You know what you want your website to say. But how do you want to say it? While written content is a fundamental part of any high-performing page, there are lots of other elements that go into connecting with customers, expressing your unique value proposition, and moving visitors down the sales funnel.
With so many components at play on any high-converting page, it’s easy to let one or two elements slip through the cracks. But each part of the page has an important role to play in creating the perfect user experience, whether that’s headlines to structure your content, social proof to reassure and persuade visitors, or a lead capture form to start building your relationship with customers.
Inevitably, designing the perfect page will depend on your specific offering, your target audience, and the particular goal you want to accomplish. However, there are a few aspects that any page needs to get right, no matter its purpose.
Here we outline the most important elements on any page of your website. Ensure you’ve got these nailed and you can be confident that you’re doing all you can to keep your website performing at its best.
Optimise Your Page with These 12 Indispensable Elements
Headers and Subheaders
After clicking on a page, the first thing a visitor will see is the headline. And so it should tell them exactly what they’re going to find on the page, grabbing their attention and keeping them reading.
Keep your headlines short. 15 words is a good rule of thumb. If you need to, add a supporting headline to expand, giving more details and further convincing the reader to stay.
If your headline accompanies an explanatory image, this means you can keep the text even simpler and more succinct. Also, remember to include keywords in any headlines.
SEO
To ensure your page drives traffic successfully, you want to optimise it for SEO. This begins with keyword research. What are people searching for that your page can provide answers for? What problem are people experiencing that your page can solve?
The best way to make your page more SEO-friendly is to be sure that you’re answering your user’s question clearly. And while you want to include keywords, be cautious of keyword stuffing. Using keywords should always be done to serve the reader and provide value. Basically, it shouldn’t sound like it was written by a robot.
A couple of other easy ways to boost your page’s SEO? Internal links allow search engine crawlers and visitors to navigate your site easily. Ensuring that your images aren’t too slow to load and include descriptive ‘alt text’, explaining what the image is, can also help with SEO.
Mobile-Friendly
These days, customers are just as likely to be browsing your site on their phone as they are on their desktop and they won’t have much patience if your page takes a long time to load. Google will also penalize you in the rankings.
So, use this Google tool to see how mobile-friendly your site is. Then ensure your site is responsive, adapting the layout for individual screen sizes. Ditch any large ads or pop-ups that block the view on a mobile screen. Keep your page design simple with minimal clutter. Make sure your page loads as quickly as possible, compress your images and CSS, and ensure that all your buttons work well on mobile as well as desktop.
Images
Visual content is incredibly powerful. We process images 60,000 times faster than text and over 67% of interviewed consumers claimed that the quality of a product image influenced their purchasing decision. After all, customers see your images before they even think about reading your content.
So, choose your images wisely. Avoid anything that looks like a stock photo. Images should be high-quality and relevant to what you’re talking about. If you’re discussing a product or service, try to have an image that clarifies the point you’re making. If you’re talking about something more abstract and general, find a striking image that will stand out.
Video
96% of consumers find video helpful when making a purchase decision online. And incorporating video into your landing page can increase conversion rates by 19%.
So, if you haven’t already, definitely consider investing in video content. It’s a great format for a sales pitch—much more engaging than written content when it comes to explaining complex products or concepts.
When creating videos, you want to keep the user experience in mind at all times. Keep your videos short—2 minutes at the maximum, as people have short attention spans. Use your video to tell a story and entertain. Include a call-to-action at the end to boost conversions.
Social Proof
Social proof is the idea that people want to do what other people are doing. In marketing, it refers to the notion that people trust other people’s opinions more than they trust those of a business. If you can prove to visitors that other people like your company or have enjoyed your services, this can be incredibly persuasive.
This might mean incorporating a positive quote into your page—or a success story or case study where your business helped someone out. Even better if you can accompany the testimonial with a photo.
But social proof could also be as simple as a number indicating how many people have shared or liked your post. Or how many email sign-ups you currently have. For example, “join our 60K+ fans and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.”
These are all signals indicating that your company has a fan base and is well-respected.
