Dos and Don’ts of High Conversion Landing Page Copy

Writing landing page copy is an inexact science, but there are certain elements of conversion-friendly style that consistently deliver more clicks, purchases and subscriptions. Each of the following dos and don’ts of landing page copy are all geared towards creating highly readable, crystal clear copy. Keep them in mind as you craft your next landing page.

Do make a complete sales pitch

It’s wrong to assume that your customer will be coming to your page with any prior knowledge about your product or will go through the trouble to contact you for more information. Lay all your cards on the table on each and every landing page. Include the main benefits of your product, the price and everything else you’d tell the customer if you had them on the phone, about to make the sale.

Don’t overlap your selling points

Keep your selling points to the ways that your product differentiates itself from your competitors—avoid mentioning benefits that apply to all products of your type. For example, if you are advertising a virus scanner, don’t waste time discussing the merits of keeping your computer free of spyware and adware, since these selling points are just as effective in getting your readers fired up about your competitors product. Instead, talk about how your software protects computers from viruses better than your competition and mention functions that your software has that the others don’t.

Do address your reader directly

Unless you’re marketing gifts, assume that the end user of your product will be the reader themselves. Talk about how the product will benefit them: “You will feel more focused and alert in just 10 days” rather than “Our customers find themselves feeling more focused and alert in just 10 days.” Make it as easy as possible for your readers to imagine themselves using your product.

Do keep it simple

This is sales copy, not beat poetry. You want more message to be as clear as possible. Avoid big words, ambiguous or flowery language or anything unnecessarily complex or abstract. If you fancy yourself a creative or artistic soul, remember: communicating a powerful, message with the biggest impact and the least amount of words is an art in itself. Ask Hemingway.

Don’t be afraid to be grammatically incorrect

You’re not being graded on grammar, and unless you’re hawking an SAT study guide, no one’s going to mark you down for ending a sentence with a preposition, dangling a participle or including a sentence fragment. Aim for conversational—not formal. In fact, using overly proper English can sometimes have the opposite effect of making you seem like a non-native speaker who is trying too hard.

Do use captions

We call them readers, but really, they’d rather be looking at pictures. And studies show that the eye is drawn almost compulsively to images. Including a strong one-liner beneath each pictures gives you an opportunity to make a high impact statement.

None of the above rules are set in stone—but by covering all the dos and avoiding the don’ts, you can slowly train yourself to automatically write more effective copy that converts better.

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