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Minimalist Web Design Template: Pros and Cons

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Minimalist web design can drive more visitor conversions

Minimalist web design can drive more visitor conversions and clicks. Website design is an aspect of the online presentation that is a point of vigorous discussion among all graphic designers and digital marketers. 

In the past three decades of the Internet’s ascension, the visual tastes of web designers have changed immensely, just like with any other kind of design, such as interior or fashion. This is something that is bound to change even more over time. 

However, currently, one of the biggest favorites is a minimalist design style, encapsulated to make the user interface and the presentation of website content as simple as possible. 

But, while this is undoubtedly the most popular style found in web design today, the question is does it hold up to scrutiny as the worthiest kind of design? We will explore the pros and cons of such templates below. 

Minimalist Style Basics

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Before going deeper into the pros and cons of a minimalist web design template, we’ll go over what such a design entails first. 

The point of minimalist design is to get rid of any extra menus, tabs, or general content that doesn’t serve a purpose in terms of the user experience on the website. If it doesn’t support a discernible user goal or need — it has to go. It’s as simple as that. 

Minimalism in design is just like minimalism in other works of art, such as literature, music, or painting. This art direction aims to keep only the must-have elements, and the same goes for such web design. 

If you want to achieve the successful usage of a minimalist web design template, you must strip away everything that you — or rather, your users — genuinely don’t need. 

Forget about multiple pop-up videos or a plethora of different tabs in which the content is divided. Many of these designs opt out of the traditional navigation via dropdown menus. Instead, they utilize a more streamlined scroll-down experience.

When you’re thinking whether or not to keep a website element or an aspect of your current design, approaching the issue from the perspective of minimalism means asking yourself one important question: does this element help me achieve the website’s goal in a meaningful way? 

The answer differs depending on whether you’re looking to start a digital marketing campaign on your website, build a long-term online store, or create a storytelling platform.

Minimalist Design Traits

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As you can see, there are plenty of distinct purposes that a website can have — meaning that there are different ways and degrees of minimalist design that you may want to implement. However, there are a couple of telltale signs of minimalist design that all such websites possess. 

Empty Space on Minimalist Web Design

For starters, it’s not always about what’s there — it’s just as much about what isn’t. Negative space is the most often used element in all minimalist web design templates. An abundance of empty space makes each element that is present more distinct and eye-catching. 

Websites that want to promote a political or social cause often utilize this technique — with a lot of empty room dominated by a clear, simple message. That way, the message resonates deeply with anyone who visits the website. 

Huge Images

One of the other often employed elements of minimalist web design are large images and videos — also regarded as “hero images.” Sometimes, a textual message across a blank page just isn’t enough. When you’re trying to kickstart a new digital marketing campaign for a flashy brand, stark visuals are a must-have.

Many websites do this without sticking to minimalist design principles by cluttering their space with tons of images. And while there are some great plugins to help you organize photos, this is not optimal if you’re aiming for a minimalist design. Instead, using one or two large images that dominate the entire page is far more effective. You still manage to create a visual presence but without bombarding the user with tons of images. 

Typography and Contrast

Most design professionals will agree that the devil is always in the details. While having the big picture in mind is crucial when it comes to style, smaller and less intrusive elements can make or break your design. 

Your website’s color spectrum is a big part of that. Stark contrasts — the most obvious one being black and white — are often used to make a website stand out among its peers. Bold color solutions can create a sense of uniqueness that’s important in basically every niche. 

And speaking of bold, another significant website element is typography. Even if you don’t have a lot of text on your website, your words’ font, size, and color will matter. We could make a case for your text’s visual style being more important if there’s less of it. 

Pros and Cons of Minimalist Web Design

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Now that we’ve gone over the essential tenets of minimalist web design, we’ll go over the pros and cons of utilizing this particular style on your website!

Advantages of Minimalism in Web Design

The single most significant advantage of minimalism is the simple fact that it’s excellent for lead conversion. 

In many cases, marketers and product vendors wish to create a website that’s going to promote a product or service and compel prospective leads to make a purchase. This conversion from leads to customers is the pinnacle of online advertising. 

The websites created for the promotion of a single product are built according to the principle of sales funneling. This is one of the oldest marketing techniques. However, funneling entails creating a website with an extremely streamlined user experience when translated into the world of online marketing.

The web designer and marketer plan out each user interaction on the website, from the second they land on the homepage to the final moment when they decide to purchase the product. 

For this type of website — which is quite widespread in online marketing — there is no better design than a minimalist one. Having the bare minimum of website elements and a clear-cut visual style means that visitors have fewer opportunities to veer off the beaten path. 

It’s important to note that the average website visitor’s attention span is incredibly short, and it’s getting even shorter. That means that a website doesn’t have a lot of time to make a first impression and retain visitors. 

That’s why minimalism is excellent in this regard — it doesn’t beat around the bush and avoids providing unneeded content to website users. 

Stripping a website of excess elements and unnecessary functionalities lets users see what’s useful on the website and appreciate it more. Any call to action is far more meaningful when a visitor is not overwhelmed with a ton of different options.

It’s not all about more straightforward navigation, either — minimalism is an excellent choice from a technical point of view as well. The bane of every successful website are downtimes or sluggish loading times. 

These are the primary culprit when it comes to substantial bounce rates — people simply hate waiting for a website to load in 2020. They’re far more likely to choose another competing website from the same niche instead.

With minimalism, page speeds are lighting-quick — at the end of the day, there’s not too much content for the website to load. 

If you’re trying to get the branding of a new product off the ground with a dedicated website, avoiding high bounce rates is of immense importance, making minimalist design a decent choice. 

Moreover, search engine optimization is crucial for any long-term online campaign. As any SEO expert can tell you, optimizing a sprawling, the cluttered website is an absolute nightmare. 

Conversely, Google’s algorithm and crawl bots can go through a minimalist website far more efficiently, meaning that optimizing it for top results in the relevant keyword niche is simpler. On such websites, the amount of code clutter in the backend and frontend is minimal. 

Plus, when Google ascertains the ranking of a given website, it takes some of the abovementioned factors into accounts — such as the loading speeds and the overall user experience. All of these are simpler to optimize with a minimal website.

We should note that technical ease is great about minimalist websites across the board. Regardless of what technical aspect we’re talking about — paraphrasing Occam’s razor, a more straightforward website is far less likely to break down. 

Finally, while the tastes and fads in web design are bound to change, it will be a long while before minimalism appears outdated. The strength of a design style rests on its elements — and simplistic visual representations innately appeal to humans, from the Neolithic cave drawings to the present day. 

Drawbacks of Minimalist Web Design

So far, we’ve only talked about the positive sides of minimalist web design. However, just like any other style, it’s not perfect — and it has its downsides as well. 

There are reasons why not every business or non-profit enterprise can use this to convey their message online. 

In other words — the communication you can achieve with minimalist web design is severely limited. Suppose you’re trying to sell a service or product that’s extraordinarily complex or specific to a rare niche. In that case, you won’t find it easy to convey your selling points using a minimalist website with a small amount of text and visuals. 

