Adding Personality and Trust to Your Landing Pages Can Maximize Conversion Rates

Article by James Scherer from KISSmetrics on Entrepreneur.com.  Web design by Fresh Consulting

We’re constantly testing and tweaking our landing pages to maximize our conversion rates.

We know a page that converts at 15% instead of 10% can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased revenue for our business.

This article will discuss the rising importance of personality and trust in brand communication, particularly in landing page optimization. I’ll give you five strategies for presenting a user-friendly landing page and a personable business that you can apply to improve your conversion rates. We’ll go through techniques that can give your website that certain “something” which gets a visitor to convert.

Before we push on, I’ll quickly preface these recommendations with this: As with any landing page variable, the ones I’ve included in this article are simply tests I’ve seen work in the past, and they may work for your business.

Landing page optimization is a continuous exercise of testing. It is pitting control against variation until you’re satisfied (which you never should be).

I do give case studies for each of the variables I recommend, so you know I’m not just stabbing blindly in the dark. Just remember, these are unproven hypotheses until you test them yourself.

 

Add Personality and Trust to your Landing Page

When we meet someone new, we unconsciously process minor, inexplicable cues. For no specific reason that we are aware of, we either like the person or we don’t.

An example of this unconscious decision making is the fact that we tend to trust someone who is confidently poised, has an open air, and speaks calmly, slowly, and directly. We are less trusting of people who appear weak, closed off, and (here’s where it gets a bit crazy) not very good looking.

Landing pages are no different.

When someone lands on your landing page, the decision to stay takes between three and eight seconds. This decision is made half consciously and half unconsciously. Half of it is based on the value that is communicated quickly and clearly, and half of it is based on those indefinable factors that just “connect” with your landing page traffic (or don’t).

Here’s what I mean:

Below are two lead generation page examples from Software-as-a-Service companies (SaaS). Which would you engage with first?

Site A:

Site B:

These pages had about five seconds to convince us to keep looking and convert.

Can you quantify each and every one of the variables that makes you prefer Site B over Site A? Or is it something more complicated?

Your landing page needs this “je ne sais quoi” – that indefinable something that puts you a notch above your competitors.

Let’s check out five strategies that add personality, increase trust, make your page a friendly one, and overall, can increase your page’s conversion rate and your business revenue.

 

1. Use Friendly Colors

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

Color triggers the most innate part of our selves. We see green and are calmed because, in the days before supermarkets, green meant water and life. We see the color red, and genuinely, our heartbeat speeds up, causing us to act more quickly on our feelings.

Or did you think it was just a coincidence that HubSpot’s A/B Test of CTA button colors resulted in red outperforming green and conversion rates increasing by 21%?

Color can make your landing page friendly and increase your click-through rate. The right color scheme puts your landing page visitor at ease and is the basis for a good first impression.

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

The Professional Look: Shades of gray, white, and black – green for CTA

Black and gray evoke sophistication and sincerity when used in partnership with a crisp white (avoid beige, brown, and tans, as they’ll wash out your page).

The Youthful, Startup Look: Dark blue, light blue, gray, and white – orange for CTA

Blue is (across both genders and all age-groups) most people’s favorite color. It is said to create the sensation of trust and security. Lighter blues are calming, while darker blues denote professionalism and sincerity.

The Environmental, Eco-Friendly Look: Green, white, and brown – red or orange for CTA

As I mentioned above, green communicates health and wellbeing. More recently it has started to indicate the eco-friendly movement and environmentalism.

The Female-Focused Look: Purple, white, and beige – orange or yellow for CTA

Purple is the favorite color of 23% of women, and 0% of men. It communicates womanhood, maternity, and comfort. Interestingly, it increases in popularity as women get older.

The Male-Focused Look: Black, red, and gold – red for CTA

Solid black landing pages with vibrant reds communicate strength and permanence, appealing to masculine sensibilities.

Each of these color schemes requires you to know your business’s target market. This also is an essential part of language in landing pages (something I’ll discuss in Section 3 below).

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to use the wrong color scheme, particularly when optimizing CTA buttons. The right amount of contrast can focus your visitor’s attention, while too much contrast can increase bounce rates or even outright scare your landing page traffic.

For instance:

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