Color, Copy, CTA: The Science Behind High-Converting Landing Pages

Leaving a positive impression on web visitors — particularly those interacting with your brand for the first time — is exceptionally important for business growth.

But let’s face it, converting leads into customers requires more than just offering high-quality, effective solutions. You also need to utilize your website to its full potential. 

One of the most efficient methods to do this, especially when funneling traffic from social media or paid ads, is to invest in landing page optimization.

Are you interested in learning more about the science behind high-converting landing pages? This guide studies how color, copy, and CTA buttons impact conversion rates. Moreover, it provides actionable tips you can implement to help your website convert better. Let’s get into it.

What Constitutes a Good Landing Page Conversion Rate?

Before we dive into specific web design and copywriting strategies for elevating conversion rates, it’s important to first understand what a good landing page CR is in the first place.

Most advice suggests that a conversion rate anywhere between 2% and 5% is good enough. But is it really?

According to research, most businesses achieve higher CRs. For instance, the latest Conversion Benchmark Report from Unbounce found that median conversion rates range from 3.8% to 12.3% across industries.

So, if you’re looking to drive business growth, you have to aim much higher than 2%. Fortunately, this is not an impossible feat. But it does require a strategic approach that focuses on removing conversion obstacles harming your business results.

Main Causes of Poor Conversion Rates

When faced with low conversion rates, many business owners go into panic mode, thinking that there’s something wrong with their sales strategies. However, while this can be the case, it usually isn’t.

Instead, the reason why such a small percentage of all web visitors actually turn into customers has to do with the natural progression of the buyer’s journey.

You see, most people don’t buy solutions as soon as they become aware of them. Instead, they enter and move through a lengthy sales cycle that involves several stages during which consumers evaluate, re-evaluate, and choose what products to spend their hard-earned money on.

In fact, research suggests that it takes an average of 8 touchpoints to convert a new lead into a customer.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t specific conversion obstacles harming your landing pages’ conversion rates.

For instance, a lack of brand trust is an immediate conversion killer. Why? Because 88% of consumers need to consider a brand trustworthy to even consider buying.

Similarly, if your website copy doesn’t align with what your target audience seeks, your chances of converting new clients immediately go down. Why? Because 73% of people expect brands to understand (and care about) their unique needs.

Finally, it’s also worth noting that your site’s UX design might be preventing you from turning visitors into clients. After all, most people have very little patience for clunky sites that don’t meet their needs. And most sources state that 8 out of 10 people won’t return to a website following a poor experience, showing just how essential it is to leave a positive impression during your prospects’ first website visit.

How to Build High-Converting Landing Pages

The great news about optimizing landing pages for higher conversion rates is that it’s not too complicated a task. In fact, if you know what strategies work — and what your audience wants and expects from your business — you can easily improve your site’s design, copy, and conversion mechanisms to work in your favor.

For the absolute best results, that is, for a stellar ROI, your optimization journey for high-converting landing pages needs to start with three main elements:

• Aesthetic design, that is, color choices.
• User-centric and benefit-oriented copywriting. And;
• Compelling, low-risk calls to action.

The Role of Color Choice in Landing Page Conversion Rates

One of the most important things to know about boosting conversions is that your site’s aesthetic design has a direct role in determining your ability to convert new customers. But why is this the case?

First and foremost, web visitors judge a brand’s credibility and expertise based on web design. In fact, most consumers form impressions about brands within milliseconds of landing on a page. Furthermore, scientific research suggests that 94% of these impressions are design-based.

With this in mind, investing in your site’s appearance pays off. But if you want to get the biggest bang for your buck, why not focus specifically on color?

Using color in web design gives you the opportunity to optimize for higher conversion rates in several ways.

On the one hand, color plays a significant role in emphasizing high-value elements on webpages.

For instance, the primary conversion CTA on Performance Lab, a popular supplement brand, has an eye-catching yellow color, which perfectly contrasts with the blue background. The vivid hue also guarantees that visitors notice the button, actively improving their chances of clicking it (and converting into customers).

