Hero sections are perhaps the most crucial part of any website – they’re the first thing any user sees, and, for most websites, they’re also the last.
If your website isn’t using one of these popular, high-converting hero section designs, you could be leaving money on the table and missing out on sales, leads, and conversions.
In this article, we’ll show you some examples of popular website hero section designs, why these hero sections work, and how you can optimise your own website landing pages to maximise conversions and generate more leads and sales for your business, blog, e-commerce website, or service website.
What is a Hero Section and Why is a Hero Section so Important?
In the website design and landing page world, a ‘hero section’ refers to the first thing any user sees on your website. This is also commonly called a ‘landing page’ or the content ‘above the fold’.
Hero sections are a vital part of any website because if your hero section is underwhelming, unengaging, or irrelevant to the user’s needs, the user will leave the website.
With this in mind, hero section design and landing page optimisation should be key priorities when designing a website for your business.
Whether selling courses, offering a service, or promoting a blog, a high-converting landing page and hero section design can dramatically increase your income and help propel your business to success.
Now that you know how essential hero sections are to the profitability and success of your website, let’s look at some examples of high-converting landing pages and hero section designs that you could use for your own website.
Examples of Hero Section Website Designs and Landing Page Designs
Avoid Cluttered Hero Sections; Focus The Viewer’s Attention
Many e-commerce businesses want to display their products directly on their home page. The thought process is, “Well, customers will eventually see something they like and buy it!”
The reality is that most customers don’t waste time scrolling through hundreds of products, desperately searching for one they might be interested in buying.
Most customers search Google for something they want to purchase and arrive on a website, and if the advertised product or service isn’t what they wanted, they’ll leave the website immediately.
With this fact in mind, e-commerce website owners should consider what their landing page and hero section look like.
Is it converting well?
Is it relevant to what customers are looking for?
Is it concise, clear, and easy to navigate?
If not, your website could generate far more revenue for you and your business.
When designing your next landing page or editing your website’s home page, consider what exactly you want the user to do.
Once you’ve figured out the essential action you want the user to take (whether contacting you, buying a product, or booking a course), remove any unnecessary distractions and draw the user’s attention to your call to action.
This tip should help dramatically improve your website’s conversion rate and help you attract more traffic, generate more sales, and get more leads.
Use Bright and Bold Call-To-Action Buttons
Call-to-action buttons can make or break your website. Users may not notice them or be encouraged to click on them if they aren’t bold, bright, and attention-grabbing.
This can be disastrous for companies that rely on call-to-action buttons to sell courses or generate leads.
Luckily, we have a few critical tips for optimising your call-to-action button to make it stand out on your landing page or hero section.
Take Apple’s landing page about AirPods as an example. Their hero sections are all about minimalism, focusing on the product while showing a bright and vivid call-to-action button that immediately grabs your attention.
When you’re optimising your next landing page or designing your next hero section, take the time to choose a button colour that stands out from the rest of your page.
Bright colours like blues, oranges, and greens tend to work best, with Joshua Porter of HubSpot discovering that a red button outperformed a green button in HubSpot’s A/B hero section test.
However, the results of this test are not universal. In our opinion, the red button stands out more than the green button as it is the only instance of that colour on the page.
Their logo is green, there is a green icon below the green button, and the red button stands out more to the user.
This may be different for your website.
Although web designers should choose a colour that looks smooth and appealing, at the end of the day, a higher conversion rate means more revenue, sales, and business.
Consider changing the colour of your call-to-action buttons on your home page, landing page, or hero section.
In any case, it’s worth conducting an A/B test to gather hard data and evidence regarding which colour works best for your website’s call-to-action buttons.
‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’ – KISS Method for Hero Section Designs
It can be challenging to keep designs simple – there’s always so much to show off, and a stunning website must convert more than a basic, minimalist one… right?
Well, the reality may shock you.
It’s no coincidence that Apple, one of the largest companies in the world, focuses on minimalist and clean designs that emphasise three things:
- The offer
- The product
- The call-to-action
Apple’s iPhone hero section on its website is a perfect example of this formula. Their landing page is clean, focuses on a single product and offer, and follows the ‘KISS’ formula to keep it simple.
Of course, most companies don’t have the brand recognition and social trust that Apple has.
With that in mind, most companies’ landing pages or hero section designs need to convince the reader with key bullet points, showcase their product or services, and encourage users to click the relevant call-to-action button.
At Intuition Media, our landing pages follow this formula. Let’s quickly touch on how to design a hero section or how to create a landing page.
You can see from the image above that we’ve designed our hero section to be clear, concise, and relevant to the user.
Our Bath-focused website design landing page highlights some crucial advantages of our website design service, showcases several different websites, and contains two bright, bold call-to-action buttons.
We recommend following this formula for your website landing page or hero section design.
If your business provides multiple services, consider creating individual landing pages for each one with a relevant hero section design.
Alternatively, you can work with an established website design agency that will design, host, and optimise your landing pages and hero sections for you.
How Important Is a Good Hero Section and How Important Is It to A/B Test Your Landing Pages?
We’ve looked at several examples of good hero sections, but how important is an impressive and high-converting hero section?
A 10% increase in conversions could mean the difference between growth and stagnation for small companies.
That 10% increase could result in millions of pounds of revenue for larger companies.
Examples of High-Profile A/B Landing Page Tests By Large Companies
In an A/B test, Netflix tried a variety of different landing page designs, including hero sections with two buttons, different button text, different colours, and slight changes to layout and design.
GoodUI, a brilliant source of A/B test examples, found that Netflix stuck with their original design, landing page ‘A’, in their case.
This test by Netflix shows that, while conducting A/B tests to optimise your landing page’s conversion rate is important, not all tests will result in immediate improvements.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
It just means that, when conducting an A/B test, always treat the result with the respect that it deserves. Don’t grow attached to any particular design – always choose the design that generates more sales over a design that looks slightly more appealing.
However, following the tips in this article will get you off to a good start, and our other website design and branding articles are great follow-up reads for entrepreneurs who want to learn how to design graphics and create custom landing pages with interesting elements such as animations, videos, and short clips.
Design a landing page that looks interesting and unique, make small changes over time and conduct regular A/B tests, and you’ll be well on your way to a high-converting hero section or landing page that attracts visitors and turns them into loyal, long-term customers!
Intuition Media – Website Design, Landing Page Optimisation, and Hero Sections
More conversions are always a good thing! That’s why working with a website design agency that knows how to create high-performing, high-converting hero sections and landing pages is so important.
At Intuition Media, we’ve helped dozens of companies, businesses, and entrepreneurs. From brand-new websites to individual, high-converting landing pages, our team can take your business, blog, or course website to the next level.
Contact our team of website designers today to learn more about our hero section design service, landing page design service, or website design solutions.