Whether you’re trying to gain email subscribers, fill seats in a paid workshop, or sell a product, your landing pages are an important piece of real estate for your business online. Good landing page copy can help you generate leads and make sales even while you’re eating, sleeping, or on vacation. Weak copy, on the other hand, can stunt growth and halt sales right in their tracks.
So what do you want? A landing page that helps you grow your business and income? Or one that just sits there and maybe even makes your brand look bad?
Here’s how to stop leaving money on the table by writing landing page copy that boosts subscribers and sales:
Grow your email list, income, and business by learning the formula that makes landing pages convert. Download our free landing page copy template + full example.
1. Focus on benefits
A common landing page copy mistake is to write about the features of your product or service instead of focusing on the benefits. As we’ve mentioned in our posts on general website copywriting tips, your website visitors don’t care about the specs of your product or service. They want to know how it’ll help them or make their life better. So if you want your visitors to sign up for your email list or buy your digital product, highlight the key benefits they’ll get from it.
Related: The #1 website copywriting mistake most businesses make + free “about us” page template
See how Dropbox focuses on the benefits of its product in this example:
2. Induce FOMO
When people highlight the benefits of their offer, they tend to focus on the positive things visitors who opt in will experience. However, this isn’t the only way to talk about benefits in your landing page copy. You can instead focus on what visitors will miss out on if they don’t take you up on the offer.
For example, let’s say that you sell a course on how to create effective Facebook Ads campaigns. In your landing page copy for the course, you could talk about the benefits people will get from buying and completing the course, such as experiencing a boost in their course sales. Alternatively, you could highlight what will happen if people don’t buy, such as spending another year wasting money on Facebook Ads while their course sales fail to grow.
People love things that make their life better. But they also fear things that can limit their growth and happiness. Try capitalizing on this fear-based motivation in your landing page copy.
Related: 7 characteristics that make your website copy persuasive + free checklist
Check out how Melyssa Griffin frames inaction as a bad way to go.
3. Write a magnetic headline
The headline of your landing page copy is the first thing people will see when they visit the page. And if you want to make a good first impression and keep people from peacing out, you’ve got to make it a good one.
Write a strong landing page copy headline by clearly stating the main benefit people will get from opting in to your offer. This will ensure them that they’re in the right place, keep them on your landing page, and tell them why they should opt in now.
Need help coming up with headlines that make a lasting impression on your audience? Download our list of 72 headline templates.
Related: 9 blog title generator tools to help you craft the perfect headline + 72 title templates
Check out Todd Herman’s bold headline below.
4. Keep things simple
A landing page is no place for sonnets or haikus. Even if you’re in a creative niche, keep the language in your landing page copy simple. Simple language is easy to understand, especially to people who aren’t going to read your landing page word for word (almost everyone). It also limits the risk that your offer will get lost on people because they can’t understand what the heck you’re saying.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun with your landing page copy or write in your brand voice. But remember that when it comes to landing page copy, clarity trumps creativity.
Follow Crazy Eggs’s lead by keeping things clear and simple in your landing page copy.
5. Make it scannable
As we just mentioned, most people don’t read your landing page copy from beginning to end. Instead, they scan it by jumping from section to section. That’s why it’s absolutely critical to make sure your landing page copy can get your key message across even when people read only bits and pieces of it.
How do you make your landing page copy scannable? Use short sentences and paragraphs, bullets and numbered lists, subheadings, and visuals to break up text. Check out our blog post on how to master the basics of writing scannable copy.
Related: How to write scannable blog posts people actually read + a checklist
See how Melanie Duncan uses bullet points to make her landing page copy scannable.
6. Include specific numbers
If you’ve served a large number of customers or your lead magnet has been downloaded lots of times, share the details. Don’t know why this is beneficial? Take a look at the two statements below and identify which one is more persuasive:
“Our social media automation tool is used by a wide range of businesses across many industries.
“Our social media automation tool is used by over 850,000 businesses across over 100 industries.”
The specific numbers in the second example make it more compelling than the first example. After all, 850,000 is a huge number. And if you’ve got that kind of following, you should be shouting it from the rooftops in your landing page copy.
Basecamp uses this graph to show the growing number of accounts that have signed up for their product over the years.
7. Tell people what to do
You’ve spent lots of time creating a magnetic headline and outlining the benefits of your offer in your landing page copy. But there’s something important that you haven’t done yet: you need to tell people what you want them to do on your landing page. That is, you need to include a call to action.
A call to action calls on your landing page visitors to take a specific action. Depending on the goal of your landing page, you may want them to sign up for a free ebook, enroll in a free masterclass, or buy a service. In any case, be sure to include a clear and compelling call to action your visitors can’t resist. Check out our post on how to write a strong call to action that converts.
Related: How to write a strong call to action for your website + free cheat sheet
See how Sprout Social encourages visitors to take a specific action.
8. Include testimonials
You may be incredibly persuasive. But there are people who can do a better job at selling your offer to your landing page visitors: your customers. Instead of making your own landing page copy do all the work, harness the power of social proof by including customer testimonials. After all, you read reviews before going to a restaurant, watching a movie, and booking a hotel. Why wouldn’t potential customers do the same with your offer?
When you include testimonials on your landing page, your landing page visitors don’t have to rely on your words about your offer. They can hear what people who have already invested in it have to say about the benefits they’ve already experienced.
Check out how Marie Forleo gave this testimonial lots of real estate on her landing page.
9. Test your landing page copy
Your landing page copy isn’t set in stone once you write it. You can and should tweak it over time until you identify what works best for your brand. The best way to find out how to tweak your landing page copy is to conduct A/B tests. Test different versions of your headline, body copy, list of benefits, and call to action. Use the results to optimize your landing page copy.
10. Don’t be afraid to try long copy
In general, it’s good to be concise with your copy. Your audience is busy, and the last thing you want to do is waste their time. That said, keeping things short and sweet isn’t always the best strategy when it comes to landing page copy. Don’t believe us? Consider this example:
Crazy Egg tested two versions of landing page copy for the same offer: one short one and another that was 20x times. Guess which one performed better? It was the longer one. Even though it contained way more text than the first one, it performed 30% better.
Of course, if the goal of your landing page is to convince visitors to sign up for a free resource, you don’t need to write landing page copy that’s the length of a football field. But long landing page copy is worth testing if you’re trying to convince people to buy something.
The image below shows just one section of Nesha Woolery’s long landing page.
11. Don’t copy your favourite brand
One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your landing page copy is assuming that your favourite brand has done it right and copying them. Sure, a brand may have a large following and sky-high revenue. But their landing pages may not be the cause of their success.
Instead of just copying successful brands, learn about the elements that make up effective landing page copy. Then test different versions to find out what works best for your brand.
Write landing page copy that works for you (literally)
Your landing page copy shouldn’t just give people information about your offer. It should sell it. That’s why good landing page copy is just like having your very own salesperson, one who pitches your offer 24/7 but is a heck of a lot cheaper.
Boost the subscriptions and sales you generate from your landing pages by using the tips in this post to optimize your copy. Put your words to work so that you can finally stop leaving money on the table.
Grow your email list, income, and business by learning the formula that makes landing pages convert. Download our free landing page copy template + full example.
Nice one to bookmark!
I’m glad you found it helpful, Tushar!
Friggin awesome!
Glad you found it helpful, Mike!