We are living in a world where our time is more valuable than ever. With a broad access to the Internet and thousands of websites conquering for our attention, we need to carefully pick up the ones that are truly worth our time. And we are merciless while doing it. 2,6 seconds is an average amount of time that we are spending on the site, before deciding whether we’re staying or leaving forever. That’s right app owners, I am talking to you-you have only 2,6 seconds to convince us, that we should spend some of our precious time on YOUR website – not your competitors one. So the blood-thirsty race for users attention began. But is creating a perfect landing page for your app truly worth that huge amount of work and money? Definitely yes!
Check out some of our tips, implement them on your website and just sit tight. Before you notice, your app will get some extra hundreds and thousands of downloads! And I’m not joking – the stake is really that high.
1# DO YOUR RESEARCH!
The first step that every app owner should do before making his product landing page is thoroughly checking, what the other successful companies websites look like. The knowledge gathered through this process is truly priceless. Thanks to it you will spare A LOT of time, that you would probably waste if you would decide for the trial and error method while building your landing page. Don’t be afraid of benchmarking – if someone has done something right there is nothing wrong with getting inspired by his solutions. Especially as you are certain, that they would work with your product as well.
The same goes with the other companies mistakes. If you are brave enough you can even mock your competitor’s website, just as the Zarget did with a Crazy Egg landing page:
Zarget decided for a very creative way of showing that their products are far more better, innovative and up-to-date than its competitor ones. How? They’ve presented Crazy Egg logotype (a white egg) as a… overdue, floating in the cup of water, “dead” product. And they’ve putting it on their landing page! Thanks to Zarget courageous move, a user entering their website has got a clear image of the differences between those two very, at the first sight, similar products. I don’t know how about you, but I would definitely switch for Zarget after seeing something so awesome, good job!
2# PUT YOUR APP IN A CENTER OF USER’S ATTENTION
The main goal of every mobile app landing page is making your users eager to download your app. That’s obvious. So make sure, that in the jungle of other contents visible on your page, your mobile app is still the most distinguishable one. If your users will need to scroll hours, before getting a link to your app download – you’re doomed. They will get bored after few seconds and leave your website without any hesitation. Here you have some example:
The difference between those two app landing pages is visible from the first sight. Jaba Sociallanding page gives you a clear access to download an app to your mobile phone. You definitely can’t miss those big AppStore and GooglePlay store buttons! Hyve from the other hand doesn’t truly look like an app landing page, to be honest. More like a shop offering some furniture. The user will get that impression because the “download app” button is really small and easy to miss. Not mentioning the huge block of grey text overlaid on an also greyish photo. Yuck
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3# ADJUST YOUR COMMUNICATION TO YOUR USERS
Now as you have your landing page main goal written in stone, it’s time to choose what kind of people will be the best “medium” to achieve that goal. Every web user is different: designers will pay attention to your landing page beautifully created icons, clients will like to have a clear access to the “offer” and “prices” sections and investors – they will be the ones that will find your “successes”, “media press” or “awards” sections as the most important ones. While building a landing page always have a specific person in mind, that best resonates with your “perfect customer” image. Give him a name, a job, a country that he cames from – in a marketing, we are calling that “building a person”. Find the example of a well-built persona profile below.
When you’re picturing a certain person, that would be a perfect target audience for your app, ideas about what you should put into your landing page often pops in your head by itself. But wait – what if I have more than one person in mind when I’m thinking about the perfect user of my app? Of course, you have, it’s impossible to have just one, chill out. That’s why sometimes, one landing page is not enough. If your target audiences vary between each other greatly: you should build a few websites for your app and make sure that the right people will encounter each one of them. How? Adjust your landing page to the source that brought your clients to you. Taking the example of Melissa. Having her in mind, you should promote your app landing page adjusted to her needs in places she probably spends her free time at. For example Facebook groups for moms, maternity & housewives blogs or dating websites. Having someone else in mind, you will pick different places to promote your second landing page. And so on.
As you think that’s enough when it comes to adjusting your landing page to your target audience needs, unfortunately, I need to tell you, that you’re wrong. Not only you need to have your persons in mind while creating your landing page, but also “the phase” that they’re currently at. We’re distinguishing the main four ones: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. They all depend on the stage that your client is considering his buying decision from just hearing about your brand to ordering your product. There is a long way in between but with the right landing page, it can become much more efficient!
