Right now, I'm redesiging my whole site which at the moment is just a blog with a link to the forum and my twitter account. What I want is to have a landing page which from there, users will be able to see the site. I want it to be responsive and also to be fun with vital information. I decided that maybe I will also offer services. What I'm wanting to know is, should I create it in html5 and make it very niche and shiny or just keep it simple. Also what makes a great landing page?
You want a good landing page? Author a page that has content your visitors want to see. If you don't have content attractive to your visitors, there is no reason to have the site. If you do have content, the bells and whistles are only to make it easier for the user to do what s/he came to do in the first place.
One thing is for sure people like attention grabbing pages. Try and put a picture which describes your site better than a thousand words, I remember reading something that said on average a visitor will spend from 2-3 seconds on your site before deciding whether to stay or leave. So I suggest you use as many attention grabbing techniques as you can, without overwhelming them with content. Try looking at WooCommerce they tend to have different landing page themes which are free, and you don't have to put the work in. As to your question, I suggest you use html. Best of luck. Cody.
here are some of the key factors any landing page should have you know a headline can make or break your landing page. your design and content also plays a vital role in making a landing page great.
Whenever I hear the term 'landing page' I cringe... while a home/landing page, the default page people land on is something every site must have, usually when people CALL it a landing page they're trying to take it from something useful, and turn it into some form of crappy "splash page" that's ultimately useless to visitors. You said there's a blog -- that's content, so land them on the blog. Put in a sidebar an explanation of where the *** the user even is and why they should care, and be done with it. Your first and foremost task should always be getting the user to the content in as quick and simple a way as possible. To borrow from the Vulture, "Find the enemy and shoot him down, anything else is rubbish." As to the steaming pile of asshat BS known as HTML 5, what would it gain you apart from bloated markup and pointless allegedly semantic wrappers that NOTHING actually gives a **** about? Though from the way you are talking about 'shiny' it sounds like you're talking about CSS3 and the new scripting stuff, which isn't actually HTML no matter how much the ignorant halfwits in the media, scam artists trying to sell seats at lectures, and authors trying to sell their latest "let's change three pages and still promote 1990's style coding" pamphlets masquerading as books claim they are. (Can you tell I'm a fan?)" Figure out what's going on the page for CONTENT, mark it up semantically using a RECOMMENDATION doctype, enhance it with CSS, apply any desired images with an eye-dropper -- and only add scripting if it actually enhances the page's usability. Anything else is rubbish!
Hahaha I love this. I know exactly what you are talking about! I know what you mean and how you feel about calling it a lnading page and why I say html5. The landing page is so that the users can access other pages and places and also so that they can see what else I offer. The reason why I say html5 is because everyone is thought to think of it that way. what I really mean is using javascript and the new shiny css5 well I've done more concept art on it and if you want to see and comment on what I've done let me know http://www.shemseddine.com/2013/12/01/web-design-shemseddine-com-landing-page/
keep it simple, informative and attractive. good information will always keep your website in demand.
I agree with many of the comments, a simple design that has 'eye appeal' but is easy to read and navigate will engage and ultimate retain your audience. All things shinny and sparkly are not always best! Good luck