While minimalism is excellent for sales funnels that focus on one product or a single product line, a content-rich online storefront isn’t easy to create in minimalist webspace. If your website is supposed to enable sophisticated interactions from users, another approach will be needed. 

Also, while minimalism can objectively be a good thing, we can’t help but mention that not every designer knows how to do it right. 

Nor does every client who wants a minimalist design realize that it’s not well-suited for their purposes. With a wrong approach to minimalism, your website may end up looking sparse — even unfinished. There’s a thin line between pleasantly clean and woefully deserted. 

Minimalism is also not always the best design choice when it comes to creative individuals and projects. While such a design can convey a creative message, some artists and companies don’t have an image and a brand that goes well with a small amount of content. 

The target audience may not be used to a lack of flashiness and an abundance of visuals and text, making it the wrong choice. 

Finally, this sort of design may be lacking if you’re using your website to market a growing company. As it scales up, the minimalism may prove to be more of a hindrance than a clever marketing ploy. Of course, proper planning can eliminate this danger in most cases. 

Is Minimalism Web Design The Right Choice?

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Matrix Marketing Group

As you might have guessed already, there isn’t a single, universal “yes” or “no” answer. It all depends on your needs and on what you expect from the website, as well as your web designer’s skills and your visual tastes. 

If you ask a business consultant who’s working with an online store owner, you probably won’t hear them singing praises about minimalism because that’s simply not what they need. 

On the other hand, an up-and-coming musician or photographer may find such a design style just what they need to show their worth to the public. 

For those still unsure, the best litmus test for minimalism is to consider what your end-user wants. If you have customers, what kind of style do you think they appreciate? 

Remember, you’re not creating the website for yourself — you’re creating it for the visitors, so make sure you put their tastes and needs before your own.

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General FAQ’s

What is a minimalist design?

Minimalism is a visual concept that never goes out of style. It has been around for over 60 years, and it’s still relevant today. The main idea in minimalist design is to say more by showing less. Minimalist design is clean, crisp, and timeless. Unnecessary objects and flourishes are left on the drawing board. Only the necessary is included to get the message across.


What is a minimalist web design?

Minimalist design has been described as design at its most basic, stripped of superfluous elements, colors, shapes, and textures. Its purpose is to make the content stand out and be the focal point. From a visual standpoint, minimalist design is meant to be calming and bring the mind down to the basics.


What is the minimalist style?

Minimalist fashion is defined by one primary principle: keep it simple! Modernized shapes, a small selection of colors, and even a bare minimum amount of clothing in your closet. Simplicity is the key to pinpointing this style. Keep reading to learn more about minimalist style.


What is website design?

Web design refers to the design of websites that are displayed on the internet. It usually refers to the user experience aspects of website development rather than software development.

8 Tips for Designing Your First Startup Website

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Designing a startup website is challenging for designers. The business is just getting off the ground and may not yet have a strong identity. Unlike an already established company, the site itself helps shape who it is and how the world sees it. 

At the same time, it has to serve as a place to convert visitors into customers and tell the story of the brand and its mission. It’s a tall order for anyone to fill. 

Here are approximately 200 million active websites, although the number varies by the second, according to Internet Live Stats. While not every site in existence is competition for your startup, they are all potential rivals for the attention and time of a limited pool of consumers. 

If your site doesn’t stand out from the crowd, people are likely to skip over it or bounce away to something more interesting. You may not have a brick-and-mortar store to grab interest. Many startups get going with a website only, so yours must pop. 

Build your pages for conversions. Driving traffic to your site isn’t very helpful if you don’t know what to do with the visitors once they get there. Fortunately, there are some tried-and-true elements any website should have. 

As a startup, there are eight factors you must consider while designing your site. Nailing these items ensures your conversions are high enough to help you excel in your first year in business and beyond.

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Start With a Message when Designing a Startup Website

Your first step is developing a brand message touting who you are and what you stand for. Think about the reasons why you started your company in the first place. Every company has a story. What is yours? Dig for the deeper meaning behind why you started this specific business model.

Don’t just blather on about yourself, in any case. You need to tell the story from the emotional standpoint of your target audience. Think about why they should care about your journey. If your target audience is small-business owners, how does your story impact them in some way? Make sure your message is compelling.

People love a good rags-to-riches story, so if you started with nothing, share the details. How did you get your funding? What gave you the drive to move forward with your idea and overcome all obstacles?

Houzz is an e-commerce startup offering just about anything you’d need to redesign your home. Husband and wife Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen founded the company when they became frustrated with the lack of available items while renovating their house. 

One thing this website does particularly well explains the motivation behind opening Houzz without getting too lengthy. A couple of paragraphs sums up the business idea and the reason behind starting it. You can tell your unique story and share your message without writing a novel. 

In this case, they explain their struggles and how they wanted to help other homeowners doing remodeling projects. 

Study Your Competition when Designing a Startup Website

Look at other businesses in your industry and particularly in your local area. Use business mapping software to see which zip codes your competition serves. You can also gather information on the demographics of users in a particular area. 

Find out which areas other businesses already serve and come up with underserved communities most needing your type of product or service. 

Make sure you offer something of more value than other businesses in your industry. Find a unique value proposition (UVP) that stands out. If you can’t beat prices, maybe you can offer faster delivery. Perhaps you are small enough to provide one-on-one attention to your clients, and the more prominent company does not. 

Consider your UVP not just through the view of what is best about your company but via the perspective of what customers will care most about. It doesn’t matter how you see your business. What is important is how the outside world sees you.

Take notes on the websites of the other firms. What do you like about their sites, and what do you hate? What can you do better? Pay particular attention to their landing pages. You can even study the keywords they use and where their traffic arrives with tools such as SEMRush. 

The goal of studying your competition isn’t to copy what they do. Do you want to see where you need to rise to the challenge of being as good as they are, but also find weaknesses where you might excel? Hunt for niche areas or groups to target. 

Gumroad is an unusual startup because it deals only with the digital goods of other people, serving as a gateway, similar to eBay. It wasn’t satisfied with the options for people wanting to sell directly to consumers on sites such as Amazon. Instead, it came up with a model for artists to use and sell directly to their fans. 

Note how it highlights the amount people have earned selling films, courses, music, and books on the site. It may not be able to compete in terms of traffic, but it lets creators keep more money in their own pockets and gives them more control than other sites do.

Check out their features page and decide if it’s beneficial for you to list the features you provide to your customers that make you unique.

Show What’s In It for Them

Your startup’s website must list the benefits of ordering from you. When designing a startup website keep that in mind. What is in it for the consumer? Why should they choose to do business with you?

Think through the advantages of them ordering from you through their perspective.

Start by figuring out what the user’s pain point is. What is the problem driving them to your website in the first place? How does your product or service solve the issue? Even your headlines should reflect your understanding of their situation and then offer a solution. 

You may not be the only organization able to solve the problem. Why should the consumer choose you as an option over the other ones available? Why do you offer benefits your competitors don’t

Starry does a fantastic job of outlining the benefits of its internet service over other providers. Note the icons to signal each pro and then detailed information.

