can increase bounce rates or even outright scare your landing page traffic.

2. Include Images of People

Images of people communicate trust better than any word, unique selling point (USP), or other image possibly can. The idea of a “faceless corporation” is a real one, and one you do not want to cultivate. However, like with all landing page optimisation, we can’t just throw any smiling woman on our page and decide we’re good with the results we get. We have to optimise, not just test.

Optimising your page’s image means finding the right image for your business’s target market.

Here are five variables to test when optimising your landing page image:

  1. Smiling or serious. Do you want to communicate sincere professionalism or happy professionalism?
  2. Eye Direction. As silly as it might be, eye direction matters. Do you think it’s a coincidence that the KISSmetrics landing page’s smiling young man is looking directly at their USP?
  3. Model and Stock Photos or Real. Most case studies indicate that photos of real people improve conversion rates (often by up to 50%) over stock or model images. This is likely because we have a high level of empathy and trust for “people like us” (see “Credibility of Brand Spokespeople” in Section 4 below).
  4. Groups or Single Focus. Group shots can work better than individuals, but (like so much of landing page optimisation) it really depends on your own business and testing. A recent case study found that the conversion difference between one smiling individual and another was actually negligible. But the difference between a group of professionals and a single man or woman? You’ll have to test it for yourself.
  5. Album or Single Image. If you do go the album route, as many successful businesses do, remember it’s absolutely essential that each image have its own relevant USP. You also can use a revolving album of three or four images in place of your page’s benefit list. Then again, a single focus (and single USP) may work better for your business.

3. Focus Your Tone and Language

The language your business uses on its landing page frames your tone. To create a personable, relatable, friendly, landing page, you need to focus your message on the visitor’s needs and wants.

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A good photograph is a must. Click to enlarge the image.

The point of your landing page is not to sell your product, but to sell your visitor on your product. Here’s how:

  • Make it Personal: Your landing page should be about your visitor in terms of language (use “You”) and it should create a personable and friendly tone (use “We”).
  • Focus on Value: Instead of “Buy now!” try “Get access to leads.” Instead of “Book an appointment” try “Get the time slot you want!” Home in on what the visitor gets, not what they should do.
  • Positive Reinforcement vs. Negative Avoidance: The case studies are divided on this one. Does your target market respond better to “Increase click-throughs!” or “Decrease bounced traffic!”? Test it!

4. Make Your Business Friendly by Featuring Yourself

There are many ways to achieve this. Videos explaining products are becoming very popular in the landing page world. They showcase the human side of your business, again combating that “faceless corporation”.

A few more ways to showcase yourself or your employees on your landing page:

  • Make your contact details obvious: This is a no-brainer. A contact address or phone number should be evident on your page.
  • Test a short “About Us” section on the page: A couple of solid sentences about your business’s mission or origins can work with your USP to set your business apart from competitors.
  • Include product description recordings: This is something we’re actually testing at the moment: my voice speaking over a screen-capture describing how each of our tools works.
  • Integrate a live chat popup: If your service is somewhat complicated or may need explaining, a live popup is preferable. Make sure you include a headshot and the name of the customer support agent as well. Even if your service isn’t that complicated, a live chat is recommended. Make it unobtrusive but clear.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that all of the strategies above will add complexity to your landing page. Many target markets respond better to simplistic landing pages. Test one, or all, of these new variables for yourself to see if it increases conversion rates for your business.

5. Tap into Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials are becoming one of the most important parts of landing pages. Remember, however, that this step is relevant only for items priced at less than $400. The word of an expert becomes paramount when the product or service being considered gets above $1,000. No matter the source or format of the review, hopefully we can agree that they are absolutely essential for your landing page’s success.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this post has given you a few insights and inspirations to start your own testing. These strategies are about focusing your landing page on your consumer: making them comfortable with the right colours, increasing trust with friendly language and a customer testimonial, and making your business approachable by featuring yourself.