Copywriting for Landing Pages

Today in our series on beginner copywriting we will explore copywriting for your landing pages to help bring more conversions. If you missed last weeks post on the basics of copywriting, including key copywriting terms, then I invite you to read part one.

Copywriting is defined as “the activity or occupation of writing text of advertisements or publicity material”. In the blogging world, this means that we can use copywriting for landing pages, direct mail campaigns, newsletters, and sales pages or other marketing purposes.

Hello and welcome to Fearless Affiliate…education for new bloggers and online entrepreneurs.

My name is Irma and I help new bloggers to learn the ropes.

There is a lot to take in that first year of blogging, from choosing a niche to changing your mindset to that of a successful entrepreneur. I like to focus on practical information and positive thinking, so if that sounds good to you please sign up for my weekly newsletter of tips for bloggers.

Sign up for my FREE 5-Minute Guide to Copywriting and start improving your website copy to increase engagement and clicks.

This post may contain affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Full disclosure is here.

As content marketers, we will promote our products and services using copywriting. Copywriting is different than writing blog posts because the goal is to get the reader to take action, thus increasing our conversions. Let’s look at what we need for creating landing pages.

Keep in mind that “people do not want to buy things, they want to solve their problems”. Good copy will take that into consideration, so we want to promote the benefits of a product or service in a concise way.

Related Post: Copywriting for Beginners: The Basics

5 Elements of a good landing page

A landing page is a page on your website that’s built with a single purpose in mind, like getting visitors to subscribe to your newsletter or encouraging them to buy a product from you. A good copywriter will tell you there are five essential elements that you want to include when copywriting for your landing pages.

1. The Headline

The headline should draw in readers and make them want to know more. Spend at least half of your time writing your headline because that is what will draw your reader in. A good rule of thumb is to A/B split test two headlines and then go with the one with better conversions.

I have a post on headlines for blog posts, but these work for newsletters and landing pages as well. You may find some helpful ideas here.

Related Post: 101 Blog Post Headlines That Really Work

You can do this by asking a question, creating a list, or making a bold statement. A few examples might be:

  • Is Your Family Prepared for a Major Disaster?
  • 7 Ways You Can Travel without Spending Money
  • The Sneaky Secrets Your Fitness Trainer Won’t Tell You

2. The Body

If you spend a lot of time writing content for blogs or articles, you may be tempted to tell readers everything right now. However, don’t do that—it kills the suspense for visitors and makes them less likely to click through.

Instead, use the body of your content to connect with your visitor. You want them to feel like you understand their problem and empathize. When you implement this strategy, this is where your visitor begins to trust you.

The body is the time to tell readers of the uniqueness of your product/service and then to back that up. Explain how you solve a pain point or use a supporting statement to establish credibility…without giving everything away.

Choose your words carefully. Most people do not read all the copy on any page, rather they scan the page picking out words and sentences that pique their interest. They are trying to figure out ‘what’s in it for me?’ Your copywriting for landing pages should answer their questions.

Related Post: AIDA The Copywriting Template for Bloggers

3. The Call To Action

Once you’ve engaged your visitor, it’s time to make the direct offer. Spend most of the other half of your time writing your call to action, because this is what will lead to conversions.

You want to use a strong call to action that tells your reader what to do next and reminds them of what they’re getting. For example, if your goal is to get newsletter subscribers, you might say, “Sign Up Now and Instantly Download Your Workbook” or “Get 10% off Your First Purchase”

You want your call to action to speak to your reader.

What will happen when they click that button to subscribe? What will they get out of the relationship in exchange for their email address? Think about this when choosing your CTA. An example for a

Many bloggers report that CTA’s that show what the benefit is to the visitor convert higher. An example is ‘Order information and prices’ vs ‘Get information and prices’. They both invite action, but the second one lets you know that you are ‘getting’ something.

And be sure to use language that is familiar to your audience, so if your blog posts are written for casual readers, stick with that tone. Now is not the time to switch it up to “all business” or “academic”.

Related Post: Copywriting for Social Media

4. The Form

Now, present your form. This could be a sign up form for subscribers (also known as an opt-in form) or an order form for new customers. In order to add the form to your landing page, you’ll probably need some knowledge of coding languages or you’ll need to use a content management system such as WordPress.org.