For example, there is an illustration of a rocket ship and the subheading “Blazing Fast.” It then explains that customers can reach 200 Mbps speeds and stream 4k movies easily. Each advantage is listed and follows the same structure, giving the page some cohesiveness. 

Find three or four benefits your customers genuinely care about. If you aren’t sure, poll them and ask what features they love. Sum up the advantage in a subheading but go into more detail in the body text.

The layout hierarchy of a subhead and then smaller words allows readers to skim and get the gist of the product or service. If they care the most about a particular element, they can dig more deeply into the details. 

Plan for Marketing

As you design your site, think about the types of marketing campaigns you’ll utilize and how your website ties into them. For example, if you plan to post links to articles on social media, you’ll need a blog section.  When designing a startup website have a plan for marketing the site.

How can you tie social media into your website? Should you include links to your social pages? Can you install an app, making it easy for users to share articles from your website directly to their wall? Think through some of the different efforts you plan for your first year and tie them to your site in various ways. 

Simple Habit is an app startup helping people develop a new habit with consistent actions. One thing it does to market itself effectively online is keeping an updated blog with information on mental and physical health. Each post offers tips but ties into how the app can help provide relief. 

Add value for your readers by talking about topics that address small parts of the pain points, driving them to your site. If someone wants to know how to save money on energy costs, offer a tip or two, and always circle back to how your gadget or service saves even more. 

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Gain Their Trust

As a new company, you don’t have a proven track record to fall back on. When designing a startup website think about creditability and trust to support your position. You must gain the trust of users and assure them you’ll fulfill their orders on time, protect their information, and stand behind your product. Some trust factors include:

  • Contact information
  • Memberships in industry organizations
  • About page that shows who the owners are
  • Guarantees 
  • Awards
  • Links to social media pages and an active presence there

Think about what you’d need to see before you order from a company. Some people want a live chat option, while others need to see a toll-free telephone number. 

WeWork offers shared office space for small-business owners. This startup began when the founders decided to lease extra space they had in an office building and open a coworking space. They eventually expanded, sold the first model, and opened a new company called WeWork, which grew to 500 different locations worth billions of dollars. 

The website features many trust factors. Customer success stories are shared on the homepage. By utilizing testimonials from big names such as RBC Royal Bank, Standard Chartered, and General Electric, it shows it’s worked with more prominent corporations and met their needs. It also makes contact information easy to find and includes the number to its headquarters, as well as a live chat option. 

If you’re just getting started, you may not yet have testimonials to share. Instead, look for other trust factors to include. Join the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and add its emblem. 

Provide clear contact information. Give examples of how you’d handle different situations. Share news stories about your startup on your press releases page. As your business grows, flesh things out with customer reviews and a list of awards you’ve won. 

Go Mobile First

About 48% of webpage views around the world are via mobile devices, and experts predict the number rising at least through 2022. Every website must consider how many people come to them via smartphones and make sure their page loads correctly on all screen sizes. 

If your startup is tech-based, it becomes even more critical to ensure your site is responsive. However, even a food product startup benefits from mobile friendliness. 

Smartrap is wearable technology for athletes to help them safely work out at maximum capacity. The sensor is also a smart garment and offers compression while reducing the potential for a leg injury during exercise. Elite athletes will know how hard to push and when to back off. The company has several other biomedical-type products in its repertoire, as well. 

The desktop website and mobile site look precisely the same. Images and text optimize for a smaller screen without sacrificing the quality of the photos or readability of the words. 

Test your site on several types of devices to make sure everything is responsive. How do your pages look on a laptop screen? Does it adapt well to a tablet or smartphone? Check out the smallest screen size possible to see how everything looks.

When you blow the website upon the largest screen size, do you lose any clarity? You may need to adjust coding accordingly to meet the needs of an audience using different products to access your site. 

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Perfect Your CTA and Designing a Startup Website

Your call to action (CTA) is your chance to grab site visitors and convert them into leads. If you place it in the wrong location or don’t use the right wording, your conversions suffer. Some of the things you must test with your users include:

  • Color of the button and how it contrasts with the page
  • Wording
  • Placement on the page
  • Other information surrounding the button
  • How much white space surrounds the CTA

What works for one site may not work for another. You must try what you think will work best with your buyer personas. Conduct A/B tests (or multivariate tests) to see if you are right and make changes as needed. Eventually, you’ll hit on the perfect combination for your CTAs. 

Nanit uses a coral color for its CTA. The shade matches its logo but also contrasts sharply with the grays and whites on the landing page.

The first thing the user notices is a button reading, “Buy Now.” It also offers a “Watch” button to view a video explaining how the baby monitoring device works. Everything on the page points to the action it wants users to take.

Think about what colors contrast sharply with the background on your page. Should you place your CTA above the fold, or do your users need more information before the invitation to buy? 

Try different wording on the button and perform split testing or multivariate tests. When designing a startup website you must test different elements. The words “Buy Now” may not sit well with your users, so think about the pain point they face and what words offer a solution. 

Use Unique Images

When businesses are new and you are designing a startup website, it’s tempting to grab stock photos to get the design just right. Unfortunately, you run the risk of another site using the same pictures. Besides, the images may not be 100% relevant to your business. 

Invest in a professional photographer and gather visuals highlighting your product or service perfectly?the more striking the photograph, the better chance you’ll grab user attention.

Look for opportunities to tie the pictures to the colors of your overall design and company color palette. You can do this through the use of filters or look for photo opportunities matching the overall color scheme.

Ritual has a brand color palette of yellow and dark blue. Note the big, gorgeous photograph on its landing page and how it highlights the yellow. The image is particular to the brand, featuring its vitamin bottles and clear pills spilling out from them. It fits with the content on the page and does not distract from the message. 

The images you choose need to be well thought out with the rest of the design. If you plan to use the photograph as a hero shot and have a big headline overtop, where will the negative space occur within the visual? A professional designer and photographer can work together to find the perfect solution. 

Start Small and Expand when Designing a Startup Website

When designing a startup website you should start small and build. Getting the design and messaging right from the get-go is an integral part of building a startup’s online presence. Focus on the message and style of the brand. You can always add additional features and pages as the company grows. 

A website shouldn’t be a static entity you create once and forget. As a startup, things change rapidly in the first few years, so start small and add as you go along.

Your website is the face of your brand. Keep changing it and testing it until you hit on the perfect combination that drives visitors to you and converts them into leads. 

With a little attention to detail and a bit of forward-thinking vision, your site will help your branding efforts and pull in new customers. 

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General FAQs

What is a startup website?

A startup website is a newly formed entity that offers a product/service via a website where they search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Design, messaging, UX/UI, and SEO are critical before launch.


How do I create a startup website?

Here is a step-by-step plan
Step 1 – Plan your website.
Step 2 – Choosing a domain name.
Step 3 – Choose a hosting provider.
Step 4 – Ensure it is mobile optimized.
Step 5 – Design a logo.
Step 6 – Choose a website builder.
Step 7 – Decide on content for your website.
Step 8 – Design your website.


What should I put on my startup website?

Five essential things that your startup website must have
1. Present your value proposition clearly and concisely.
2. Have a clear call to action.
3. Show a good web design and an excellent user experience.
4. Contact information.
5. Clear and well-written texts.


