Last updated on September 27th, 2024 at 08:53 am
Design has a huge impact on conversion rates.
That’s why today we are going to share 15 tips that can help you improve the design of your landing pages and sales pages.
Are you ready to give your sales funnel a complete design makeover?
If so, continue reading…
#1: Make Sure That Your Design Looks Modern
Not only are outdated designs aesthetically unappealing but they can also damage your credibility.
At the very least, using designs like that indicates a lack of care when it comes to how you present yourself to the world, which potential customers might interpret as a lack of professionalism.
Moreover, if your landing pages and sales pages look like they belong in the 2010s – or, even worse, in the 2000s – people might start wondering if you are some sort of a scammer.
Generally speaking, the dominant web design trend over the last few decades has been a gradual shift towards minimalism: lots of empty space, not too much text, no clutter. You can use that to guide your design choices!
#2: Use Proven Templates Whenever Possible
Landing page and sales page design is its own discipline with a heavy focus on conversion rate optimization.
If you don’t have any previous experience with it and aren’t familiar with its most important principles, it’s probably best to use proven templates instead of attempting to design your landing pages and sales pages from scratch.
Typically, email marketing apps, website builders, and all-in-one marketing platforms come with template libraries, so finding templates that have already been optimized for conversions shouldn’t be a problem.
Of course, you will still need to do A/B testing to find out what resonates with your target audience, but at least you will have the basics covered right from the get-go.
#3: Have One Conversion Goal Per Page
The most important conversion rate optimization principle is having one conversion goal per page.
Note that a conversion goal is not the same thing as a call to action.
For example, by definition, the conversion goal of a sales page is to persuade the visitor to buy your product or service.
You can have more than one call-to-action button – in this case, more than one “Buy” button – but they should all serve the same conversion goal!
#4: Keep Your Design Simple
Keeping your design simple is important not just in terms of modern aesthetics but also from the conversion rate optimization perspective. Why?
Because if there’s too much going on, visitors might get distracted, overwhelmed or confused.
Visitors Might Get Distracted
Anything that can distract the visitor from the conversion goal is going to reduce the conversion rate of that page.
For example, you might want to add a cool animation to your sales page, but that may not be the best idea from the conversion rate optimization perspective because the visitor might get distracted by it.
Next thing you know, their phone rings or their dinner is ready, or they have switched to another browser tab out of habit and started watching a cat video. You had their attention but now you lost it!
Visitors Might Feel Overwhelmed
Sensory overload is also something worth taking into consideration. It’s probably safe to say that a significant percentage of the general population is feeling overstimulated in their day-to-day lives.
If someone like that visits your landing page or sales page and their senses are immediately assaulted by loud sounds, crazy animations and a bunch of images, they might feel overwhelmed and instinctively click the “Back” button or close the tab.
Visitors Might Feel Confused
Finally, people might simply find all the bells and whistles on your page confusing. And, as the old salesperson saying goes, “A confused mind always says no”.
If a potential customer decides to check out your landing page or your sales page and it’s not immediately clear to them what your offer is all about, they probably won’t stick around in an attempt to decipher it.
In all likelihood, they will simply leave and never come back!
#5: Make Sure That Your Color Scheme is Harmonious
When you are working on a landing page or a sales page design, it’s important to make sure that all the colors in its color scheme go well together.
Otherwise, if the colors clash with each other, it will likely have a negative impact on your conversion rate.
Visitors who aren’t familiar with color theory may not be able to put their finger on it, but they will probably sense that something is off and feel irritated by the lack of harmony.
Color theory is a vast field of knowledge that covers everything from the fundamental properties of the visible light spectrum to effectively using color in web design, product design and branding.
Unfortunately, we can’t do this subject justice in this article because of space limitations, but we want to share some helpful resources.
First, we recommend reading “Color Theory Fundamentals Every Web Designer Should Know” by the product designer Alina Khazanova. This article covers the basics of color theory and how it applies to web design.
