Background

When using email outbound or advertising inbound to generate interest from potential customers, you need a place to send them from that email or advertisement. That place is usually a landing page.

A good landing page serves as a bridge to get the prospect to the next step. It also helps people who aren’t a good fit for your product realize that early on and choose to look elsewhere.

In order to get prospects to continue, your landing page has to answer a few critical questions for them and then induce them to move on to the next step. 

That next step could be downloading a book, scheduling a meeting, reading a piece of long-form content, or (in simple transactions) shopping and purchasing your product.

Below, you will find all the best practices that we've discovered over the years. take a look at these, and if you want to talk about them or get some more guidance, please feel free to reach out to us here.

General: Follow These Guidelines at all Times

• Don’t confuse your reader. Keep it simple. E.g., don’t use 8 fonts and 4 colors

• Don’t make them think. Everything on the page should make sense immediately

• Don’t use complicated imagery and backgrounds

• Use video if you can

• NO ESCAPE ROUTES: No links to the homepage, no “share to social” links, no way off the page except through your Calls to Action

Headline

• Must be scannable and catered to the ICP. You have 2 seconds to convince them to continue reading 

• Don’t talk about yourself or be clever

• Make sure the headline conveys the true benefit

• Make it clear what the visitor will gain by acting

Subheader

• Address at least one urgent need or benefit in the subheader. Don’t make them search for why this is important. If you have many benefits, then A/B/C test them as the subheader

• The subheader adds specificity to the offer by describing benefits: How big of a solution this is? How can your solution shorten their processes? How secure can they become? How sure can they be that they’ll get it right?, etc.

Content, Copy, and Bullets Must Answer the Prospect's Questions Quickly:

• Is it urgent enough? Does it convey that you can fix the problem fast?

• Does it promise secret knowledge, expert help, proven results?

• Is this a fit for them? Tailor the language to be relevant to the ICP. Refer to the ICP to ensure you’re answering the questions they will need to ask before making a purchase. If you don’t know the buyer questions, go back to the ICP and write them down

• Does it speak to them? Use “you” and “your” 

• Will it solve their urgent need? Why is this person interested in this thing right now?

• Benefits: Is it easy? Cheap? Fast? Powerful? New? 

• Address major questions and objections 

• You must trigger emotion and connect with pain. People don’t buy products–they buy solutions to their problems

• Give them something right away. Is there something for free?

• Three quick images that simply explain the service, people, or benefit

Calls to Action

• You can use multiple CTAs working together to get the prospect to convert.  E.g. a click-to-call button in the upper-right corner plus a “Learn the Secrets” button for a download.

• Instead of “Submit” or “Download” use something aligned with the content and offer; e.g., “Show Me the Trends”, “Teach Me the Thing”, “Send Me the Book”, “Improve my Ranking”

• Use “me” and “my” in the CTA

• Make your CTA obvious and easy to use. Use colors that stand out from the rest of the page. Don’t ask for 10 (or even 5) fields. 1 is best (email), 2 is ok (email and name). The more you ask for, the fewer conversions you’ll get.

Credibility Builders at the Bottom

• “Over 25 years of experience: building data centers, fighting bad guys”, etc.

• “Protecting 230 million people” 

• “We’ve helped XYZ, and we can help you”

• These are some of the [networks, buildings, companies] we’ve built

• A bio and photo get the reader acquainted, build trust, humanize, and showcase the expertise of your team

• Use social proof to persuade the visitor that your product is valuable because it’s: widely used, time tested, beating the competition, enabling thousands, etc. 

• Company badges align the brand with some powerful businesses

Video:

• Use video if you can

• It doesn’t need to be Hollywood quality, but invest in professional narration and editing at minimum.