10 Principles of Psychology You Can Use to Improve Your Landing Page Templates

The human mind, a complex yet fascinating tool, rules decision making - something like - will a potential customer click on the link to your landing page?

People make decisions based on many variables including internal bias and external pressures.

This is great news!

You can understand how humans react to certain stimulus and use it for getting people on to your landing page. And tailor-make it to provoke a positive response based on proven psychological principles.

1) Put out your 'reason'.

Spare yourself from finding the most persuasive, compelling reason to ever exist. Just give a decent one.

An interesting study found that people act mindlessly and are geared to respond in automated ways.

Say, you want to interrupt the person at a coffee vending machine.

"May I?” is effective 60% of the time.

“May I because I’m in a rush.” allows permitted interruption 95% of the time.

But, for your customer, the reason must answer the question that he/she is always asking: “What’s in it for me?”

We tend to automatically respond to a two-part statement resembling a reasoned statement. Like, “Grab your copy now because this is a real game changer.”

2) 'Trust' & the mutual 'Give and Take'

Links to free content of great quality is the essential ingredient of building trust.

Let the landing page have content that helps solve their problems, and speaks to their biggest challenges. When you help people, they feel compelled to give back – and you’ll soon see your landing page do well.

A Study: 96% of the people on your landing page, do not make a buy, right away.

3) The dopamine release.

Research demonstrates that the human brain is always attracted to new information.

Avoid the boring familiarity, that lacks vitality. Use your customer's sense of motivation and reward to nudge yourself to create the landing page.

Simply change your page layout. Let your landing page be perceived as - latest even if your “new” release is simply a minor improvement on a previous version.  This naturally leads the customer to better incline to the page.

4) Perception of Authority.

An experiment demonstrates our natural inclination to bend at the heels of authority.

We’re all susceptible to the influence of someone we believe to be in charge. Boost your authority by affiliating with credentialed professionals. Being identified as a leader improves your business’s bottom line.

Authority by association - online and offline marketers use this principle as leverage for their business. By associating with experts, you also become a perceived authority in the minds of others.

Include quotes, testimonials, and other resources from experts in your industry on your landing pages.

5) Psychology of Mystery

We, humans, are quite obsessed with the 'unknown'. The innate drive of curiosity to uncover the wizard behind the curtain engages customers and drives them to create a strong relationship with your brand.

Without mystery,  interest fades!

Think on these lines:

How can you capture the imagination for your customers?

What should they find when they start to dig deeper?

How does it contribute to positive associations with the brand?

Stay mysterious!

Include mystery directly in your copy, to drive further interest.  It is a direct response copywriting technique.

The page has to contain enough information to drive conversions, but incorporating an element of mystery, pays off well.

Ex:

“never-before-revealed secrets!”

“highly classified info prevented from releasing”.

Increase your conversion rates with Lander App landing pages templates

6) StoryTelling.

We make decisions based on our emotions.

A book — Descartes Error, argues that emotion is a necessary ingredient to almost all decisions.

The trend of storytelling makes sense because it helps us relate to things.

The quickest way to get your visitors to identify with your offer is through compelling storytelling. Better yet, use visuals. Persuade buyer behavior.

Research shows that we remember visual images much easier and better than words.

Show your visitors how your offer works.

People love stories and so storytelling is a great tool to aid conversion.

Tell a story with concise captivating text and complementary visuals for great UX and to really resonate with your audience, to engage them and evoke emotion.

7) Psychology of Style & Needs

This concept stands the test of time and to this day.

‘Look and Feel’ defines your brand identity.

Have an intentional branded style to whatever represents your company. This applies to your landing page too--capture psychological consistency so your visitors feel like they’re in a familiar place when arriving at your landing page.

This helps your audience identify and they have to think less and less about decision making each time they encounter your brand.

“Do I really need this?” is a question that runs through the head of the customer when considering the cost.

Know your visitors, where they came from and what their needs are.

This is the biggest information you need to have, to understand your buyers as they understand themselves!

8) Utilization of white space

White space and specific color combinations provide visitors with a soothing visual experience.

Choose and isolate certain elements on your landing page, so that you can draw maximum attention towards them. By doing this, you effectively tell visitors what you want them to focus on and persuade them to click CTA button.

When it comes to color, use the Von Restorff Effect.

People tend to remember things that stand out the most to them. Your CTA button has to be in the contrasting color, a color that hasn’t been used anywhere. Follow your brand palette if you are unsure of the colors.

9) The concept of Mental Models

Law of past experience - our previous experiences contribute to our interpretation of current experiences.

This is a little trickier for two reasons:

First, they are highly personal. What may influence one person might have no effect on the other. Second, past experiences hold a weaker influence over our perception.

However, many notions like ‘Everything Happens for a Reason’ is  both universal and powerful.

10) Have you heard about the Fitt’s Law?

That page which loads dramatically slow?

Ugh! Everybody hates such pages.

Don't make it happen to your landing page because it might affect conversion rates.

Fitt’s Law proposes that time required to move your mouse to a target area (like a sign-up button) is a function of:

1. Distance to the target
2. Size of the target.

You can increase the Click Through Rate (CTR) to the desired action by making the target large (i.e., a button rather than text) and placing it near the expected mouse location ( across a multi-page form, buttons should be placed in the same position to minimize mouse movement).

You can decrease undesired actions by using a small target text link at a distance from the starting mouse position near the bottom of a page.

Example:

WordPress follows  Fitt’s Law:

Frequent actions like “Publish” use large buttons while less frequent actions like “Move to Trash” use smaller text links.

Conclusion:

The pages with the right elements blended with psychological principles will persuade visitors to take action. And yay! you can collect more leads