After that, we suggest reading “7 Rules for Choosing A Website Color Scheme” by the UX writer Orlee Gillis. This article explains how to use color theory to create a harmonious color scheme for your website.
Finally, if you need some inspiration, check out the color palettes on Color Hunt!
#6: Use Color Psychology to Evoke the Right Associations
You are probably already familiar with basic color psychology and have seen how various companies use it in their branding.
For example, the color pink is associated with femininity, which is why it’s so commonly used in products targeted towards women and almost never in products targeted towards men.
Think about what associations you want to evoke and then use colors that will help you do that (e.g. blue for calmness and relaxation, green for nature and wellness, red for passion and romance, etc.)
Of course, these associations can vary between cultures, so make sure that you take the cultural context into consideration.
If you want to learn more about this subject, check out the Color Psychology website. It covers the psychology of red, yellow, blue, green, orange, brown, pink, grey, white, and black, as well as of the different variations of these colors.
#7: Use a Color That Stands Out to Draw Attention to Your Call-to-Action Buttons
Of course, the overall look of the page should still be harmonious. You want to choose a color that stands out from the other colors, not one that clashes with them and ruins the entire color scheme.
For example, on “Your First Funnel Challenge” sales page, we are using the color red to direct people’s attention to the most important page elements.
Above the fold, we emphasize the dates and encourage the visitor to watch the video below. By the way, notice how you only see the top of the video player when you arrive on this page?
That is intentional and is designed to get the visitor to scroll down. We’ll talk about using videos on your landing pages and sales pages later in this article.
Then, right below the video, we have our first call-to-action button:
See how the color red stands out in this color scheme but also works well with all the other colors? You want to aim for the same effect on your landing pages and sales pages!
#8: Have One Call-to-Action Button Per Screen
If your landing page or sales page is longer than a single screen, you want to have one call-to-action button per screen.
That way, as the visitor is scrolling down, there will always be a call-to-action button that is either already visible on the screen or about to become visible.
This ensures that once the potential customer is ready to proceed with the conversion goal, they will be able to easily find a call-to-action button regardless of where they are on your page.
#9: Use the Text Layout, Fonts, and Font Sizes to Draw Attention to the Most Important Copy Elements
Here’s how our homepage looks above the fold:
As you can see, it features:
- A headline: “Meet ClickFunnels.”
- A superheadline: “Struggling To Get A Constant Flow Of Customers?”
- A subheadline: “Getting People To Your Website and Turning Them Into Happy Paying Customers Is What We Do Best”
(In Latin, “super” means “above” and “sub” means “below”, hence the terms “superheadline” and “subheadline”).
Notice how we are using the text layout, different fonts, and different font sizes to draw people’s attention to the headline, the superheadline, and the subheadline?
In all likelihood, when a visitor arrives on our homepage, they are going to read the headline first because it’s the largest copy element.
Then, they are probably going to read the superheadline and the subheadline, in that order, because they are used to reading texts written in the Latin alphabet from top to bottom.
Finally, they are probably going to read “Zero Computer Skills Needed”, “Works for Every Type of Business” and “Market, Sell and Deliver Like A Pro”.
Plus, as they are reading all that copy, their eyes are probably also going to wander to the calls to action that are highlighted in light blue.
This setup allows us to convey the most important information about our software in a matter of seconds because of the unconscious reading pattern that we just described.
We recommend taking a similar approach on your landing pages and sales pages: use the text layout, fonts, and font sizes to guide the visitor’s attention in a way that allows you to quickly convey the most important information about your offer.
#10: Use Images to Evoke Associations With the Outcome That the Potential Customer Wants
Ask yourself: what does the potential customer hope to achieve by getting your lead magnet or buying your product or service?
Think not just about the specific result that your offer can deliver but also about why they want that result. What is the ultimate outcome that they desire?
Then, use images that evoke associations with that ultimate outcome.
For example, if you go to Nick Stephenson’s “$0 to 1K Per Month” landing page, this is what you are going to see above the fold:
The typewriter era is long gone. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that the vast majority of Nick’s target audience of aspiring full-time authors have never used one.
