Why landing page structure matters more than it looks

It comes up on almost every project, usually later than it should. Landing page structure is easy to treat as a detail, and that is exactly why it is worth a few minutes of attention.

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

What is actually at stake

Lead with the outcome, not the company history. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

One primary action per page beats five competing links. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

What to watch for

Proof belongs near the ask, not buried at the bottom. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

The short version

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Three things worth confirming about landing page structure before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• One primary action per page beats five competing links — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.