Landing Page Optimization for Mature Audiences

20 tips for creating a senior-friendly landing page

The number of users over 65 is continuing to rise. In addition to social networking and emailing, a good percentage of them are spending time with age-appropriate pursuits such as leisure travel, personal health care and financial concerns.

If the over 60 crowd is your target audience, here are the top 20 “Tips From The National Institute On Aging And The National Library Of Medicine” to make your landing pages senior-friendly.

Landing Page Optimization Tips: Writing Style

• Style: use positive phrasing and present information in a clear manner without need for inferences

• Simplicity: use simple language, avoid jargon and slang; provide a glossary for technical terms

Landing Page Optimization Tips: Navigation

• Consistent Layout: use standard page design and navigation that is the same place on each page; use the same symbols and icons throughout the site

• Scrolling: avoid automatically scrolling text and provide a scrolling icon

• Mouse: use single clicks to access information, don’t penalize for double clicking

• Menus: use pull down and cascading menus sparingly

• Hyperlinks: be descriptive, use action words when appropriate; visited links should change color

• Search: include a search box in the same place on every page, usually upper right or upper left side

• Navigation: use explicit step-by-step navigation procedures; simple and straightforward; carefully label links

• Icons & Buttons: use large buttons; incorporate text with an icon when possible

• Back/Forward Navigation: use buttons such as “previous” and “next” for reviewing text

• Help: Provide a phone number and/or email address for questions or comments

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Landing Page Optimization Tips: Text

• Type Weight & Size: use medium or bold face type and use different colors to make headings stand out; avoid italics; only use underlining for clickable links; use 12 or 14 point for body text; allow users to adjust the text size

Example: Select text size   AAA

• Lettering: use upper and lower case for body text and reserve all capitals for headlines

• Typeface: use san serif typeface that is not condensed

• Color: avoid using yellow, blue and green in proximity; avoid colors that clash

• Backgrounds: use high-contrast combinations like light text on dark backgrounds or visa versa; avoid patterns

Landing Page Optimization Tips: Other Media

• Text Alternatives: provide text alternatives for all other media types; provide a speech function

• Illustrations & Photos: only use images relevant to the information

• Animation, Video & Audio: use short segments to reduce download time

Finally, be sure to get feedback through focus groups, usability testing or other means, to evaluate the accessibility and friendliness of your landing pages. When applied to your sales letter landing page, rapid conversion landing page, or any page on your website, you will see an increase in landing page conversion rates.

Download the entire updated tip sheet from the National Institute on Aging: www.nia.nih.gov/NR/…8363…/Sr_Web_tips_forweb_final_032509.pdf