However, this old-fashioned device is still associated with being a writer, much more so than computers, despite them being the primary tool of the trade in 2025.
So it makes sense for Nick to use an image of a typewriter on his landing page: it’s a powerful symbol of the ultimate outcome that his potential customers are hoping for!
#11: Emphasize Social Proof
Nick also uses his landing page design to emphasize social proof.
If you start scrolling down, you’ll see a video followed by this testimonial by a New York Times best-selling author Joanna Penn.
It’s featured in the center of the page surrounded by white space, which makes it impossible to miss.
As you continue scrolling down, you’ll see three more impossible-to-miss testimonials placed in between page sections. At one point, two of them take up the entire screen!
You want to similarly emphasize social proof on your landing pages and sales pages. That will almost certainly help you increase your conversion rate!
#12: Add a Muted Autoplay Video Right Below the Fold
Autoplay videos get a bad rap but it’s the autoplay audio that is the problem.
After all, it’s jarring when you open a website and the audio starts playing automatically. When that happens, people’s first impulse is to leave.
Fortunately, this problem is easy to solve: you can simply mute your autoplay video!
Here’s what we recommend:
- Place the video right below the fold.
- Make the very top of the video player visible above the fold.
- Place a call-to-action bar above the video player and encourage the visitor to watch the video.
That way, when a visitor arrives on your page, they will immediately notice the video because we humans have evolved to spot moving objects in our environment.
Then, the fact that they can tell that a video is playing but are unable to see the whole thing will pique their curiosity and make them scroll down so that the rest of the video player becomes visible.
Finally, being able to see the video but not hear it will likely make them even more curious, so they will probably feel inclined to unmute it.
From there, whether they will watch the entire video or not will depend on how engaging it is, so make sure that it’s good.
Check out our homepage if you want to see an example of this approach!
#13: Make Sure That Your Pages Look Good on Different Devices
People browse the web on different devices.
That’s why it’s important to make sure that your landing pages and sales pages look good on computers, tablets, and smartphones.
Keep in mind that nowadays mobile traffic makes up more than half of all web traffic and that has been the case since the third quarter of 2019.
This means that you are probably leaving a lot of money on the table if your pages aren’t optimized for mobile devices!
#14: Optimize Your Pages With A/B Testing
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a conversion rate optimization method that you can use to increase the conversion rates of your landing pages and sales pages.
Here’s how it works:
- You come up with a hypothesis that you want to test. It has to be focused on a specific page element. Say, maybe your landing page has green call-to-action buttons at the moment, but you believe that red ones would work better because they would stand out more.
- You create two versions of that page that are identical except for the element that you are testing. Say, If you are testing green vs. red call-to-action buttons, you will need one version with green call-to-action buttons and another version with red call-to-action buttons.
- You drive the same amount of traffic to both versions and see which one converts better. Was your hypothesis correct?
By the way, Performable once conducted this exact A/B test and the red button outperformed the green button by 21%!
Ultimately, the only way to know what works best for your business is to A/B test your ideas.
The fewer assumptions you make and the more tests you run, the easier it will be for you to optimize the pages in your sales funnel for conversions!
#15: Keep Your Page Loading Speed Under 4 Seconds
Page loading speed is an often overlooked factor that can have a drastic effect on your conversion rates.
For example, Portent found that the difference in conversion rates between blazing-fast sites and modestly quick sites was astonishing.
In fact, in their research, they discovered that B2B websites that loaded in 1 second had 3x higher conversion rates compared to similar websites that loaded in 5 seconds.
And the difference between blazing-fast websites and slow websites was even more pronounced.
According to the same research, B2B websites that loaded in 1 second had 5x higher conversion rates compared to similar websites that loaded in 10 seconds.
Portent recommends aiming for a page loading speed that is between 1 and 4 seconds. That is something that you should keep in mind when designing your landing pages and sales pages!
Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?
Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.
He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?
His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.
This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.
But you can also get it directly from us for free…
All we ask is that you pay for shipping!
So what are you waiting for? 🧐