First impressions are important, so your website must have a great landing page. After all, why would a prospective client waste any time on a dull, dry-as-dust page? The internet is chock-full of information, so there’s no need to spend time on a site that doesn’t pique your interest.
The solution, it would seem, rests in ensuring your landing page is snappy, eye-catching and uses persuasive copy to grab the attention of a potential customer. The ultimate goal is to help move people toward becoming a customer, and some tried-and-true methods help increase your chances of actually making this happen.
In this article, we will boil things down to three broad categories for creating a great landing page. These are principles that ought to guide your thinking.
Before we get there, though, let’s take a few moments to ensure we’re all on the same page.
What is Landing Page Copy vs. Blog Content?
Blog posts tend to be more casual than, say, academic articles or investigative journalism. Blogs are an accessible form of online writing that can entertain and educate the reader. The length may vary, but there tends to be some development in thought as the writer often seeks to put forth engaging material.
In a perfect world, entrepreneurs can even use blog content to help them accomplish their business goals.
Jesse Locke, the founder of okwrite, has written about the relationship between blogs and a content marketing strategy, concluding that “[c]ontent marketing and, in turn, blogging is valuable because it promotes the soft sell. Instead of being subjected to an explicit sales pitch, viewers can find blog content through search engine queries, which allows visitors the chance to come to their own opinion about the content, product, and brand.”
Landing page copy, however, should differ from blog content in several ways.
For starters, a landing page ought to be considerably shorter since the goal is to deliver highly pertinent information in a concise, persuasive manner. Indeed, concision is the lifeblood of any company’s landing page.
There is some overlap between blogs and landing pages in that they both seek to highlight important components of a business, but a landing page will do so in a punchier, quick-hitting fashion.
Writing Great Landing Page Copy in 3 Simple Ways
Now, there are plenty of online lists that offer advice on how to write a landing page.
In this article, though, we’re going to bring things down to three broad categories that we’re referring to as the three offerings of a great landing page.
Step 1: Offer Intrigue
Attention spans tend to be in short supply these days. As a result, it’s more important than ever to hook your reader with an intriguing landing page, one that can help turn a mere curious reader into a customer.
Do your utmost to ensure you’re offering a slick, clean design that’s easy to navigate visually. Ideally, the page will help draw the eye toward information that can really interest people in your target market and gently guide them towards purchasing your product or service.
There are plenty of different tidbits of information you can include, but here are the most proven ones.
Social Proof
One of the surest ways of increasing someone’s intrigue rests in including positive customer reviews on your landing page. Ask yourself: are you more inclined to give a business some of your hard-earned money if no one likes them or if lots of people like them? I find it convincing when people who I respect endorse a product. Many people feel the same way.
One study found that 83% of consumers indicate that recommendations from their family and friends make “them more likely to purchase a product or service.” The underlying principle remains consistent for online social proof: reviews matter.
Simply including brief quotes from customers who are satisfied with your product can go a long way in helping to convince someone that they ought to continue looking into your brand.
Of course, positive testimonials are merely one method of building intrigue.
Headlines
Let’s go back to our point about the importance of first impressions. When someone finds your landing page, what’s the first thing they’ll read?
The headline.
You need to perfect the headline, folks.
The vast majority of online readers will only read the headline and not the article. According to Brian Davis, “8 out of 10 people will read [the] headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of the headline, and why it so highly determines the effectiveness of the entire piece.”
At okwrite, we’ve discussed the Four U Framework for headlines. Ideally, your headline can evoke a sense of usefulness, urgency, uniqueness and can be ultra-specific.
Will every headline perfectly adhere to these rules? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a useful framework to help guide your approach to headlines.
It’s very difficult to gather online interest when headlines are lousy. Again, think about short attention spans.
People, for the most part, are quite busy. Get their attention early with a great headline.
Concise headlines make for great copy.
Step 2: Offer Simplicity
People, by and large, don’t want to spend a lot of time reading your landing page. As a result, you’ll need to keep things short and sweet.
Consider what Hubspot has to say about the need for concise, simple copywriting for your landing page: “You may be as good of a writer as Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, but that doesn’t matter so much because literary prowess is useless in conversion copy. Your most powerful writing skill is simplicity. Simplicity sells.”
How do we keep things simple for our readers?
Being concise. The goal of your copy is to include only words that contribute to your copy’s meaning (here is where hiring an editor is a good idea). Squeeze out as much value out of each word. Doing so helps keep the landing page content tight, focused, and persuasive.
After all, the Google definition for the word concise is to offer “a lot of information clearly and in a few words; brief but comprehensive.” That’s the key: comprehensive information that is delivered efficiently.
Instead of writing dense paragraphs like James Joyce, write bullet points that highlight the positives about your business. Instead of offering meandering stream-of-consciousness like Virginia Woolf, offer specific snippets about your product.
If your business doesn’t offer value, then it’s unlikely to find any success. Similarly, the words on your landing page need to be jam-packed with value.
Simplicity reigns supreme in the world of landing pages.
Step 3: Offer a CTA
A CTA—at least in our context—refers to a call to action. What action do you want your audience to take, and what action button are you providing for purpose? Since the landing page is merely a means to an end, you should think about including a CTA.
CTAs can act as a sales funnel, boosting your conversion rate and prompting your target audience to become customers.
For an online business, a CTA may mean inviting your reader to join a subscriber list, create an account, or purchase. Here’s the thing, though: CTA copy can seem pushy and weird if you haven’t spent at least some time convincing your reader that you’re trustworthy.
For this reason, it’s important to execute Steps 1 and 2 in our list successfully. People need to understand what your business has to offer, and they need to be interested in taking the next step. If you fail to accomplish these two things, your CTA is doomed before it even begins. The intrigue and simplicity, then, are of the utmost importance.
If you’ve nailed these first two steps, your CTA button has a good shot of moving the reader toward that next step, which is really the goal. Indeed, it doesn’t matter very much if we have oodles and oodles of people who visit the landing page if none of them eventually become paying customers.
Always include a CTA to prompt people toward becoming a customer or further connecting with your company.
Amplify Your Landing Page Copy
If you decide to work with okwrite, it’s probably because you’re looking for high-quality writing for your website. Of course, the writing is serving a larger purpose since it needs to help you grow your business. We fully embrace this reality, and we’re committed to helping you succeed as a company.
Hiring a copywriter with professional experience can separate your business from your competition, drawing in your target audience.
At okwrite, we have the skills, knowledge, and experience to help you create a great landing page. Need more convincing? Send us an email or take a look at our various plans. Our built-in flexibility ensures you have very little to lose and a ton to gain. If you give us a shout, we’re confident you’ll be happy with the results.
