Landing pages are the individual pages of a site dedicated to calling consumers to action or prompting specific emotional responses. Landing page copy is the words that get the visitor to take the intended action.
These small and seemingly simple pages are an amazing and magical tool that can quickly turn pageviews into real sales when used the right way. They present the site in a way that ensures that the first thing a visitor sees is exactly what the designer intends.
It’s likely that, if you’re on a landing page, you got there as a link from somewhere else (an email, an ad, a blog post, or a tweet, for example) as a gateway into the rest of the site’s content.
If you’re a site owner, landing pages are a necessary tool that shouldn’t be ignored. They’re a call to action, a promise, and a way to get the gears of interest turning in your potential client’s mind.
Landing Page Copy – The Promise, The Pledge, and the Commitment
Landing pages boil down the message of a site for the consumer in a way that’s direct and plays to the consumer’s desires and needs. This boiled-down messaging is much like a headline to a news story. It’s a short and direct statement that summarizes a key benefit while still engaging the potential customer’s curiosity. Strong landing page copy is what will eventually lead visitors to want to learn more about your business.
The successful landing page copy will make a promise or a commitment to a customer.
- “Would you like to drive more revenue from your online marketing efforts?” This is a simple question put to the consumer in a way that makes him or her self-reflective on the goal of visiting this site.
- “Overcome your site’s limitations with a few simple edits anyone can make.” This example challenges the visitor not only to be self-reflective, but to realize that there may be an unmet need that can be fixed.
- “Site owners call these methods ‘smart marketing.’” This challenge is simpler and engenders more curiosity, causing visitors to wonder what methods are being discussed, and what site owners are benefitting from those methods.
Each example above takes the emotional goals of the site and business and presents them to the consumer as a mirror, to show them what they may get out of proceeding further.
The Hook, The Content, and the Follow-Up
Landing pages are about far more than a handy headline, though that is a great start. Like other online content, the headline has to be backed up by solid landing page copy.
Here’s how to write a great landing page:
- Summarizing the key points of your site into no more than a few bullets is the best way to go to make sure your message doesn’t get too diluted.
- Space those key points out so that they’re visually separated from each other, allowing the reader to skim as necessary.
- Also make sure to include links wherever applicable, whether that be at each key point or at the bottom of the page as an entryway into the rest of the site.
What does the end product look like? Again, the comparison to a news article is a good one. You start with an eye-catching headline, followed by a slightly more detailed sub-header.
The content of the page itself should never come in blocks of text, but instead should be a bulleted list that’s easy to visually sort through. Graphics, colors, and fonts should be similar to the rest of the site and your branding in general, but it’s up to you, the site owner, to ensure it makes sense.
Landing pages are an incredibly simple-looking thing, but they shouldn’t be taken lightly, considering they can do so much to help the customer make a buying decision that includes your business and its associated products and services.
The real goal with landing page copy is not necessarily to boil your business down to a sentence or two, but to present it in a way that allows visitors to skim, sort, and easily gather the essence of your business or product in under a minute or so.
If you prime your readers with the right information in the right way, they’ll be much more likely to click that follow-up link at the bottom of the page. Once they’ve done that, their interest is piqued and will be all the more ready to pay attention to the what else you have to offer.