How much does it cost to launch a website?

Depending on your needs, building a website can cost anywhere between $5,000 to $18,000. If you need a feature-rich, custom-built website, it can go as high as $30,000 or more. To build a small site, you’ll need to have a budget for the domain name and web hosting too.

UX Design: Improve Your Website Conversions

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User experience (UX) design is the hallmark of how well you meet your target audience’s needs and have great website conversions. 

It’s challenging to define UX design in a nutshell. That’s because it encompasses so many factors that work together to create an overall impression. Not only does UX impact your customer’s emotions, but it also drives their actions once they land on your page.

First, focus on a handful of factors, such as driving the right kind of traffic to your site. Then, create a user-centered page that embraces the needs of your typical customer and turns them from browsers into buyers.

Think about the journey they take once they land on your page and move them toward the next phase of the trip, guiding them carefully where you want them to go.

Conversions aren’t always easy to come by. The average conversion rate for e-commerce is 2.86% globally. If you narrow the choices down to U.S.-based sites only, the numbers are closer to 2.63%. Theoretically, out of 100 visitors who land on your page, less than three, convert into leads.

What if you could hit those numbers every time, however? Maybe you’ll go even higher than 2.63% and find the magic formula that draws them into action. Fortunately, there are several things you can do that improve your chances of hooking visitors.

What is UX Design?

User experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant skills to users. Ux design involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability, and function.

1. UX Design and Answering Their Questions

People who go online to seek your brand likely have a problem they’re trying to solve — called a pain point. Spend time thinking over the issues your customers have. For example, if you own a boot store, one segment of your customer base might need safety shoes for work. What types of questions would they ask? Perhaps things such as:

  • Where can I find steel-toed boots?
  • What are the best work safety shoes?
  • How do I know if shoes meet safety standards for work?

Start with the questions you can brainstorm on your own and plug those items into Google. Within the search results, you’ll see a “People Also Ask” section. Similar queries will clue you into other problems your target audience has. You can also look at the questions people have asked when they phone in or email you. Provide solutions to their problems, and they will move a step forward into the buyer’s journey.

Pain points tend to tie into emotional issues, so dig a little deeper into the worries the person might have. They might be scared that if they don’t buy a pair of boots that meet the safety standards, they will lose a toe or be injured and unable to work. Stress the safety features of your footwear to ease their concerns.

ProFlowers does a great job of answering the question upfront of “what should I get someone for their birthday?” Then it breaks it down further by where you live or the occasion you are sending flowers for. For spring birthdays, it uses light and airy-looking flowers and the CTA of “Shop Birthday.” Note how it taps into the underlying emotion of worry about whether the friend will like their birthday gift. ProFlowers takes the fear out of the equation by offering beautiful arrangements everyone loves.

2. Utilize a Mood Board

Show off the personality of your brand through a mood board. Planning what colors, word choices, and images you’ll use helps you paint a picture for site visitors. A mood board tells your unique story as a brand and makes you stand out from competitors. 

Use keywords to start the board, putting them in the center, and then add colors and images that tie to those words. Think about the visual point of view of your stakeholders. How does a specific buyer persona react to a particular feeling?

You may even want to create mood boards for each phase of the sales funnel. What mood are people in when they first hit a landing page? What is the shift in emotions as they move through the process? What colors and words match each point?

3. Offer Help Along the Way

Have you ever landed on a website and were genuinely interested in a product, but you had a question or two? You aren’t alone, and your site visitors likely have several queries about your offerings. In addition to answering the common issues they already have, you should also offer several ways to get in touch with you.

Millennials might prefer to use live chat, for example, while baby boomers might prefer a good old-fashioned telephone conversation. Understanding your audience allows you to offer the types of communication most desirable to your target demographic. 

In a survey of 1,000 consumers in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Singapore, 82% said an immediate response to queries was very important or important to them. Artificial intelligence (AI), such as chatbots, goes a long way toward engaging your users until you can get a live agent on the line to answer their specific needs. 

Using AI may reduce wait time for customers and also save you money as the robot collects basic information or answers common concerns that crop up repeatedly. You’ll not only be more efficient, but you can also save your live agents for specific questions the robot is incapable of answering.

Samsung offers a wide range of products and extensive tutorials on its site, as well as product manuals. However, there may still be some situations that require additional help in getting a product repaired or set up. Samsung’s virtual automated assistant introduces itself and gives the user a list of selections to get started. As you interact with the bot, you’re offered choices through image boxes. When you get to the stage that you need additional support, Samsung connects you with a live agent called a Samsung Care Pro, who greets you by name. 

4. Implement Marketing Automation

No matter how your salesforce goes about gaining new customers — online or offline — you need some systems in place that analyze trends and automate some of the repetitive tasks. Utilizing marketing automation increases sales by 14.5% on average. In addition to tracking campaigns more effectively, you can also target the exact audience you’d like to reach.

You can see how implementing software that automates several marketing processes would speed up the time between campaigns as well as make each one more effective. For example, by utilizing a web-based marketing automation system, you can automatically handle inventory, fulfill orders, and track how effective specific segments of a campaign were for your brand. 

Automation allows you to get orders out more quickly and efficiently. Even though it might not directly affect the UX of your webpage, it does impact the experience the customer has when placing an order with your brand. UX is about so much more than just the elements on a webpage. It should embrace every aspect of your firm and any interaction the customer has with you. 

5. Keep Forms on Point

Have you ever started to fill in an online form and realized it was lengthy, and you just didn’t have the time to spare? Perhaps it asked questions that seemed intrusive and unrelated to the topic. If you want your site visitors to convert into leads, keep forms short and to the point. Collect only the most vital information. For example, if you run a service targeting other business owners, you might ask for a name, title, name of their company, and an email. Gather only enough information for you to do some research on your own and reach out to the user.

However, numerous studies show that the quality of the fields is much more important than the length of the questionnaire. Keep questions specific and related to the task at hand, and you’re much more likely to succeed. In one study, a form with 15 fields had 109% more conversions, while one with only 10 dropped to an 87% increase. Asking more questions isn’t always the wrong choice, but what you ask can distract from the purpose of the information collecting. 

Planning for your death or that of a loved one is a sensitive topic. Dignity Memorial does an excellent job of offering soothing colors and words to its audience. The form is simple enough to gather basic information but still includes the details a funeral planner needs to help the customer choose the right memorial service.

6. Test Your Headlines

People’s first impression of your website starts before they land on your page. Your headline appears in search engine results, and the user decides whether or not to click on the link based on the impression of your H1 header and a short description. If you already have an excellent reputation in the industry, that might slightly impact their decision to click on your link.

Spend time concocting the best headlines possible. Make sure they contain the words the person is likely searching to answer the overriding question they have. Try different versions of the headline and do some split testing to see which performs better for you. Make changes as needed to increase clickthroughs and conversions.

Going Beyond UI Design

studio press wpengine matrix marketing group

The tips above should get you started on excellent UX design. However, you need to go much farther than merely creating a friendly user interface (UI) for site visitors. UX, at the core, is about the experience of the user. It starts from the first minute, they interact with your website and even beyond the point where they place an order with your company. 

