How to Write Convincing Sales Landing Pages Even if You’re Not a Copywriter
By Kelly Forst May 12, 2020
The best copywriters write with two things in mind: their audience and the action they want their audience to take.
That means great writers adjust their copy for each marketing channel. While many of the writing techniques and strategies are similar, writing a landing page that converts visitors into subscribers is not the same as writing an email, social copy, or a blog post.
To help you write high-performing content for your landing pages, we asked professional copywriters to share their best writing tips.
Check out what they had to say.
Landing page copy should help people solve their frustrations and achieve their aims.
Henneke Duistermaat, Founder of Enchanting Marketing
What I see going wrong most often on landing pages is that we’re so focused on what we want to sell, that we forget to explain WHY people may want to buy it.
So, always start with sneaking into the mind of potential buyers:
- What problem do they want to escape? How does that problem make them feel?
- What aim do they want to achieve? How will that improve their lives?
A product bridges the gap between where people are right now and where they want to be. For instance, someone might buy a course to improve their LinkedIn skills because they feel they’re wasting too much time achieving nothing (that’s their frustration) and they want to get more interaction and quality business leads (that’s their aim). The landing page should describe what people will learn so they can solve their frustrations and achieve their aims.
When you align your offer with what web visitors want to achieve (and when you do so using their words), it becomes much easier to increase conversions.
Always remember: People don’t buy a product, they buy a better life.
Related: Find out how to use your audience’s words in your writing.
Clarity will always beat complexity.
Amy Woods, Founder of Content 10x
Jargon and buzzwords sound smart, but do they sound like something an actual human would say – or buy? Would you hire a gardener or a grassland cultivation and management disruptor?
The best businesses sell their products and themselves in simple words.
Going into detail and using industry-specific language is not a sin – it’s just that you need to find the right place to do so. Your landing page needs to be laser-focused on what you do, who you do it for, and very importantly what problem you solve.
This means focusing on the end-state, not the processes and features. A gardener doesn’t sell 2 hours of horticulture, they sell a beautiful garden for you to enjoy and show off to your neighbors.
To make this clear you need to have ONE simple call to action – and make it fun! “Make My Garden Beautiful”, not “Enquire”.
Ask someone who’s never heard of your business before to look at your landing page and see if they can tell you those three essential points after 5 or 10 seconds of reading: what you do, who you do it for, and what problem you solve.
If they can’t, it’s time to go back to the strategic illustration and writing display solution… Sorry, the drawing board.
BONUS: Download our free guide “How to Write Landing Pages that Convert.”
Great copywriting joins the conversation already happening in customers’ minds.
Joel Klettke, Founder of Business Casual Copywriting
Great writers are great researchers. If an entrepreneur wants to write “amazing” copy, they need to understand the audience they’re communicating with inside and out:
- Who are they, really?
- What pain points are they trying to solve?
- What outcomes do they care about?
- Why would they see your solution as an ideal alternative to anything else out there?
Moreover, you need to understand these things in their own words.
That means talking to customers through surveys, interviews, chat, review mining… doing the homework to learn how they talk about their problem, their need, and their ideal outcome.
Once you’ve done that, it’s less of an exercise in “wordsmithing” (gag) and more like building with Lego: putting the right pieces together to sell.
Related: What is Review Mining?
The big mistake so many entrepreneurs make is assuming they know their market already. The things that are important to you as the entrepreneur may not matter to your audience as much as you think they do.
The way you talk about things may not reflect how they think. And that’s what great copywriting really is: joining the conversation already happening in the customers’ mind and subtly influencing the way they consider your offer.
And, landing pages need to be ruthlessly focused. Every line needs to earn its right to be there.
If you’re driving ads to a landing page or targeting a very specific set of keywords, then you’ve got a decent idea of the awareness level a lead is coming in at.
Everything on the page needs to be building a case towards a conversion (getting a lead to take action); there’s little to no room for waste.
Answer these 10 questions to write awesome landing page copy.
Gill Andrews, Conversion Copywriter & Web Consultant
Answering these 10 questions will help you figure out what your landing page copy needs to say to convert prospects into customers to help you write awesome copy:
- What is it that you’re selling?
- Who will benefit from your offer most?
- How much do your prospects know about their problems and your solution?
- What problems does your offer solve?
- What results do your prospects expect?
- What reservations / fears do they have?
- What criteria do they use when deciding whether to buy from you?
- What words do your existing customers use exactly to answer questions 4-7? Use those words in your copy.
- Why should they buy from you and not your competitors?
- Who are your competitors?
Related: 4 Experts Reveal How to Craft High-Converting Landing Pages
Write like a human to earn visitors’ trust.
Christine Otsuka, Senior Content Marketing Manager at Uberflip
Landing pages are designed for one purpose—conversion. So landing page copy needs to be both attention grabbing and persuasive. Here are a few tips to help you hone your conversion copywriting skills:
- Spend time writing a killer headline. This is the visitor’s first impression and if the copy doesn’t entice them to keep reading, the rest of the page doesn’t matter.
- Keep it simple. Get to the point as quickly as possible and strip out any jargon or ambiguity. Aim to be clear, considerate, and concise.
- Write like a human. Use short sentences and write the way you speak. You want your visitors’ attention and trust, so be relatable.
- Lead with your value proposition. What’s in it for the visitor? The benefit needs to be clearly articulated, aligned to their pain or need, and believable or specific to be persuasive.
- Empathize. Relate to your visitors’ problem or pain and show them your company understands and can help.
- Don’t forget your proof points. Use supporting copy to further describe the offer/product/service, support your value prop, and back up your claims with stats or testimonials.
- Ask for what you want. Include a clear call-to-action that’s short and sweet (button copy should be three words or less) and makes it clear to the visitor what will happen next.
- Test for best results. A/B test the copy with a variation to maximize conversions. You can follow best practices all you want, but ultimately testing is your best bet to learn what works for your specific audience.
Related: How to Pinpoint Your ‘Hook.’ Find Your Unique Value Proposition in 6 Simple Steps
Write your own landing page today
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