Landing Page Design

Design serves conversion

A beautiful landing page that doesn’t convert is a failed landing page. Full stop.

Design isn’t decoration. Every colour choice, font size, and pixel of whitespace should guide the visitor toward one action — your call to action. If an element doesn’t support that goal, it’s clutter, and clutter kills conversions.

The tool you use to make this happen is visual hierarchy. You decide what people see first, second, and third. You control the flow. Get that right and even a simple page will outperform a flashy one that fights for attention everywhere at once.

Above the fold

The top of your page — what’s visible before anyone scrolls — does the heaviest lifting. You have roughly five seconds to communicate three things: what this is, why it matters, and what to do next.

That means your above-the-fold section needs exactly these elements:

• A clear headline. One sentence that states the value proposition.
• A supporting subheadline. One or two lines that add context or specificity.
• A primary CTA button. Visible, obvious, impossible to miss.
• A hero image or illustration (optional but effective). Something that reinforces the message, not just fills space.

If your visitor has to scroll to understand what you’re offering, you’ve already lost a chunk of them.

Visual hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is how you control the order in which people process information. You have four tools:

Size. Bigger elements get seen first. Your headline should be the largest text on the page. Your CTA button should be large enough to feel important.

Colour. High-contrast elements draw the eye. If everything is the same colour, nothing stands out. Reserve your boldest colour for the CTA.

Contrast. Dark text on a light background is easier to read than grey on off-white. Don’t sacrifice legibility for aesthetics.

Whitespace. Space around an element gives it importance. Cramming things together makes them compete. Give your headline and CTA room to breathe.

Think of it like a newspaper front page. The lead story is big, bold, and surrounded by space. Everything else is clearly secondary.

Typography

Pick two fonts. One for headings, one for body text. That’s it. Three or more creates visual noise.

For body copy, prioritise readability above all:

• Font size: 16px minimum. 18px is better on most screens.
• Line height: 1.5 to 1.6 for body text. Tight leading makes paragraphs feel like walls.
• Line length: 50 to 75 characters per line. Wider than that and the eye loses its place.
• Contrast ratio: WCAG recommends at least 4.5:1 for normal text. Dark grey on white works. Light grey on off-white doesn’t.

Your heading hierarchy should follow a clear size scale. If your H1 is 48px, your H2 might be 32px and your H3 24px. The jumps should be noticeable without being jarring.

Colour and contrast

Limit your palette. Three colours maximum for most landing pages: a primary brand colour, a neutral, and an accent colour for your CTA.

The CTA button is where colour matters most. It needs to contrast sharply with everything around it. If your page is mostly blue, an orange or green button will pop. If your page is white and grey, a bold coral or deep navy will stand out.

A few guidelines:

• Don’t use your CTA colour anywhere else on the page. Reserve it exclusively for the action you want people to take.
• Use colour sparingly for emphasis. When everything is colourful, nothing feels important.
• Test your palette with colour-blind simulation tools. Roughly 8% of men have some form of colour vision deficiency.

Layout patterns that work

Two layout patterns have been tested to death, and they work:

The Z-pattern. The eye moves from top-left (logo) to top-right (nav or CTA), then diagonally down to the bottom-left, and across to the bottom-right (another CTA). Good for simple pages with minimal content.

The F-pattern. The eye scans across the top, drops down, scans across again (shorter), then skims down the left edge. This is how people read content-heavy pages.

In both cases, the takeaway is the same: place your most important elements where the eye naturally lands.

For landing pages specifically, single-column layouts almost always outperform multi-column ones. One column creates a single reading path. Multiple columns create choices, and choices create friction. Keep it simple.

Mobile-first

More than half of web traffic is mobile. If your landing page doesn’t work on a phone, you’re ignoring the majority of your visitors.

Design for mobile first, then scale up:

• Touch targets. Buttons should be at least 44x44 pixels. Fingers are imprecise.
• Font sizes. Don’t shrink below 16px on mobile. Small text means pinching and zooming, which means leaving.
• Stacking. Side-by-side layouts on desktop should stack vertically on mobile. Don’t make people scroll horizontally.
• Speed. Mobile connections are often slower. Compress images, limit custom fonts, and cut anything that adds weight without adding value.

Test your page on an actual phone, not just a browser resize. The experience is different when you’re holding it in one hand on a bus.

Good design isn’t about making something look impressive. It’s about making one action feel inevitable.