Step back and look at your website through the eyes of your average customer. While the UI does impact the UX, they are two different concepts. Bad UI can make the overall experience a negative one, so you still need to pay attention to your interface. However, a user-centered approach digs much deeper into the psychology and behaviors of your users.

Create buyer personas for each audience segment. Once you understand the likes and dislikes of your users, you will be better equipped to offer a site that meets their needs. If most of your customers are Gen-Z, then the colors and language you use will need to be fresh and young. Know your visitors inside and out so you can speak to them on their level.

Consider the Why, What and How of Product Use

UX designers have to consider more than just the look of the site, however. You also should think through the ways people use the product. Why does the person need to buy what you’re selling? What will they use it for? How easy or difficult is it to use?

If you can’t answer any of the questions about the product line, survey current customers to find out what they love about it and learn how they use it. The more information you have on your client base, the better you’ll be able to meet their desires and gain loyal fans. 

How to Learn UX Design

If you already know how to create websites, you might wonder what the difference is between regular and UX design. The answer lies more in psychology than the actual work itself. UX design digs deep into your users and centers everything on their needs. No longer are you designing just for yourself, but you’re also planning for a defined audience segment.

Learning UX design doesn’t require years of schooling. Most UX designers have a background in web development but add UX expertise to their list of skills through study and practice. There are plenty of free online classes that go into the details of designing for the user experience. You can also learn by studying examples of other pages with excellent UX.

Find a skilled UX design and ask them to mentor you. Learn everything you can about the way they think. How do they dig into the psychology behind the design? Reading articles on psychology and paying attention to what makes people tick can also help you develop a better eye for UX.

Finally, test everything. If you try a specific color with an audience, track how well it performs compared to another choice. Do A/B tests on language, placement, color, and even features on the page. 

Why UX Design Is Important

With UX design, your goal is to fulfill your customers’ needs. You might not hit the target with every single webpage you design, but you can certainly improve on a basic page. Take the customer on a journey from curiosity toward becoming a lifelong customer. 

Improving customer experience results in satisfied buyers who are likely to buy from you again. Since a current client is worth more in sales than a new one, creating excellent experiences for them seems like a smart move for any type of business. 

Take away the excuses people have to not do business with you. Send them through the buyer’s journey without giving them time to think about exiting. Your conversions will increase, and your losses will decrease.

Other UX Factors to Test

Sometimes the little things about your site are the ones that make a significant impact on visitors. Some additional things you can try that might improve conversions and make your site visitors happier include:

  • Add live chat. Millennials, in particular, like a fast response and prefer not to speak to someone directly. Live chat is the perfect solution for those who need an answer but don’t want to waste time on hold.
  • Include trust factors. If the user trusts you, then they’re more likely to respond to a specific offer. Add trust seals to your site that show your authenticity. Include organization memberships, your BBB rating, and any certifications you hold. 
  • Integrate with social media. People love to shop online, and social media is making it easier than ever before, so integrate your efforts. Post an ad on Facebook that links to a shopping cart on your site. Offer a freebie if they sign up for your newsletter. Make it easy for people to share your specials on their social pages. 
  • Move stuff around. A rule of thumb says to put important things above the fold, but this doesn’t always hold. Some audiences want information before you throw a call to action (CTA) button at them. Try moving things around to different positions and study heatmaps to see what people respond to.

Wrap Up on UX Design

Figuring out good UX for a website isn’t an easy process. It requires careful consideration, ongoing testing, and getting to know your customers. If you learn to enjoy the process of creating the best user experience possible, then you’ll find joy in tweaking the little things on a page that makes a big difference in conversion rates. Spend time testing out new ideas and see which ones your site visitors respond to best. By doing so, you will likely boost that bottom line.

Lexie Lu is a web designer, digital nomad, and UX fanatic. You can find some of her work on Marketo, Website Magazine, and Business.com. Feel free to check out her blog, Design Roast.

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General FAQ’s

What is UX design?

User experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. The UX design involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability, and function.

How to learn UX design.

If UX is the experience that a user has while interacting with a product, then UX Design is the process by which a designer tried to determine what that experience will be.
Follow these seven steps to becoming a UI/UX designer. Tips & resources to help you get started.
1. Familiarize yourself with UI principles. 
2. Learn the creative UX process. 
3. Develop your eye for design.
4. Read design articles every day.  
5. Learn the latest web design tools. 
6. Build your design portfolio.
7. Network.

What does UX design mean?

For a long time, the design has been associated with graphic design (e.g., the look of a product). As digital technology and our expectations about digital interactions have increased, we have begun focusing more on “the feel” part of a design, also known as the user experience.

Why is UX design important?

User experience is important because it tries to fulfill the user’s needs. It aims to provide positive experiences that keep a user loyal to the product or brand. A meaningful user experience allows you to define customer journeys on your product that are most helpful to your business success.

SaaS vs. PaaS vs. IaaS: Which One Is Right for Your Business

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Thinking about moving your business operations to the cloud, you need to learn about the difference between – SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS. 

SaaS vs. PaaS vs. IaaS: Learn the difference between three four-letter acronyms that have changed the way businesses operate better.

In today’s hyper-connected era, the cloud has become a pretty big deal. Businesses resort to it because it reduces the need for building a physical data center. In this way, it helps them save money, streamlines many tasks, improves collaboration, and, above all, ensures faster business growth. 

However, “the cloud” is a broad term. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for all businesses. The cloud refers to where your data is stored and hyper-connected how it is stored. 

If you have been considering migrating your business operations to the cloud, you have probably come across these three terms – SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. 

They stand for the fundamental categories of cloud computing. Each of these cloud service models has several advantages and disadvantages in terms of data security, flexibility, and performance. This guide will help you determine which one is right for you.

What is the difference between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS?

what is saas?

SaaS: SaaS software that’s available via a third-party over the internet. PaaS: Paas hardware and software tools available over the internet. IaaS: IaaS cloud-based services, pay-as-you-go for services such as storage, networking, and virtualization. 

IaaS

Infrastructure as a service

IaaS, or infrastructure as a service, vendor deliverers cloud-based infrastructure resources to your business through virtualization technologies. 

This kind of service is often delivered through a dashboard or an API, meaning that your business will have full control of the cloud infrastructure. 

Investing in IaaS is similar to building a traditional on-site data center in terms of control, data security, and technologies. The only difference lies in the fact that you do not need to maintain and manage your infrastructure physically. 

Servers, hard drives, virtualization, networking, and storage are outsourced to the cloud and managed by the IaaS vendor. Unlike SaaS or PaaS users, IaaS users need to manage applications, middleware, data, and runtime on their own.

Let’s stay connected!

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When to Use IaaS?

Startups and SMBs may prefer IaaS because it has the traits of the traditional data center, without purchasing expensive hardware and software components. 

Larger enterprises may also reap many benefits of IaaS. Namely, they will above mentioned maintaining complete control of their applications, data, and infrastructure and yet, pay only what they are using. IaaS is impressively flexible, letting both small and large businesses scale specific hardware and software needs both up and down, as their business demands change.

