Still my landing page design checklist

I first read Web Design for ROI by Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus in 2010 or 2011, in my first years of digital marketing. After all these years, I still use chapters 4 and 8 as my checklist for evaluating and fixing conversion-driven landing pages. Below is the cheat sheet.

1. Does the landing page answer the visitor’s questions?

• Is this what I expect to see? Company logo! Alignment of headlines and pics from ads — “scent”
• Does this look credible and trustworthy? Client logos, testimonials, press mentions, professional associations.
• Does this look interesting enough to spend more time here? Speaking to the pains/gains/jobs to your target visitor. Copywriting: clarity not cleverness.
• Hmm… that’s intriguing. How do I learn more? Design mostly for Short Attention Sam, but put in the details for the rest. Answer this with headers.
• I’m interested, what now? Clear Calls-to-Action.
• What if I’m uncomfortable doing that? Secondary CTAs. Privacy.
• And if I have more questions? Secondary CTA: contact us, pop-up.

2. Are the conversion goals clear? Is each element designed toward those conversion goals?

Here’s the template I fill-out to ensure that each element of the design and copy is aligned to the conversion goals, and a filled-out example for a growth workshop targeted to businesses in the Netherlands.

3. Technical Quality

• Site load speed
• Tracking pixels for analytics and advertising
• SSL

4. More Guidelines

• Establish credibility
• Use a professional, industry-appropriate design
• Include those excellent references
• Ensure everything works (check for broken image references, misaligned displays, typos, and broken links, etc)
• Simplify and separate (don’t let the standard layout of your website dictate the design of the landing page)
• Reduce or eliminate navigation
• Reduce branding and other standard site elements
• Make the landing page an extension of your ad
• Provide what the ad promised
• Match the wording of the ad’s call to action
• Use consistent graphics or illustration
• Maintain language and tone
• Offer segmenting options for different audiences
• Personalize to the visitor
• Use fewer, better graphics
• Choose the most effective media type for your offer
• Create interest and desire with compelling copy
• Speak the customer’s language
• Engage the visitor with benefits, reasons, scenarios they can relate to
• Include only the most important points
• Accommodate different reading patterns
• Include the right amount of copy
• Provide a clear call to action
• Be clear, obvious and concise
• Avoid intimidating or unclear language
• Provide a secondary, “Safety Valve” Call to Action. Examples:

• Keep forms clean and simple
• Ask for the minimum amount of information you need (conversion rate is inversely proportional to number of fields in the form)
• Make buttons easy to find
• Make buttons look like buttons
• Make important buttons more prominent
• Use clear, concise, inviting button labels
• Be clear about what’s coming next
• Place buttons intuitively

5. Forms

Forms should answer the following questions toward its completion:

• Where do I start?
• Does it look easy?
• Will it take a long time?
• Are there lots of steps in this process?
• Is the outcome worth the effort?
• Is this page secure? Is my browser “lock” icon visible?
• Does it ask for a reasonable amount of information?

Guidelines on forms

• Focus attention on the form area
• Use a clean, simple layout
• Be ruthless: remove unnecessary fields
• Overcome hesitation with benefits
• Use clear, descriptive field labels
• Consider using active verbs
• Consider using sentence completion (eg, I am ____)
• Consider using a complete question
• Provide help and contextual answers
• Allow estimated answers
• Prefill as many needs as possible
• Clearly indicate the steps or time involved
• Provide security and privacy reassurance

My pet peeve: prioritize the user’s ease vs the organization’s efficiency

For examples, more explanation and more context, check out the book.