Landing page design can be a deal breaker. You may have an awesome product. You may have some stellar advertising driving visitors to your landing pages. But if the landing page that people see once they reach you isn’t as stellar as your product and advertising… the entire sale can be lost.

That’s why a research brief published by Marketing Experiments Journal (MEJ) should be on every landing page designers reading list the week.

MEJ tested three different landing pages for three different companies and came up with some awesome increases in conversion rate. With conversion increases in the range of 19 - 66%, MEJ was able to come up with 5 key principles that applied to all three experiments:

1. Focus on one objective for each page. Drive everything on the page to that one objective.
2. Sales pages should use a vertical flow through the center of the page. For commercial offer pages, vertical single-column body copy through the center of the page consistently performs better than other layouts and should always be tested.
   • Left or right columns should be used to support movement toward the objective such as testimonials (to reduce anxiety at clicking the Order button).
3. Eliminate elements that may distract eye path from flow toward the objective.
   • Remove page elements such as photos and graphic images that do not support the primary objective.
4. Use visual elements (size, motion, color, position, and shape) to draw attention toward the call to action.
5. Avoid using off-page links. Use passive pop-ups or launch new browser windows when needed to provide details or supplemental decision information. Once visitors have left the page, their forward momentum is interrupted and must be re-established even if they do return.

The full report shows some before and after screenshots that further illustrate the type of changes that MEJ made. They’ve even created a nifty test you can perform on your own landing pages to see where attention is drawn. If you read just one article today… make it this one!

Do the elements of your landing page drive visitors toward one objective? Are visitors being distracted by other elements of your site?