The Major Benefits of IaaS

One of the most significant benefits of IaaS is increased data security. Namely, your team can implement third-party security services into their existing IaaS infrastructure. 

This is particularly important to large enterprises and organizations operating in highly regulated industries, such as government, financial, legal, or medical, where the safety of their sensitive data is their top priority. 

To manage all components and apps seamlessly on the cloud and reduce security risks, many enterprises and companies in regulated sectors choose private cloud providers that offer hyper-converged infrastructures. 

HCI simplifies the traditional complex cloud infrastructure and helps them develop business-driven data centers on the cloud, no matter if they are using private, hybrid, or industrial cloud.

IaaS also ensures greater uptime and eliminates single points of failure. Namely, an IaaS provider will scatter your resources across multiple servers and data centers. Therefore, if a server goes offline, your company’s infrastructure will not be harmed.

Like I have already mentioned above, both large and small businesses can benefit the high flexibility of IaaS. You are paying only for the resources and servers you use. As your business needs grow, you can easily scale your infrastructure up.

The Major Disadvantages of IaaS

Your IT teams are responsible for maintaining and upgrading software. This provides you with greater control of your data, but also requires equipping your teams with proper tools, as well as providing ongoing employee training and education. 

When investing in traditional cloud solutions, you may also face many problems with migrating legacy apps. 

Due to the lack of reliability guarantee for traditional cloud computing architectures, you may need to make a minor change to your legacy apps before moving them to the cloud, which may, again, lead to new security issues. 

This is where, again, investing in HCI-based cloud can help, as it will make specific optimizations to meet the high requirements of stability and network security for your critical applications. 

PaaS

Platform as a service

PaaS is short for “platform as a service,” and it is primarily used by developers. A PaaS vendor provides platform developers can use to unique and customizable software upon. 

When investing in PaaS, developers can create applications without having to worry about menial tasks, such as data serving, storage, software updates, or infrastructure. 

When to Use PaaS?

PaaS is especially popular among businesses that want to build their software or applications without spending a fortune or risking their security. It is like the difference between building your company headquarters from scratch vs. renting office space. 

In the latter example, you get fully equipped office space you can customize to your specific needs. The same goes for PaaS. The platform is available to numerous developers via the same development application. Developers further create authentic apps that are built into the PaaS. These apps are called middleware.

The Major Benefits of PaaS

The major benefit of PaaS is that it builds on virtualization technologies. This means that the resources are easily scalable, depending on your current business needs. 

PaaS vendors also offer a plethora of services to help developers with the creation, testing, and implementation of apps. 

They allow developers to customize software without needing to write additional lines of code. Finally, with PaaS, you can easily migrate to the hybrid cloud infrastructure. 

The Major Disadvantages of PaaS

There are several limitations of PaaS infrastructures you should consider, including. First, there are many data security concerns, given that you are giving your data to a third-party provider. Second, there are many operational issues to consider. You control only what is built on the platform. If the operating system breaks, for example, your software will also be unavailable. Third, customizing legacy systems is extremely complex and requires significant time investments, which dwarfs the overall PaaS investment.

SaaS

Software as a service

SaaS stands for software as a service. Those are cloud-based services that are hosted online by a SaaS company. SaaS services are delivered to customers via the internet, usually for a monthly subscription fee.

SaaS is the most common choice for businesses of all shapes and sizes, given that it is easy to use and manage. Apps usually run through your browser, meaning you do not need to download or install anything on your employees’ devices to run an app. SaaS is particularly important to businesses hiring remote teams.

When to Use SaaS?

SaaS models work for companies of all shapes and sizes. Still, they can benefit startups and small businesses that operate with limited time and resources. With SaaS, they can set up online stores faster, as well as improve team collaboration. It is especially important if you are hiring remote teams and want to keep your data available 24/7, both via web and mobile apps.

The Major Benefits of SaaS

Businesses like SaaS models because they free up plenty of time for IT teams and save money. Instead of installing and managing applications on each computer or keeping operating systems up-to-date, your technical staff will have more time to dedicate to pressing matters within your company.

Simply put, when investing in SaaS, you are not responsible neither for hardware nor software maintenance. This is the SaaS vendor’s responsibility. They will manage data, servers, storage, and technical issues, streamlining your operations and allowing you to grow faster. 

Above all, SaaS minimizes communication gaps and improves workplace productivity. No matter if your employees work from your offices or remotely, they just need to log in to access relevant data in real-time.

The Major Disadvantages of SaaS

This ease of SaaS solutions also comes with greater security risks. Namely, when using a third-party SaaS application, you have no control of the cloud infrastructure it runs on. For instance, any unplanned maintenance, online attacks, natural disasters, network issues may impact the performance of your app, as well as harm your overall business operations.

Another great problem associated with SaaS vendors is, unsurprisingly, the lack of customization. Namely, the SaaS vendor offers specific, predetermined integrations, functionalities, and features. 

Understanding the Difference between PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS

SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS

SaaS vs. PaaS vs. IaaS as explain above have different depending on the application.

From the examples mentioned above, we can conclude that the growing popularity of the cloud is minimizing the need for on-premise hosting. You just need to choose the right solution for your business, depending on its specific needs. If you are still not sure what the significant differences between these three cloud computing server models, this brief recap will help you.

  • IaaS: A vendor manages virtualization, servers, storage, and networking. You manage apps, data, runtime, middleware, and operating systems. 
  • PaaS: A vendor manages virtualization, servers, storage, networking, runtime, middleware, and operating systems. You maintain data and applications. 
  • SaaS: A vendor manages virtualization, servers, storage, networking, runtime, middleware, operating systems, data, and applications. You have nothing to worry about.

Each of the servers mentioned above models provides your business with multiple benefits, such as greater flexibility, data security, and scalability. Above all, they will improve your company’s bottom line in various ways, from reducing the need for expanding your IT team to saving money on hardware and software components.

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General FAQ’S for SaaS vs. PaaS vs. IaaS

What is SaaS?

Here’s a simple SaaS definition: a software distribution model in which a service provider hosts applications for customers and makes them available to these customers via the internet.


What is PaaS?

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a cloud computing model in which a third-party provider delivers hardware and software tools — usually those needed for application development — to users over the internet.


What is IaaS?

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned, and managed over the internet. It’s one of the four types of cloud services, along with software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and serverless.


What are examples of SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS?

SaaS: Google Apps, Dropbox, Salesforce, Cisco WebEx, Concur, GoToMeeting. PaaS: AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Windows Azure, Heroku, Force.com, Google App Engine, Apache Stratos, OpenShift. And IaaS: DigitalOcean, Linode, Rackspace, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco Metapod, Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Engine (GCE).

Ultimate Guide To Creating High-Converting Landing Pages

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Landing pages design are critical if you want to increase your visitor conversion rates.

What is a landing page and why should I care?

A landing page is a web page on your website where you can offer a resource from your business in exchange for a visitor’s contact information. 

Modern marketers capture the visitor’s contact information using a lead-capture form, where visitors can enter details like their name, email address, and job title.