Once your form is on the page, make sure to test it several times from different devices. You don’t want to drive traffic to a landing page where the form is broken. Otherwise, you’ll lose all of your hard work.

If you need a great, free email service provider (ESP), then I encourage you to sign up with MailerLite. MailerLite is free for the first 1000 subscribers and it comes with landing pages, automations, and customizable opt-in forms.

Related Post: How To Use MailerLite

5. The Guarantee

No matter what you want your visitors to do, it can boost your conversion rate to add a guarantee or two at the bottom of your landing page. If you’re trying to get new visitors to sign up for your mailing list, promise not to spam them or sell their email address. Use words like ‘we will never spam you!’

However, if you’re providing a service or product, you’ll want to provide a money-back guarantee. In most industries, a standard guarantee is for 30 days. This gives customers a chance to use it before deciding if it’s a good fit.

You don’t have to offer a guarantee to your buyers but it is considered a good industry practice. Make sure you can back up any promises that you make about your product or service.

Note that most digital products do not offer a money back guarantee

This is because the customer can instantly download digital products after payment has been made. You may still offer a guarantee if you want, if your product is quite expensive.4

Related Post: Copywriting for Online Ads

Copywriting for Beginners: Landing Pages
PIN IT! Copywriting for Beginners: Landing Pages

More tips for better landing pages

Focus on how your product or service will help your customer more than your competitors

Make your customer the shining star of your landing page by sharing what makes your business different from other businesses in your market/niche.

Explain how your business solves your customers problems and how you can enhance their lives. Check out your competitors or even businesses that you like to see how they promote their products. Then find a unique way to promote your business/service/product.

Make your copy as concise as possible.

You want to make your point quickly, so now is not the time to try to beat the word count from your awesome A++ essay from high school. Use the following tips to help you streamline your copy.

Write your copy in a way that makes it easy to understand for a Fifth grader. Explain any jargon and consider that your customer may not be familiar with any technical language in your copy.

  • Use the active voice instead of the passive voice. Example: I write a letter (active) vs A letter is written by me (passive). For more information, I will direct you to the post Active and Passive Voice.
  • Use less adverbs (easily, actually, obviously, quickly)
  • Eliminate words that explain the obvious or provide excessive detail such as redundant pairs. An example of this is “future plans” or “past memories” or ‘”various differences”.
  • Eliminate unnecessary determiners and modifiers which make your text ‘wordy’. An example of this is ‘Any particular type of sandwich is fine with me’ vs ‘Any sandwich is fine with me’.
  • Watch for phrases or longer passages that repeat words with similar meanings, as they are unnecessary.

Be sure your customers questions are answered

Many landing pages are quite detailed in an effort to answer any potential questions that a customer may have.

Do not be afraid of making your landing page ‘long form’ if it helps someone to take the action to sign up. Stick with the benefits to the customer as opposed to telling them a story.

Landing pages with more information below the fold (the area of the  post that is below what you see when you first land on that page) tend to convert better.

Ask yourself some questions about your potential customers buying journey, such as ‘what are their hopes and dreams’ or ‘what has brought my customer to my landing page’ (what problem do they need solved).

Write your copy in a language that your customer can understand and let them know that you are on their side. Use power words like ‘You’, ‘Easy’, ‘Results’, ‘Save’, and ‘Guarantee’

Related Post: Using Analytics for Copywriting

A/B Test your copy

Try small changes and only change one thing at a time or it will be too hard to figure out which change increases/decreases your conversions.

An example of A/B split testing for a call-to-action button text might be:

A. Sign up now to get my free ebook

B. Get my free ebook when you sign up

Sometimes you only need a small change to get more conversions, so whenever you can employ A/B split testing.

Add ‘social proof’ to your landing page

If you have them, be sure to use testimonials on your landing page. In the case of digital products, you might get these testimonials from beta testers of your ebook or ecourse.

And if you can, add some video testimonials of people using your product especially if it is something like an app, or a new invention. People love to see video proof.

Conclusion

Are you getting excited about how to use copywriting for your landing pages? Today we looked at the 5 elements of a great landing page as well as tips to helping you create a great landing page.

Learning copywriting skills can help you in all areas of your blogging, and A/B split testing will help you learn how to focus and what attracts your customers to take the plunge and click your link.