4# KEEP IT SIMPLE
Now we’re getting to the meat of the matter, creme de la creme – your app landing page design. Obviously, it’s extremely important. We have divided that part into the smaller pieces to make sure, that you will understand each of them perfectly. Let’s start!
DESIGN AND TYPOGRAPHY
Trends in web design change very rapidly. Don’t follow them blindly, packing yourself into a very colorful, filled with gifs and texts website that will look cool only to you. The smartest way to make sure, that your landing page won’t get old too fast is deciding for a simple, transparent and very user-friendly design. Use white spaces, big fonts, and mild colors – all that combined will give you a landing page, that won’t be too overwhelming for your users. If you can, try to avoid using free stock photos as well. They’ve been so widely used by various web owners, that users became allergic to them. Use your own graphics, photos, and video materials – your website visitors will definitely appreciate it!
CALL TO ACTION
You need to make sure, that your users sight will naturally wander to the place on the page, where your “Call to Action” button is. When it comes to mobile apps landing pages, the usual CTA button has got the “DOWNLOAD AN APP” text written inside. To make sure, that it will be extremely easy to find for the users, you can use arrows or photos of people, clearly pointing in its direction.
THE FOLD
Laptops became one of the most common devices to surf on the Internet nowadays. And the resolution of the huge majority of them is 1366x768px. That’s why all of the most important elements of our landing page (headline, main graphic, CTA) HAS TO BE placed above the fold of the page. What is the fold? It’s a place which is visible to the users without a need to scroll the whole website down. Another thing important here that you have to make sure, that your web design is truly responsive, and will be displayed well not only on laptops but also on mobile phones and tablets.
SOCIAL PROOFS
Another important factor that your website should definitely have is something called a “social proof”. It’s an element that will convince your users that your mobile app quality is truly superior. It will make you also much more trustworthy in his eyes. Examples? Sure! Testimonials of your app happy users visible on your page. Links to Social Media accounts where you have already gathered some dedicated community. List of partners that have decided to endorse your project. Put them on your website in a place, that they won’t be missed and I guarantee you, they will make a great impression at your landing page visitors.
FOCUS
Luring your users to your website is just a half-way success. You need to make sure that they will stay on it long enough, to decide to download your app! How to do it? Don’t distract them with links to other pages. Even if you have a really awesome YouTube account – don’t link to it at the very beginning of the page. Because the danger is, that after watching your video, the user will start looking at the “proposed video” section and while watching other videos, he will slowly forget about your website completely. So remember: really carefully think about any links to the external sites that you have on your landing page. Sometimes not putting them at all is the best decision possible.
5# WRITE A COPY THAT WILL SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
A well designed, responsive and filled with the nice graphics landing page is still not enough to bring your app thousands of new downloads. You need to fill it with an interesting yet very engaging copy! One of the most important rules of web writing is that “less is more”. Don’t overwhelm your user with pages of text, that he will easily get lost himself in. Don’t write elaborates about how your company was founded, what is its mission and where you see yourself in 10 years. Focus yourself on one question, that the answer to is the most important for your user: what will I exactly gain from downloading your app? What kind of problems does your app solve?
Start with writing a killer headline. 2 lines of text tops. You think that’s too little to convince your user to download your app? Then you’re wrong! Make sure that in this short text you will explain what your app is really about and what it has got to offer to its users. The well-written headline can bring you more value than you think. Basing on our example: changing the words that we have on our website headline improved our conversion rate by 300 %. That’s a lot!
If you have decided to put some of your happy app users testimonials on your website make sure, that they’re loaded with useful information and specific advantages that your app brings only. There is no place here for empty words and sentences that mean nothing like “The app is great, I would recommend it to my friends”. Why? What did you like about it? What kind of values did the app bring to you? There are just too many questions and not enough answers.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Building the right landing page is not a piece of cake. Especially that you can never truly say that your app website is really “finished”. No, even when it will be finally visible on the Internet you still should test the different variations of it. Changing the CTA position, simplifying the filling form or writing a different copy – experiment with those features, until you will find the best ones, that will truly resonate with YOUR clients! Because honestly, there is no universal recipe for a perfect landing page. But I assure you, that if you will stick to the guidelines presented above, establishing your own one will definitely appear tto be much, much easier.