Source: performancelab.com

On the other hand, you don’t necessarily have to use color solely to drive conversions. It can be just as effective at establishing your brand’s identity and communicating core business values.

For example, Cariuma uses plenty of green throughout its online presence. The color choice perfectly aligns with Cariuma’s identity as an eco-friendly brand. Plus, it effectively highlights its focus on creating sustainable footwear that combines comfort with eco-activism.

Source: cariuma.com

Using Copy to Build High-Converting Landing Pages

We’ve already mentioned that consumers take their time deciding what products to spend their hard-earned money on — especially in today’s world of almost endless choice.

But how can you optimize your website to drive sales? Well, you could try to focus your optimization activity on your website copy.

Ultimately, consumers expect brands to provide them with great solutions. Buyers want value for money and exceptional quality in 2025, and on top of that, they want brands to provide solutions that are hyper-relevant to their experience.

In fact, research suggests that personalization is key to winning over customers, with 81% of people choosing to actively ignore marketing messages that are not relevant to their personal experience.

With this in mind, explore opportunities to utilize your website copy to inspire prospects to move through the buyer’s journey.

Start by communicating the unique value your solutions provide. Focusing on user-centricity and benefits is the best way to do this.

For example, you can take inspiration from the CodaPet Veterinarian Network page. On the page they have a prominent tagline that invites prospects to “Fall back in love with being a veterinarian,” promising advantages like flexibility, income growth, and purpose to prospects who sign up to become partners.

Source: codapet.com

Another way that landing page copy elevates conversion rates is by creating clarity around your offer. 

If you think about it, consumers want brands to provide them with value. So, by using copy (and visuals) to ensure web visitors comprehend your offer — how your solutions work, what different product options include, and how your business ensures customer satisfaction — you can remove common conversion obstacles and convince your target audience that your offer is the right choice for them.

For instance, look at how Vidpros, a well-known video editing service, achieves this with the copy on its homepage, where it uses simple language to describe what a subscription includes, knowing that this is key information potential customers are sure to consider before signing up.

Source: vidpros.com

The Role of Calls to Action in Moving Prospects Through the Sales Funnel

Finally, no landing page is complete without a clear CTA. Not because you need to bombard your web visitors with sales messages to get them to convert. Instead, a lack of a clear next step within your prospects’ buying journey is likely to confuse them and diminish their purchase intent.

So, when looking to elevate conversion rates on your website, use CTAs to inspire your prospects to move closer to solving their pain points.

For example, if you check out DialMyCalls, you’ll see that the brand presents web visitors with two options once they land on its Mass Notification System page. They get to choose whether they want to try the solution for free (with a handy trust-building micro copy element stating that a free trial does not require a credit card). Alternatively, they can request additional information, in case they’re still on the fence about whether the solution matches their needs. What’s important is that DialMyCalls optimizes its landing page for lead-generation, using CTAs to capture new leads instead of allowing them to leave the website without using the opportunity to turn them into customers.

Source: dialmycalls.com

Of course, this tactic doesn’t have to look like this. In fact, if you know you’re targeting a risk-averse audience (or just looking for more ways to elevate your prospects’ purchase intent), you can also use CTAs tailored to engage customers in the topmost stages of the sales funnel.

The “Get tailored skincare guidance” CTA on the Paula’s Choice website is a great example of what this tactic looks like in practice, as it addresses consumers’ risk aversion and presents them with a low-commitment opportunity to learn more about resolving their pain points.

Source: paulaschoice.com

Final Thoughts

High-converting landing pages are invaluable assets within your business growth strategy. These digital resources help you attract your ideal customers, but even more importantly, they can allow you to engage prospects and encourage them to move toward the bottom stages of the sales funnel.

Of course, impressive conversion rates need plenty of optimization (or luck, if you have it). Fortunately, by focusing on the basics of aesthetic design, copy, and CTA-optimization, you can effectively elevate your website’s sales (or lead-generation) potential and reach your business goals faster.

Lukas is part of the content writing team at GraphicSprings, bringing his marketing expertise to the forefront. With a degree in Marketing, he crafts informative articles on social media, branding, and logo design.