Landing page design system

A guide to designing your landing pages for consistency, scalability, and collaboration

Landing page design system elements including color codes, photos, buttons, layouts, and code snippets.

A landing page is a standalone web page that potential customers go to when they click through from an email, ad, or other campaign. Landing pages serve a specific purpose in a specific moment of a campaign to a target audience. Here are some cases where you would want to take the landing page approach:

  • Audience segments - if you can divide your audience into different groups, consider creating separate pages for each one to enhance the experience for each group
  • Products or services - if you offer a number of different products or services, you can create separate pages for each one (or category, if that makes more sense) to highlight the unique benefits of each individual thing you offer
  • For search engine optimization - having lots of pages helps SEO, with more of your pages for search engines to index for increased chances of visitors making their way to your site
  • To target long-tail keywords - highly specific keywords or key phrases that tend to be four or more words, making it easier to rank than keywords with fewer words which are more competitive

How a design system helps

  • Maintains consistency with on-brand visuals and messaging
  • Team can understand decisions made while having to make less of them as they refer to a single source of truth
  • Improves workflow by reusing components and following best practices
  • Fixes design and code debt with a reusable framework for increased efficiency and speed

This guide is broken down into three aspects: design, content, and how to effectively share your design system within your organization.

Design using components

A landing page should have a clear visual hierarchy and value proposition. Once a user is on your landing page, they are encouraged to take an action. It should only contain the amount and type of content that’s needed to prompt users to take the desired action.

Breaking components down

Use this hierarchy and introduce it to your team as you design and build your templates.

  • Sections in an email template Sections
    Stackable full-width horizontal containers between the header and footer, used to create an overall layout
  • Components in an email template Components
    Standalone elements like buttons and titles; should work by themselves in a range of contexts
  • Layouts in an email template Regions
    Groups of content and components; arranged a specific way, usually as columns
  • Content pieces in an email template Content
    Text pieces and images

Don't make it too rigid

A design system shouldn’t feel like something that stifles creativity. Don't make it too rigid, a certain level of hand-crafting is important. It should allow for greater creativity within a set of guidelines. The long-term benefit is that a designer can take greater care and give better thought to solving each solution instead of rushing to put together something that comes along.

Example landing page

The elements of a good landing page, using components in a design system.

Web page template example
Web page template mobile example

Creating a component

A good component is

  • Purposeful - all components solve a specific problem
  • Reusable - components work for multiple use cases
  • Flexible - they work in many different contexts

Improving your dev workflow

Focus on content

The most important part of any campaign is the message it's communicating, the text itself. Your design system should include some guidelines around how content is produced.

What to keep in mind

Rules and guidelines

Brand

Refer to your organization's current brand guidelines: a styleguide, logo requirements, etc. Any related design documentation that may be available.

Brand elements to include:

Copy

Use these general tips to develop the rules around your writing approach:

  • Consider the type of message you're sending and whether to add more personality to it, or to get straight to the point
  • Use a conversational tone as that is usually what's expected from your brand
  • Write in your own voice at first and tune to your brand in the revision
  • Be creative in the mechanical elements (headlines, call-to-action buttons, etc)
  • Read out loud for flow and catching errors

Guidelines

Static components answer the how. Guidelines educate on constraints: workflows, habits, and best practices.

What to have in your notes:

  • Purpose of each component and the user experience thinking
  • ✅ Do's, ❌ dont's, ℹ️ info worth noting, and any content limitations
  • Keep it simple and flexible (especially at the beginning) by not making too many rules
  • Use visual examples and screenshots where needed

Best practices

Sharing with your team

Your design system is only as strong as your relationships with the teams who use it. You need to develop trust and allow for it to evolve by encouraging participation in its development.

Include people in the process

Provide good examples

Show examples of how to be creative with structure. Encourage “off-roading” to evolve system. Consider examples from other organizations to help show ways to utilize a system without feeling boxed into a boring design.

Documentation setup

Documentation as a web page is the best way to go when developing your design system:

  • Format that anyone can access - everyone can always go to the same URL
  • Centralized - updates are dynamic without creating too many versions that need to be passed around
  • Easy to maintain - designers, developers, and organizers can make updates

Your design components tool

This guide has been put together by the Blocks Edit team. Having a design system of reusable components for your organization to use, Blocks Edit makes your components visually editable. So anyone on your team can build emails and landing pages on their own while ensuring they are following brand guidelines throughout the process.

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