Why are so many landing pages so very ugly?

[tanja23]

Hey,

Most of the landing pages that I’ve seen and many of the themes from known providers are ugly as sin. They tend to look kind of scammy, like the known red color, many pull quotes and similar.

But time and again, marketing firms use these examples and I’m just wondering if there’s some psych to it? Or is it just that there are better looking samples around that work as well, but the shitty ones still work like they used to for years, so marketers continue copying them?

 

[Rob Whisonant]

It's because they work. Fancy and pretty pages distract people from why they are on the page. Simple short straight to the point landing pages work a lot better.

 

[douglasltc]

Agreed....may look "ugly" but as long as the conversion is good, these landing pages will still be there. Yes, you can learn about the psychology of colours, fonts, etc etc....but to me, the important things are the messages on the landing page. Focus on these 4 elements...HSBC...Headlines / Subheadlines / Benefits / Call To Action. You can do split test on various landing pages that you create and use the "best" one. Don't be surprised that the best one could be the "ugly" one!!!

Hope this helps.

 

[Daniel Cortes]

I think that people are conditioned to buy from plain and ugly sites because sales pages have looked like that for decades.

But a simple plain sale page with red headlines and calls to action everywhere also sends the message that the content they are reading is the only thing important, so they pay more attention.

And like the guys previously said, fancy stuff and sidebars distract visitors from getting sold on the offer.

 

[Rob Whisonant]

I'm updating what I found. If you read my previous post, I stated that plain ugly landing pages just work. I am now finding that they don't work as well as they use to except in the MMO niche.

I'm finding a very well designed professional page that looks "trustworthy" is now working better for me. It's also now important to make a landing page extremely mobile friendly.

 

[Aby]

Ugliness lies in the eyes of the beholder.

 

[YOUSEFAMASHA]

Ugliness lies in the eyes of the beholder.