When you’re seeking to engage your community online, you need to connect with them and build their trust. That’s why having a well-designed, on-brand engagement page is important. With the right design elements in place, it can become an informative and compelling space for your community to engage with your suite of online tools.
A landing page provides its visitors with a clear, direct call to action and makes it easy for them to act. They are designed to focus on a specific short-term goal and appeal to targeted audiences. That makes them invaluable tools for driving community engagement.
Social Pinpoint allows you to plan, design, and launch as many landing pages as you need to reach your community. With an intuitive drag and drop interface, you can easily build beautiful stand-alone community engagement pages without any coding experience. You also get full creative control of content and can seamlessly incorporate your organization’s brand identity.
However, even if you have a helpful page builder tool you still need to understand some essential design principles to make the most of your page and encourage your community to engage.
Be Direct
People tend to scan content when they read web pages. So make sure that a clear headline describing the purpose of the page is visible as soon as people reach your landing page. If you don’t engage visitors within the first few seconds, you’re likely to lose them. So, make sure that the first headline and any descriptive copy make the purpose and importance of the page immediately clear.
Continue to use informative, impactful, and eye-catching subheadings throughout your page to entice people to keep reading and discovering more information about your project.
Use simple, persuasive language and include clear call-to-actions (CTAs) so that your community knows what they should do next and how to engage.
Maintain Visual Simplicity
It’s important to maintain a lot of whitespace on your page so that CTAs and key information stand out. Simplicity makes your page user-friendly and you can also create flow with different design elements so your visitors are inclined to keep scrolling and take action.
Bring Your Page to Life with Images & Video
Images and videos can help to showcase what your project is about. They tell a story quickly and create a personal connection with your community. Localized imagery and pictures of friendly people who are representative of your community will be relatable and help to build trust. Videos can also help to communicate a lot of information without overwhelming your page with text.
Make Intentional Color Choices
Color has a big influence on the way we feel and act, so you should use considered color palettes for your landing page. High and low colors will help to create contrast and improved readability, while also encouraging your community to click on your call action. Keep in mind that different cultures interpret colors differently, so consider color symbolism that will be relevant to diverse members of your community.
Inclusively Design for all Devices
Not everyone has access to every type of digital device, so you need to ensure that people can access your community engagement landing page with what they have. Ensure that your page is responsive and friendly across different types of computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Responsive landing pages will provide the same level of user experience across different screen layouts, meaning that your community has an equal opportunity to participate regardless of their device.
You should also keep WCAG’s accessibility guidelines in mind when designing your page. For example, selecting the right combination of font sizes, font types, and color contrast can make a big difference in readability for people living with low vision or vision impairment. The full set of guidelines provides comprehensive recommendations about inclusive design and Social Pinpoint’s page builder tool is already WCAG compliant and responsive.
Create a Strong Call To Action
You need to make sure your CTA is compelling and clear. Put it at the top of your landing page and make it easy for your community to click to engage. After they have discovered your community initiative, you can direct them towards an interactive map, ideas generator, survey, forum, or participatory budget to allow them to share their input with you.
Use imagery, visual cues, and strong bright colors to point each visitor’s eyes towards the call to action and use natural, actionable phrases within each button.
Share your Page
Once you have designed and published your page, it’s time to start promoting it to your community. You can share your customizable landing page URL anywhere you like, but think strategically about the purpose of the page and then determine which of your other communication channels will help you reach your community.
