Landing page 101
Getting a business up and running can be (to put it lightly) a lot of work. And on top of perfecting your product or service, you have to actually get it in front of your potential customers. But how?
You’ll notice the home page has dozens of links going to other pages, and is designed to encourage exploration, whereas the landing page has only two buttons, with the same call to action.
- Lead generation (commonly referred to as lead gen or lead capture): To capture leads that enable you to market to people in the future. As such, a lead capture page will contain a form along with a description of what the visitor will get in return for submitting their personal data.There are many incentives for a user to give up their personal information, such as an ebook or whitepaper, webinar registration, consultation for professional services, contest entry, coupon, free trial, gift or notification of a future product launch.
- Click through: To “warm up” potential customers to the product you are trying to sell to them before sending them further into your sales funnel.
Skeletal system (a.k.a. landing page core elements)
Building out your landing pages doesn’t have to be brain surgery. Simply start with these five must-have core elements:
- Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
- The hero shot (images/video showing context of use)
- The benefits of your offering
- Social proof (I’ll have what she’s having)
- A single conversion goal – your call-to-action (CTA) (with or without a form)
1. Your unique selling proposition (USP)
Your USP is what differentiates you from your competitors and describes what makes your product or service beneficial and memorable to customers. A classic example comes from Domino’s Pizza: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free.”
2. The hero shot
The hero shot is the visual representation of your offer and can help people to gain a better understanding of what the product looks like or what they gain.
- Photo(s) or Illustrations: Consider an example of a collapsible step ladder. A standard white-background photo of the item would work for the hero shot, but to add extra effect you could provide supplementary photos of someone unfolding it, using it to reach somewhere high, and placing it neatly into a small cupboard afterward.
- Video: Video is an even more compelling way to showcase your product. Think of the common Shamwow and Slapchop infomercials. While cheesy, they impart a sense of need by illustrating direct benefits to everyday life.
3. Benefits
Following the USP is a more detailed description of your offer’s benefits and features, providing a little more detail to the offer to answer any questions customers may have. Try to focus on answering the question “What will this do for me?”, as this will help you to write copy that speaks directly to your customers questions.
a. Benefit summary bullet points
Don’t get into so much detail that your landing page feels like it’s full of text. Write a brief one paragraph summary and 3-5 bullet points for clarity. Come back to this section many times and edit the copy to remove any bloated or unnecessary verbiage.
4. Social proof
Social proof is a powerful persuasive concept. Simply put, it’s the use of social signals to illustrate that other people have bought/consumed/read/participated in, what you are offering—the concept being that you are more likely to convert if you see that others before you have, and were glad they did.
- Customer testimonials
- Social signals – how well received is your offering on public networks?
- A count of how many customers you have
- Trust seals to establish security of information
- Awards from reputable organizations
- Customer reviews – which are very powerful when prospects are comparison shopping
5. Call-to-action (CTA)
Your conversion goal is a term that describes what the purpose of the page is to you. It’s purely a label intended to keep you focused on this page element when designing your page.

The connective tissues (a.k.a. message match)
Few things can dissuade your prospective customers from converting quite like clicking on an ad for one thing, only to be presented with a completely different product or offer.
The scientific method
A/B Testing
What should I test on my landing pages?
A/B testing is both an art and a science. It’s also very unpredictable. Most marketing departments, usability specialists, designers and management rely on a mixture of experience, gut instinct and personal opinion when it comes to deciding what will work better for their customers. Be prepared to throw all the boardroom conjecture out the window and start achieving real insight into what works and what doesnʼt—testing, like a camera, never lies.
- The main headline. Which contains a succinct rendering of your product/offer/service core value proposition.
- The call-to-action (CTA). Typically the text on the button that represents your page’s conversion goal.
- Hero shot. Try a variation of your main photo (if you have one) — preferably showing your product or service being used in context.
- Button design. Use design principles to accentuate the appearance of your CTA (contrast, whitespace, size). Above all, try making it bigger.
- Button color. Green for go, blue for link color, orange or red for emotional reaction.
- Form length. For lead capture and other form usage, you will want to minimize the amount of fields that visitors are required to complete. However, if you have a particularly strong need for data, try running an A|B|C|D|E test with varying amounts of information gathering. This way you can make an informed decision about what abandonment rate is acceptable when weighed against the extra data produced.
- Long copy vs. short copy. Often shorter is better, but for certain products detail is important in the decision making process.
Still not sure what to test? Check out this detailed guide on pinpointing what to test and why.
The five-second test
A great way to identify whether your USP is clear enough is to do the 5-second test.