Links
In blog articles, in particular, links to relevant third-party sites can help establish your credibility and back up your claims. However, too many external links and you’ll end up with all your visitors leaving your page. Try to strike the right balance. You want to show you’ve done your research, but you also want to keep people reading your content.
Interlinking between other pages on your site is also important for helping viewers to navigate your website and discover other pieces of content. The more content they engage with, the higher the chance of a conversion.
Negative Space
Just as important as what you include on your page is what you decide not to include. You don’t want any confusing clutter or crowding.
Use white space to help any text or images stand out and make your content more scannable. You want people to easily be able to find their way around the information. Similarly, keep paragraphs short and concise and consider adding bullet points to help readers scan text. You could also try bolding or italicizing the most important points.
Call-to-Action
Without a call-to-action, your page won’t generate conversions and all your efforts will be for nothing. Unless you prompt visitors to take action, chances are they’ll just leave your page without doing anything.
A call-to-action can take the form of a lead capture form or a standalone button. Buttons should stand out in a contrasting colour and use powerful imperatives to motivate the reader to act. Don’t be afraid to make them big and don’t skimp on the copywriting. The call-to-action should be persuasive and exciting. Consider incorporating graphics too.
Meanwhile, lead capture forms should be simple so as not to overwhelm visitors, while still asking them for key information such as their name, email, and company.
Your call-to-action could also be on a popup, a slider at the end of the page, or as part of your menu. Try different locations and see what works best. But you should generally only have one or two calls-to-action on your page so as not to confuse visitors.
Social media buttons also function as calls-to-action. If the aim of your page is to boost engagement and build your community, you want people to comment, share, and like your page. Social media buttons make it easy and fast for them to do so. For blog articles, you could also include a comments section to further encourage interaction.
You can also encourage people to take action by providing an incentive, such as an offer or gift. For example, a free guide, course, whitepaper, report, e-book—or even a free trial or consultation.
A Guarantee
Towards the end of your page, you need something that will persuade people that what you’re saying is credible and that you’re legitimate.
As a business, you might want to offer a literal guarantee such as a ‘money-back guarantee’ or a ‘guaranteed refund, no questions asked.’ Or it could be a certification, trust badge, or award. Anything that helps to prove your trustworthiness and reassure visitors.
Position your guarantee close to the call-to-action to increase its success rate, providing extra reassurance at the most decisive moment.
Live Chat Tools
Today, many business pages feature pop-ups where a customer service rep asks customers if they need help. These can be really useful—although not essential. They’re a great sales tool, allowing you to guide and advise customers in real-time. The faster you respond, the more leads you generate. Plus, 41% of consumers say that live chat is their preferred channel of communication for customer support.
It’s not even that difficult to add live chat to your website. You simply integrate a ‘chat widget’ into your page. The Facebook Messenger app is one option—although it depends on whether your customers use the platform or not. Other popular live chat tools include Intercom, Drift, and Influx.
Live chat widgets can also include bots so customers can get answers even when you’re not there. They can also be personalized so that they send different messages depending on whether the visitor is arriving on the page for the first time or is a repeat visitor.
The footer of your page essentially functions as a safety net, catching your visitors before they leave, trying to keep them on your site and encouraging conversions. So, you want to include any information that might guide them to other pages or convince them to get in contact.
Include a number of contact methods, including a phone number, address, email address, and a contact form. The latter is especially useful, allowing visitors to contact you easily, there and then, generating more leads.
If you haven’t already put your logo at the top of your page, you can include it in the footer. But wherever you decide to put it, make sure it’s clearly visible as this is part of your branding efforts. Make sure your reader knows exactly who is providing this content.
You’ll also want to include a copyright symbol to protect against plagiarism, a sitemap, links to your privacy policy and terms of use, as well as any further content such as images, testimonials, information about upcoming events, or a final call-to-action.
Creating a High-Performing and High-Converting Page
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to establishing the perfect website page, whether you’re creating a home page, landing page, or blog post. Neither should you assume that you’ll get it right the first time.
Instead, adopt a trial-and-error approach. Split test different styles of pages, playing around with everything from headlines to the number of images to how many calls-to-action you include. You’ll begin to understand what works for your visitors and how best to engage them and win their support.
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