It’s important to remember that your landing page should have the main navigation and other features hidden from view. You want your visitors to either accept the offer or decline it. You don’t want them getting distracted and forgetting.

And don’t forget to click the image below to sign up for my FREE my 5-Minute Guide to Copywriting.  

Happy blogging! Follow us on Pinterest,

-Irma 🙂

Copywriting for Landing Pages

14 thoughts on “Copywriting for Landing Pages”

  1. As I tell people, the landing page is the front door to your list. You don’t leave a front door ugly and unkept with chipped paint and dirt. You clean it up so it’s inviting and welcoming. Our landing pages need to encourage people to subscribe.

    How do we do that? With a clear presentation of what we have to offer and a strong call to action.

    Good stuff, Irma.

    Reply
    • Hello Michael and thank you for visiting us today,

      You are so right! A good landing page must be welcoming as well as showing visitors that you are there to help them. This is the perfect combination to successful blogging!

      Cheers,
      -Irma 🙂

      Reply
  2. I’m still in the beginning stages of my online business and feel like a landing page is just what I need to drive sales to my site. I’ve been very confused by this topic lately and wanting to learn more about it so I can employ this method to my site. You have some very good advice here and your 5 tips are really helpful for getting started. I still have so much more to learn about blogging so i’ll be bookmarking your site for future reference. Thanks so much for sharing.

    Reply
    • Hi Jay and welcome to Fearless Affiliate,

      Copywriting is a skill all bloggers need to learn if they want to earn money with their websites. I always thought copywriting was something else entirely, which is why I wanted to share what copywriting really is to my readers. I hope you enjoy this series and that it is helpful to you 🙂

      Cheers,
      -Irma 🙂

      Reply
  3. This couldn’t have come in better time for me Irma! I’m just setting up my e-mail marketing plan and I need to work on my copy on my landing page. I’ll definitely use the tips you pointed out here. Do you have any tips on making the A/B testing automated? As in, automatically displaying different options randomly and gathering statistics on their performance. Maybe a plugin or something? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Hello Jukka and thank you for visiting us today,

      I like choosing my own points to A/B test so I have not looked in to plugins for that service yet. WordPress has lots of plugins that will do that job so you will have to pick one that suits your needs.

      Cheers,
      -Irma 🙂

      Reply
  4. This is a brilliant post! As someone just starting out, this information is useful and I know it will help me going forward.

    The first thing I need to do perhaps understand how landing pages work and get one set up! Thank you so much for sharing this, I don’t doubt I’ll be re-reading through it and taking pointers!

    I signed up for your email alerts as well, so I look forward to learning more!

    Thank you,

    James

    Reply
    • Hello James and thank you for visiting us today,

      Any page on your website can be a landing page, but you will want to “pretty it up” a bit. You can practice by creating a page and getting others to look at it and give you feedback. Then tweak as necessary. I wish you the best of luck!

      Cheers,
      -Irma 🙂

      Reply
  5. Soooo many good advice. I probably really need to read and reflect upon a few of them. I definitely don’t spend enough time on the headlines. I haven’t realized how important they are for the reader. It’s so easy to get caught up in optimizing. And I need to change how I write the body. Not giving everything away. You want to tell the world everything you have to say. I know it doesn’t work but it so hard to restrict yourself.

    Reply
    • Hello Moa and welcome to our website!

      I hear that. I used to have a specific formula for how I did my weekly publishing. Now that I know more about copywriting, I am doing everything differently. I am way more focused on conversions and understanding how to present information so that I get the optimal results. I wish you the best of luck!

      Cheers,
      -Irma 🙂

      Reply
  6. I really like how easy you explain this subject. Only one thing I would suggest is to number the five essential elements. I can tell you’ve been at this online business for awhile. Great post!

    Reply
    • Hello Marites and thank you for visiting us today,

      I will take care of that asap!

      Cheers,
      -Irma 🙂

      Reply
  7. Hey Irma!

    I love your article. I am new to blogging and this has really helped clarify things for me! What made you want to start blogging/ working online?

    Steph

    Reply
    • Hi Stephanie and thank you for visiting today,

      Great question! I had recently been injured on the job and I was tired of that happening. As well, my department was being contracted out and I was also tired of that happening as well. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and create a life that I love…my way, on my terms. And here I am! I love blogging and I love working for myself.

      Cheers,
      -Irma 🙂

      Reply

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