A great landing page is focused on a particular type of traffic. This traffic might be from an email campaign that’s promoting a white paper.

Because the web page is targeting just people who are interested in this white paper, and because this white paper has exclusive information that speaks to a topic your audience cares about. You can convert a higher percentage of your website visitors into leads whom you can then follow up with.

You might think that your landing pages are just like any other page on your website and that you need to follow the same rules to optimize them – but that’s not quite right. Unlike the rest of your website, your landing pages are specifically designed to capture leads or even directly sell products.

Moreover, a landing page is often the only page your visitors will see on your website, so if it’s not well optimized, you’re just wasting your traffic and missing the opportunity to convert your website visitors into customers.


What are landing pages used for?

landing page design
Canva

Landing pages, also known as lead capture pages or squeeze pages, are useful because they provide information directly related to the advertisement selected by the viewer.

Clients typically arrive on a landing page by following links from a variety of social media, email, and search engine optimized advertising campaigns.


How to create a landing page

If you’re so inclined, there are plenty of great reasons to create your own landing pages from scratch. Here’s how to do it.

  1. Start With Landing Page Design
  2. Write the Copy
  3. Give Visitors Options, But Limit Those Options
  4. Start Building Landing Pages
  5. Use multi-variant testing, A/B test two landing pages
  6. Publish the winning design

What is a good conversion rate?

So, the main goal of a landing page is to create conversions. But how do you even determine if your conversion rate is good or not?

First of all, let’s take a look at some stats. According to WordStream, the average landing page conversion rate is 2.35%. However, this number alone isn’t enough to determine the performance of your landing page.

While on average, landing pages are converting at 2.35%, the top performing 25% are converting at 5.31% or higher. And if you want to get to the top 10% it goes up to 11.45% or higher.

What you also need to understand is that conversion rates vary among different industries. You might take a look at your numbers and think that you’re doing quite well, while in reality, your competitors are much better off. So, the conversion rates will depend on your competition, your consumers’ behavior, as well as the type of product your putting on the table.

Also, the success of your landing page depends on your goals. Typically, you’d want to convince your visitors to take one of these actions:

  • Purchase your product
  • Sign up for your newsletter
  • Sign up for a free trial
  • Fill out a form to contact the sales team

Depending on your goal, you can expect to have a different conversion rate. For example, people are more likely to sign up for a newsletter or a free trial than to actually purchase a product, as it doesn’t require spending money.

Best practices for Landing Pages Design

Now, let’s go over some of the best practices for creating a highly converting landing page.

Keep it simple

When designing your landing page, you should aim for simplicity both in terms of aesthetics and in terms of content. Make sure to eliminate all the unnecessary elements that could potentially distract your visitors.

For example, you can get rid of the website navigation – your goal is not to make your web page visitors scrolling through your website, but to convince them to take a particular action.

By sticking to a clear and simple design, you’ll get rid of visual clutter – this will allow you to focus on grabbing the attention and let your CTA shine. 

Keep it clear and concise

When it comes to your landing page copy, you should try to keep it clear and concise. People have short attention spans, so content that’s short but catchy is the most likely to get your landing page noticed.

Try to get straight to the point and clearly show what the page is about. Short and compact pages are easier to read and leave more room for a CTA. Also, if they have to scroll too much, your visitors might just give up and leave your website.

If, however, your landing page needs to be longer, keep the most important stuff “above the fold”. Adopted from print media, this term refers to the upper half of the newspaper where important headlines are usually located, while on websites, it refers to the portion of a page that is visible when it first loads, so try to include all of the most important information on this part of your landing page.

Headings and subheadings and your landing pages

a/b testing
Canva

When you’re trying to use as little words as possible, it is essential to make every one of them count. You need to find a way to quickly grab the attention of your visitors and lure them in to keep reading and ultimately, take action.

The best way to achieve this is by using headings and subheadings. Keep your headings short and catchy and your subheadings clear and informative, but not too revealing – the goal is to make your visitors want to keep reading, after all.

They’ll allow you to strategically organize your web page and show your visitors exactly what they can expect to find on the page, even at first glance.

Choose the right colors

Another way to attract attention is by using colors. The psychology of colors has always been used in marketing and it’s proven to be highly effective, so why not implement it in your web page design.

Use bright and contrasting colors to highlight the most important elements of your page. Just don’t forget about white space as well. Bold design is best used for CTA, while the rest of your page should be clean and calming. 

Also, keep in mind that you should still try to be consistent and keep the color scheme in line with your brand’s visual identity.

A/B testing

A B Testing
Matrix Marketing Group

Running an A/B split test is a great way to figure out what your website visitors respond best to. This means that you need to create two different versions of the landing page and track which one performs better.

Trying out different design options might seem like a waste of time and resources, but it allows you to create a landing page that’s proven to work on your visitors and that’ll ultimately make it worth the investment.

Besides, designing your own landing page has never been easier, no matter which platform you’re using. There are various user-friendly tools and plugins that can help you easily eliminate and add elements in order to create the perfect formula.

For example, plugins such as OptimizePress for WordPress can help you create and optimize your landing page and get a good ROI from the money you’ve invested in promoting it.

Once you’ve set up your landing pages, track the results to see which is performing the best. When you have enough data on your hands, you can choose the best performing version and bring out the big guns to promote it.

Clear CTA

The call-to-action is by far the most important element of a landing page. While other elements are there to spark interest and grab the attention of your visitors, the main goal of CTA is to convince your visitors to take the desired action.

As such, it should be a focal point of your landing page. You need to make sure that your CTA button is clearly visible and highlighted with attention-grabbing colors and design.

Also, make sure that your offer sounds compelling. For example, CTAs such as “download for free” has proven to give great results. Offering a free resource is always a good idea, as people are more likely to take action and leave contact information if something is free rather then when they’re offered to purchase something.

If your landing page contains a lot of information and requires scrolling, make sure to repeat your CTA to get your customers back on track and improve your chance for conversion.

Use scarcity techniques

A great way to prompt your visitors to take action is to create a sense of urgency. You can achieve this by creating limited offers in a couple of different ways.

First, you can create an offer that lasts only for a certain period of time. You can even add a countdown timer. This will certainly urge people to take action as soon as possible because they won’t want to miss the offer.

Another way to create a sense of urgency is to offer only a limited amount of your product. Ecommerce websites often highlight that there’s “only a few left” to speed up the purchasing process. You can also include this type of wording on your landing page to create more conversions.

Add testimonials

local review
Canva

In order to convince your visitors to buy your product or download your free resources, you first need to gain their trust. This is where social proof comes to play.

Encourage your satisfied customers to write positive reviews and create user-generated content which you can use on your page in order to prove your credibility.

Also, if you have big and reputable clients, make sure to list them on your landing page, with their logos and testimonials. If your visitors see that you’ve worked with famous brands, they’ll perceive you as someone they can trust and will more likely become your customers. 

Watch the anatomy of high-converting landing pages.

SEO

Getting your landing page to the top of the search results can be quite a challenge. Search engines require rich content, full of links and external resources, which means many potential distractions.

