For online businesses, landing pages are without doubt the most important piece of puzzle. You need pages that not only convert readers, but deliver sales too.
The writing has to pull the readers in and generate conversion, ultimately resulting in a transaction.
Successful copywriters possess special skills that they’ve honed over the years. But the best thing is that you too can learn these techniques. Learn, and in time, master them. There are simple techniques at play here, and you can use these to create copy like an absolute pro.
Here are 5 basic tips on how to write landing pages that convert:
Benefits, not the solution
This is perhaps the most essential of lessons, but for better or for worse, not everyone follow it. Customers don’t really care about the products or service that you are offering. Fact. They don’t want to find out the solution you’re trying to sell.
Thing is, they already know the solution they need — they already have an idea of what they want. Thanks to the power of the web (and now social media), not only do people know the solution, they also have an idea of the kind of features and pricing that they are in for.
Your task is simply to lead in with benefits in your landing pages. Highlight the advantages people will get when they sign up or make a purchase with you. Benefits trump solutions, every time.
Killer headlines
People don’t really read your landing page from first pixel to the last. They scan the headlines, they skim the captions, the titles. Pay special attention to your headline, the sub headlines, and your call to action buttons, as these are the elements readers focus on the most.
If these hold their interest, starting out, they’ll read the major sections next, bullet points, short paragraphs, stylized text (bold, italics or underlined) and even image captions.
Focus on optimizing these as you write your conversion copy, and build around them.
Customer testimonials
Almost all (good) landing pages have some form of customer testimonials one way or another. This is really powerful stuff because basically, you’re not writing your conversion copy here, your customers are. Goes without saying, then, that testimonials produce conversions like nothing else.
These snippets of information from your buyers and subscribers are compelling. They’re golden. Paste them front and center if you can, on the landing pages you create, with pictures of your customers, for even better results.
Ask for action
This impressive technique is so simple, yet so overlooked. If you don’t ask for conversions, you’ll not get them. Everything you do (writing and design) should be focused on getting that final conversion, whether that is signing up for your newsletter, or subscribing to your service, buying your product.
Always keep this end goal in mind, and strategically place your call to actions throughout your copy.
Keep the writing simple
If you’re doing the writing yourself, it’s easy to fall into the trap of overly complicating things and using all manner of jargon and buzzwords. Even if you are a high caliber writer, your literary prowess is useless when it comes to copywriting.
Remember, your audience is going for simplicity — so should you.
Write short, simple and clear statements, free of clichés. A minimal sentence structure helps, short words don’t hurt, and not being overly fancy enriches the outcomes. Point being, if you can be simple in writing, you can write great conversion copy and create remarkable landing pages.