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The author Robert Collier famously wrote: “One good illustration is worth a thousand words. But one clear picture built… by your words is worth a thousand drawings…”
The message for marketers is this: pictures only go so far. Attracting an online audience and encouraging them to convert requires multiple elements. This includes a combination of images, an intelligent layout, and all kinds of copy. Nowhere is this more important than on landing pages.
Visitors reach a landing page directly after clicking an email link or an ad found on Google or a social media channel. It shows one product or product group. In comparison, for instance, a homepage will display various products and encourage exploration.
A landing page serves one purpose, and that is to convert. Every element on a landing page should lead the audience to perform whatever action is considered a conversion, be that a sale, or filling out a form, or downloading a white paper. As part of this effort, landing page copywriting gives the audience a reason to click on the landing page’s most central feature — the CTA.
Landing pages are often built around a specific campaign. For instance, a website might sell bicycles and want to promote a sale on a certain brand. It will then create a landing page dedicated to that brand as a way to direct the audience straight to the product.
Otherwise, a potential buyer would need to get to the homepage and then look for the promoted product. This means that they can potentially get lost, or not see what they are expecting, and move on. But a landing page leaves no doubt as to what product the audience is looking at. In this way, it is a more efficient means to lead buyers to a precise place on the website.
Studies have shown the value of landing pages. In fact, the more landing pages a website has, the greater the number of leads. For example, a website that has 15 landing pages will enjoy 55% more leads than a website with 10 landing pages. And, if you’ve got the resources, go for broke — a website with more than 40 landing pages generates an incredible 500% more leads than a website with five landing pages.
If the goal of landing page copy is to convert a prospect, then the text should constantly emphasize not what the customer is buying, but why they are buying it. In marketing speak, that means the unique selling proposition, or USP. In non-marketing speak, the landing page copy should concentrate on answering the most basic of all sales questions: ‘What’s in it for me?’
How you create the text to address this issue depends, in part, on your competitive situation. If your product is really quite unique, then the landing page should explain what your product does and why it matters. In contrast, if there are lots of similar products on the market, the landing page copy should immediately explain why you are different and better.
This translates to simplicity. The leading message on the page, i.e. the headline, needs to communicate your main USP. Save subheadings for secondary messaging. The secret is to stay away from features until further down the page, and instead, present the main benefit of the product right away.
And now, speaking of headlines, let’s take a look at all the major landing page text components and a few tips for each.
It might be only a few words, but the headline is critical to keep the audience interested in reading more, and that's why it's important to know how to write a good headline that truly works. Although the image is the first landing page element that the eye will rest on, the brain will immediately want to know why it is relevant, and for that information, they will look to the headline.
The power of the headline cannot be underscored enough. Even David Ogilvy felt that a copywriter should spend half of their time creating headlines out of their total content writing schedule.
The other half should be spent writing the supporting copy. Take note – particularly for a landing page, you need to keep extraneous information to a minimum, and a good place to pare down your copy ideas is right here. In general, don’t use more than 50 words, or about three sentences, after the headline.
Think that headlines need to be concise? Try CTAs. Five words, max, and within that small space you’ve got to have exactly the right message.
Unless you are restricted as to what CTA buttons you can include (e.g. Facebook), it’s a good idea to get creative. There’s just something about yet another “click here” that is off-putting, especially for a brand that is trying to be special.
Connect the CTA to your image, USP, and of course, conversion goal. Through A/B testing, try different placements, colors, sizes, and button shapes. Some landing pages display a CTA only after you have reached a certain point on the page. Others have the button in more than one location, just in case the reader doesn’t feel like finding the first one. It’s all about making the click the easiest thing in the world to do.
The job of subheadings is twofold:
Similarly, there are two concepts that you can apply to subheadings so that they maintain impact. Subheadings can:
As the text continues down the page, you might want to consider changing up the format of the supporting copy for the subheadings. One classic technique is to use bullet points, and these provide a great opportunity for displaying features and benefits.
On their own or as part of a subheading, features and benefits are essential forms of secondary text. They give proof to back up the headlines and related copy, and also prevent the landing page from looking sparse.
The challenge of writing up features and benefits is to avoid ‘product fixation’. Many marketing writers are surrounded by product people who enjoy talking about the latest addition to their widget. Along the way, however, they can forget why a feature is relevant to the audience. It is up to the copywriter to mention a feature only if they can explain why a shopper needs to have it. Hypothetically, if you only have space to include features or benefits, then skip the features!
No matter how many landing pages you want to create, Anyword's Copy AI tool is there to lighten the load. Anyword’s Landing Page Projects feature will compose multiple lines of copy for each vital area:
All you’ve got to do is insert basic information about your campaign and choose from Anyword’s selection of writing styles. Anyword will create landing page copy all on its own, or rewrite the copy that already exists. Each copy version is graded using Anyword’s unique Predictive Performance Score, which measures the potential of landing page text to achieve what it is meant to do – convert the audience. This tool acts, in a way, as A/B testing, even before the landing page is posted. Want to get started on building screen after screen of landing page copy? Anyword has a 7-day free trial so that you can check out its basic features with no commitment. While you’re experimenting, make sure to get familiar with all of the other time-saving, conversion optimizing tools powered by Anyword.
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