While working with my team to create landing pages I found that it was easy to lose site of why these pages exist and make them too complicated and unfocused. The remedy was to teach my team why we were making them as well as best practices for landing page development.

1. Landing Pages 101
Lori Appleman
www.LoriAppleman.com

2. Purpose
First introduction to our product
Get them to take an action -
Buy, try, sign up (email), learn more
If the customer doesn’t take an action, page failed
Always Be
Testing
A/B test your
landing pages to
optimize
conversions

3. Seven Deadly Sins
1. Unclear call to action
2. Too many choices
3. Visual distractions
4. Not keeping your promises
5. Too much text
6. Asking for too much information
7. Lack of trust and credibility

4. Key attributes of a Landing Page
1. Headline
1. Sub-headline if warranted
2. Image
3. Call to Action (CTA)
4. Benefits
5. Credibility
6. Social Proof

5. Optional
Add only if page isn’t converting
 Risk reversal
 Guarantee
 Frequently Asked Questions

6. Visual Hierarchy
What is your audience seeing?
 List what your audience is seeing
 Assign a value according to their importance to the viewer
 Does the expected importance match up with the design importance?

7. Headline
 Grab their attention in a single (short) line
 Formulas:
 End Result/Customer Wants + Specific Time Period+ Objections
 Pain/Pleasure – people are drawn to pleasure and away from pain
 Use emotions:
 Curiosity, fear, pain, convenience, laziness, greed, pride, assurance(guarantee),
anger
 Stats are useful
 Weight of claim – larger impact should come first
 Example: “Earn cash for taking online surveys” is more powerful than
 “Take surveys online and earn cash”

8. Call to Action
 Must be the strongest message on the page
 Why are they hear? What do we want them to do?
 VERY visible – should stick out on the page
 Tell them what they are doing (not click here)
 Short, sweet, interesting and CLEAR
Choose Your Color

9. Image
 Relevant to the specific message on the page
 Enhance the CTA, not distract
 Can be a video or still. Graphic or photo.

10. Benefits
 Reinforce the headline
 Benefits are not features –
 Features are what it has
 Benefits are what the features mean to the user
 Food for thought –
 Features, advantages, motives (satisfied) and benefits to those motives
 What does this mean to you?
 Does this fill whatever need they may have?
 Should feed the call to action (why press that button?)

11. Credibility
 This is not the same as testimonials
 Best would be reputable resources recommending us – press, celebrity
testimonials, reviews
 Quotes or facts from established sources that may not be using your specific
product but products in your market that your audience will recognize or
quotes loosely related to your product.
 Last resort – a super-general quote from a famous person that relates to the
industry.
 Trustmarks

12. Social Proof
 Testimonials
 Reverse testimonial
 Opens with initial doubt or fear, then dispels it in the next sentence
 Dane Maxwell approach
 Specific end result or benefit received by customer + specific time period +
accompanied feeling + person’s name and stats
 Title the person giving the testimonial
 Stick to 2 or 3 max, short and sweet
 Can use social widgets here as well