On the other hand, landing pages are focused on conversions and have to be simple and free from distractions in order to perform well. Therefore, it can be next to impossible to create a highly-converting landing page that’s also SEO friendly.

However, not all of your landing pages need to rank well. For short-term campaigns, such as promotions for events or webinars, you can stay focused on conversions and rely on traffic from sources other than organic search.

On the other hand, you can focus more on search engine optimization (SEO) when it comes to evergreen landing pages. Make sure to optimize those pages by offering free resources to attract inbound links and improve rankings.

How to create a friendly URL structure.

Wrapping up

Landing pages are the perfect places to let your business shine and to convince your visitors that what you’re offering is exactly what they need. After all, they offer you a chance to convert your visitors into customers and boost your sales. So it’s important to not mess it up.

Creating a highly-optimized landing page might sound like a tall order, but it doesn’t have to be. Just follow these steps and watch your conversion rate grow!

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Larry Reed is a tech writer with many years of experience in researching and creating content that relates to web design, business, and marketing industries.

General FAQ’s

What are landing pages used for?

A useful landing page is focused on a particular stream of traffic. For example, from an email campaign that’s promoting an ebook. The landing page is targeting just people who are interested in this ebook, and because this ebook has exclusive information that speaks to on a topic your audience cares about. You can convert a higher percentage of your website visitors into leads whom you can then follow up with.


How does landing page work?

A landing page is a page on your website where you can offer a resource from your business in exchange for a visitor’s contact information. Marketers can capture this contact information using a lead-capture form, where visitors can enter details like their name, email address, and job title.


What is a landing page?

A landing page is a page on your site that is designed to convert visitors into leads. A landing page is different from other pages in that it follows both of these criteria: It has a form that allows you to capture visitor’s information in exchange for the desired offer.

Launch Your Website Project for B2B Startup Companies

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Are you designing a new website? Do you have your rough website specifications?

Once you’ve completed your rough website specifications, you’re ready to move on to producing and launching your company’s website.

Now is the time to bring in your web designer, producer, or other third-party contractors who will be responsible for the hands-on development of your company’s website project.

Discuss your project, and the elements you sketched out in your initial specs. Make it clear to your web development team that your specification is not chiseled in stone, nor is it your intent to close off any team members own ideas or suggestions for your website.

Your web team should see your website outline as a starting point, a set of minimal, functional requirements for the site project, with your team’s participation in the project leading to enhancements of these features, and the creative edition of new features and capabilities as the development process continues. At this stage, everything’s open for change, including your own rough outline.

Designing your website on WordPress, Drupal, Shopify, Square or other platforms means getting more than a new look. It’s about having a CMS platform running on one of the most flexible, powerful, and smart ways to publish content online. Let’s walk through the process to get you started with your website design project.

Website Design - Matrix Marketing Group

Get a prototype of your website project up, as fast as you can

Once you discuss your initial website specifications with your team, and you kicked around the ideas that came from the initial discussions, it’s important that the rough specification you and your team are working on be turned into a rough, working outline prototype as quickly as possible. This can be done in a few days, or under a week at most.

Your first, rough, outline prototype is a crude, text-only version of your website project. At this stage, it won’t contain any graphic elements or back-end functionality, such as a CGI database links or other programming features. Zapier helps here if you don’t have a web dev team.

The prototype should, however, resemble the rough initial structure of your website outline, containing links to all of the known and do Pages you sketched out, and whatever text content is available to fill in any of these “known” and “do” branches of your sight.

Your website prototype serves three very important purposes:

  • The prototype helps develop your site’s navigation and usability. First, as in actual, functioning version of your website, the prototype lets you and your team test the usability of your say during the development process. The prototype answers important site navigation and organization questions, such as whether or not a specific section of your site should be accessible from one link, or another.
  • The prototype gives your project a fix location. Second, since web development projects are collaborative efforts, involving at least three or more individuals who may each be working at different locations, the prototype quickly becomes the central, working focus of your web project. The virtual location where each member can make changes and enhancements for others to see, test, and comment upon.
  • The prototype makes your project real. Third, and most important, setting up a prototype in a fix location makes every web development project real, providing your team members with a fixed, working (although rough)  version about will soon become the final version of your website.

The sooner you can get your first website prototype put together, the sooner you and your team can improve it, adding in more text and content, graphics, and other functionality as this prototype rapidly evolves into a final working version of your website.

In web development projects, you’ll find that the hurry-up effort you exert upfront to get your prototype established pays off by helping to make the rest of your project move along much faster.

Website Design - Matrix Marketing Group
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Once your web prototype is up and running, push its development through to the final version

The other advantage of starting your web development project through a rough outline or sketch based on a template, like the “know” and “do” template used in the past post. It helps to streamline the process of moving your website from the initial prototype, and then on to the first, graphically based version of your website.

Remember your use of a template is not intended to dictate the final appearance or functionality of your site. It is a tool that helps you lay out a marker for your web project, and opening design concept meant to invite the constructive contribution of new ideas for members of your web development team.

If the graphic designer on your web project is a cooperative, confident professional, they will appreciate having initial starting point and set of ideas around which to base their own design interpretation of your website.

More than any print orientated marketing project, web development projects are very fluid in fast-moving, so the final version of your website may look different than your initial sketch.

As you, your web development team, and your website graphic designer working brainstorm together, it is likely the members of your team will bring their own new ideas to the project.

It is also likely that some of the new ideas will improve the final version of your company’s website, but may also mean that your original sketch design of your site may be changed, to a radically degree.

Why you must maintain a firm, steady grip on your web development project, keep an open mind to these new ideas suggested by your team members, and don’t be afraid to make changes–even major ones-to your web project along the way.

Decide on the new ideas your web team can implement now, and the ones to implement later

Why you can, and should, be open-minded to new ideas for say changes that arise during the development process, be pragmatic enough to discriminate between the ideas that can be folded into your project, and the ones that should be held aside for implementation on your site at a later date.

Website Design - Matrix Marketing Group
Canva

Any idea that improves the selling power of your website is a good idea

Any idea that improves the selling power of your company’s website, without exceeding your project’s timing or budget, is worthy of rapid adoption into your project.

Conversely, any idea, even a good one, that doesn’t meet the standard of increasing the sales and marketing potential of your company’s website, or is too costly or time-consuming for the scope and schedule of your sights project, should be put aside in the added to a list of potential enhancements for Phase 2 of your website web development project goes live.

This keeps your current web project on track, and prevents significant delays and cost overruns in your current project, well building up a useful storehouse of new and promising ideas to fold into your site as running changes after your website goes live, or on its next major version.

Wrap up on launching your website project successfully

It’s always good to get a good website launch checklist. There are tons on the internet. Here’s one, I love. With launch day around the corner be sure you have covered all your website bases.

Here are the common questions before a website launch:

  • Is the website ready to launch?
  • Will we meet the launch date?
  • Do we have the right web hosting?
  • Are blog post ready to be published according to schedule?
  • Are the right social media profiles on the website?
  • Is Google search console and Google analytics set-up?
  • Are CTA’s ready to capture email addresses?

Follow these steps in this post and you’re on your way to great successful website launch. Don’t forget your post-launch review too.

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