What Is a Splash Page? 10 Awe-Inspiring Examples

These days, there are a myriad of tools available to every company – big or small – to create a beautiful website for their business. A variety of different elements go into building an intuitive and helpful platform to ease your customers’ journey. One such tool that your group may want to consider is a splash page.

If you are unsure what that is, rest easy. We’re here to help.

Other Types of Pages

There are a few different page-type options that you’ll need to familiarize yourself with while building a website.

• A homepage: This is the starting point for your website and will load by default when people happen upon your domain. Essentially, this is known as a starting page.
• A website page: Your collection of pages that users will land on while using your site’s navigation. Typically, these are the most general things often referred to just as pages.
• A landing page: Customers can be brought to a landing page that is a dedicated location for a specific offering or call to action. The mission here is singular and focused.

Depending on the business, the purpose of a splash page can vary to accomplish things like:

• promote a new offer or upcoming event
• show a disclaimer or warning
• select a location (when a company has multiple locations)
• verify age or preferred language
• collect contact information

Elements of a Splash Page

Again, the objective of a splash page is to get your user to perform a quick, specific action before continuing to the rest of your site. You want that customer to know exactly what to do here and how to do it.

With that in mind, some things you may want to consider when building your splash page would be:

• Keep the text short and clear.
• Make it easy to locate the call to action – don’t clutter the page with unnecessary visuals.
• Only one call to action or message.
• Include a link if you are trying to send them elsewhere.

Some splash pages that are asking for user information also allow the option to exit the page without completing the desired action. For example, if you’re using the splash page to offer a coupon code or exclusive offer, but the user isn’t interested – they click an ‘x’ in the corner of the page to bypass this section.

Examples of Splash Pages

Now that we know a little bit more about what splash pages are, let’s take a look at a few companies who are doing it the right way.

Below are 10 awe-inspiring splash pages that you might want to check out for inspiration for your own site.

1. Forbes

Forbes is interesting in the sense that it doesn’t necessarily fit into one of the main purposes we outlined previously. They update their splash page every 24 hours with a different inspirational quote of the day. There is a large ‘Continue to Site’ button in the top right of the screen for users to exit this page and continue to the website when they’re ready.

This is a good example for companies who don’t necessarily has an offer or specific promotion running but want to give their readers a sense of what they’re all about.

2. GreyGoose

Grey Goose uses their splash page to verify the age of their visitors. Since they promote their vodka, they immediately ensure that all customers on their site are 21 years of age or older by asking them to input their birthday.

This is a popular technique used by brewery and winery websites, as well.

If your product or service is something that is only available to people in a certain age bracket or something similar, this would be a good qualifier to try.

3. JCrew

Like many clothing companies, J. Crew hits the visitors of their website with an offer to input some contact information (typically an email address) in order to receive a discount or promotional offer. It seems like everyone should want to save money, however, it’s still important here to remember to have an easy opt-out for those who aren’t interested.

If you have a promotion running with a coupon code, consider asking for a piece of user information – like a phone number of email address – to gate this content and collect details about the buyer.

4. Spooky Nook sSports

The largest indoor sports complex in North America is soon opening another venue in a different state. In order to make sure visitors are only seeing information that applies to them, they ask right away which location they want to learn more about. This then splits them off onto one of two sites, filtered only by that specific state’s information.

If you have multiple physical locations that are offering different events or programming, this type of splash page would be a good way to filter your users throughout their site navigation.

5. Football.com

This website is a slightly humorous way of recognizing the international differences for the word ‘football’. When you land on their splash page, you’re asked to clarify if you mean American football or world football (soccer).

Alternatives of this strategy for your business could be a language clarifying question, or even two separate segments of your business – similar to our previous example.

6. Harvard Business Review

Harvard Business Review, along with many our journalism-type sites, use the splash pages to push advertiser messaging.

Most news publications get their money from sponsorship dollars from people who want to market to their audience, so having them on the splash page allows additional promotional opportunity.

If you’re a company who relies on sponsorship dollars to hit your budget, this is just one more incentive that those companies could opt into for an additional cost.

7. Conversion Gods

When you land on their site, you’ll see an offer to download a piece of their content. Their whole mission is to write content for other businesses, so they want to prove that to you immediately by showing you what they can do.

If you’re a company that offers different downloadable content or eBook, etc. – consider pushing that offering on a splash page to ensure it won’t be missed.

8. Their Circular Life

When you get past the splash page of this site, you’re going to need a flash player on your computer, as well as your volume turned up. To ensure you’re properly prepared with both of these pieces of information, they’re addressing them with users right away. This will help provide the best user experience to your visitors as they navigate your website.

If your website is a true immersive experience with music and interactivity, this might be a good page to try implementing to set your customers up for success moving forward.

9. Zara Home

Being an international brand, Zara knew that they needed to create multiple language options on their website. When you land on their splash page, there is almost no text, eye-catching visuals, and a language picker. It is clear and obvious to users – regardless of where they are coming from – what they are supposed to do next.

If your company is reaching people across multiple countries and languages, consider installing a picker like this one a splash page of your very own.

10. Urban Influence

This marketing agency knows that there is a lot of competition is their area of business. To make sure you know what separates them, they use their splash page to show you who they are.

They immediately want to push you to see examples of their work to showcase their experience and expertise. The big draw for this type of splash page for them is that their line of work comes with eye-catching visuals, including video.

If you are a creative brand that would have a similar portfolio-type section of your site that shows examples to users, consider using a splash page to push them that way immediately.

Anything Else?

As we’ve seen, splash pages can be a great way for your website viewers to engage with and understand your business. However, it is important to continue monitoring your site’s analytics. If the splash page is not performing to your expectations, consider finding ways to make the objective more valuable to the end user.