Notes on Writing a Landing Page

I can consume gobs of material on marketing and copywriting, but when it comes time to actually write a landing page my mind suddenly goes blank. I had this happened yesterday, so I went back and reread parts of Joanna Wiebe’s little e-book The Conversion Marketer’s Guide to Landing Page Copywriting. This time around, I thought I’d take some notes, and hopes the knowledge will stick a little better.

Here are my biggest takeaways:

  • A landing page should have one, and only one, call to action. Everything on the page should support the call to action.
  • That means that if the call to action is “sign up for my newsletter”, then there shouldn’t also be social media sharing buttons on the same page.
  • Instead of starting with the headline, start with the call to action. Work backwards from there: what do readers need to know before they will take that action?
  • Specifically: what are the implicit anxieties and objections that need to overcome before they will take the action?
  • Even getting someone to opt-in to a mailing list is “sale”. It’s an exchange of permission for content. That means there needs to be a unique value proposition for the content, even when there is no money changing hands.
  • “Learn about this thing” is not a unique value proposition.
  • The length of the copy should be a function of the expected reader’s awareness level. Are they already familiar with your product? Brief landing page. Do they just know that they have a pain point, and nothing else? Long landing page.
  • Start with the long version, then cut sections out to make landing pages that target more where audiences.
  • Landing page should be an unbroken chain, with each element playing exactly one role. The headline leads to the subhead, the subhead leads to the hero copy, and so on down to the call to action.

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