In 2014, one of the hottest ways to increase landing page conversions is by integrating rich media. Obviously, the design of your landing page has an enormous influence on increased conversions, but how do you know what works and what doesn’t? It’s rare to find a web design everyone finds appealing and engaging, but these 3 unusual ways to increase your landing page conversions present effective rich media-based web design hacks that can definitely help you along the way. 

1. Forget the design status quo. 

When people visit your site, your goal is to keep them engaged. You want to do everything in your power to control them from migrating away from your site. Overwhelming them with blocks of texts or overloaded graphics, or making it too easy for them to leave, can seriously hamper your conversion rate.

However, all too often when trying to make the best landing page design, people attempt to utilize innovative design techniques but end up forgetting the importance of web design basics. These include studying user experience, taking advantage of negative space to focus the viewer’s eyes, stressing clarity and brevity, and controlling hyperlinks to keep visitors on the site.

While these fundamentals are important to pay attention to, it’s sometimes more effective to be different than predictable. Unbounce lists fabulous advice on unusual (yet successful) ways to design your landing page to optimize conversions (via Unbounce). One of the best tips they offer is to dare to be different, with web designs that imitate what other websites your audience likes, including pop culture websites your core audience groups find appealing. The bottom line is, it’s important to pay attention to web design methods that are proven to work, but sometimes you need to take chances to achieve the greatest engagement and conversion.

2. Use people to get people.

So by now you know including photos, videos, and slideshows are powerful, but what should this visual content feature? Research shows displaying pictures of people is one of the most effective ways to boost conversion rates.

The importance of including photos or videos of live people on your landing page is an often overlooked but effective technique that hinges on the fact that people gravitate towards people, especially subconsciously (via Crazy Egg). A photo or video that includes people is more engaging to the human brain than a photo of a dog, tree, or inantimate object. Why? People relate best to what they know.

Nielsen Normal Group conducted a study that found the most effective design elements to attract focus are plain text, photos of faces, and photos of bodies. Great, you may be thinking, but how will this increase my conversions? Well, Paras Chopra’s A/B landing page tests revealed that human photos have a positive impact on visitor’s first impressions of a site’s trustworthiness (via Crazy Egg). You can’t gain conversions without consumer trust, so building it by using human images is a good way to boost trustworthiness and conversions.

3.  Be extreme to grab viewers’ attention quickly

Web audiences aren’t very forgiving when it comes to first impressions. A study by Google found it takes between 1/50th and 1/20th of a second for a user to assess whether they think a web page is beautiful or not. However, beautiful isn’t always bold, and bold is what increases conversions and attracts higher levels of engagement. One of the best design strategies is to use bold and big fonts for call-to-actions and extra-large graphics or videos that take over the full page. If you only have one chance to grab and sustain your viewer’s attention and convey your brand message, you might as well be daring.

Consider what is most important to highlight and offset this dramatically. Calls to action can be integrated with headlines to form one large message displayed boldly to your audience. Don’t leave any question in your audience’s mind what you are communicating—go big or go home.

There you have it—three of our favorite unusual yet effective ways to increase your blog conversion rates through design that integrates rich media. Let us know if you have any other strange but successful ideas—we would love to hear!

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