On this page
- First, is a landing page even the right thing?
- 1. The headline, which does most of the work
- 2. The thing you want them to do
- 3. Proof, immediately after the claim
- 4. The problem, in their words
- 5. What you actually do about it
- 6. How it works
- 7. The objections, answered
- What kills landing pages
- How many fields should the form have?
- Then measure, change one thing, measure again
A landing page has one job. There is a reasonably well-understood shape that helps it do that job — not a formula, since the order and emphasis change with what you sell, but a structure worth starting from and departing from deliberately.
First, is a landing page even the right thing?
A website answers whatever question a visitor arrived with. A landing page answers one question and asks for one thing. That difference drives everything else — a website has navigation because people arrive wanting different things; a landing page usually strips it out, because every link is a way to leave without doing the thing the page exists for.
Reach for one when you are paying for the traffic, launching a single thing, testing an idea before committing, or speaking to an audience narrow enough to address directly. If people are arriving from search with mixed intentions, you want the site.
1. The headline, which does most of the work
Far more people read the headline than read anything else on the page. It has to say what this is and who it is for, in the words the visitor would use.
The common failure is writing for the company rather than the reader. “Transforming digital experiences through innovative solutions” says nothing at all. “Bookkeeping for small building firms” says everything — it tells the right person they are in the right place and the wrong person that they are not, which is just as valuable, because a visitor who leaves in two seconds costs you nothing.
Then one subheading of a sentence or two, adding the detail the headline had to leave out. That is the whole budget before you ask for something.
2. The thing you want them to do
Visible without scrolling, and one action only. Not “get in touch or download our brochure or follow us” — pick the one that matters and let the others go.
Label the button with what happens next rather than a generic verb. “Book a 20-minute call” beats “Submit” because it tells somebody what they are agreeing to, and anxiety about what happens after clicking is a real and underrated reason people do not click. “Get a quote” is better than “Contact us” for the same reason.
Put the same action at the bottom too. Somebody who read the whole page is interested; do not make them scroll back up to act on it.
3. Proof, immediately after the claim
You have just made a promise. The next thing on the page should be evidence for it — a testimonial, a recognisable client, a result, a number, a photograph of the actual work.
One caveat we hold ourselves to: it has to be real. Invented testimonials and borrowed logos get found out, and a visitor who catches one stops believing everything else on the page — including the parts that were true. If you do not have proof yet, use something honest instead: how you work, what you will commit to, a guarantee, or simply a clear explanation that demonstrates you know the subject.
4. The problem, in their words
Before the solution, name the problem clearly enough that the reader thinks “yes, that is exactly it”.
A page that demonstrates understanding earns the right to propose something. A page that leads with its own features has not earned anything yet, and features read as noise until somebody has agreed there is a problem worth solving.
The best source for this section is not a brainstorm. It is the actual words customers use on sales calls and in emails.
5. What you actually do about it
Three or four points, each a benefit with a feature attached rather than a feature on its own. “Weekly reports, so you always know where the project is” rather than “weekly reporting”.
If the thing is visual, show it. A screenshot or a photograph outperforms a paragraph describing the same thing, and it also proves the thing exists.
6. How it works
Three or four steps from where they are now to the outcome they want.
This section does quiet, important work: it makes an unfamiliar process feel manageable, and it shows there is no trap. For anything expensive or infrequent — which is most B2B services — the fear is not that it will be bad, it is that it will be complicated and they will look foolish. Three steps answers that.
7. The objections, answered
Everyone arrives with reservations. Too expensive. Too slow. We tried this before and it did not work. We are too small. We do not have time right now.
Unanswered, those reservations are precisely why somebody leaves without acting. An FAQ is the easiest place to handle them: write down the five things people actually ask on a sales call and answer them honestly, including the awkward ones.
Addressing a weakness directly builds more trust than ignoring it. “We are not the cheapest, and here is why” converts better than silence on price.
What kills landing pages
| Mistake | Why it costs you |
|---|---|
| Full site navigation | Every link is an exit from the one thing you wanted |
| Several competing actions | A choice is a decision, and decisions get postponed |
| Asking for too much | Every extra form field is another reason to stop |
| Slow loading | Paid traffic that leaves before the page arrives is money burnt |
| A vague headline | The reader never works out whether this is for them |
| Mismatch with the ad | The promise that got the click must be the first thing they see |
| No proof | Claims without evidence read as marketing and get discounted |
The last two are worth checking today if you are running ads. If the ad says one thing and the page says something adjacent, you are paying for clicks and discarding them on arrival — and the analytics will show it as a bad page rather than a bad handover.
On speed: a landing page is the one page where loading time has a directly measurable price, because you paid for every visitor who left. Why your website is slow covers the usual causes.
How many fields should the form have?
Fewer than you want. Every field costs you some proportion of submissions, and the ones that hurt most are the ones people have to think about or feel wary of giving — phone number, company size, budget.
There is a real trade-off here rather than a right answer: fewer fields means more enquiries and more of them unqualified, more fields means fewer and better. If your sales team is swamped, add a field. If the pipeline is thin, remove one. Just make the choice deliberately rather than asking for everything because the form builder made it easy.
Then measure, change one thing, measure again
No structure survives contact with a real audience untouched. Watch what happens, change the headline, watch again. Change one thing at a time or you will not know which change did the work.
And measure the right number. A landing page has one: of the people who arrived, how many did the thing. If you are paying for the traffic, pair it with cost per enquiry — a page that converts brilliantly on clicks you cannot afford is not a success.
Do not hold your homepage to that standard, incidentally. Most of its visitors are not ready to buy, and it would be a worse page if it pretended otherwise.
We build landing pages designed around the campaign rather than retrofitted from a homepage — usually sharing the main site’s design system, so the second one costs a fraction of the first. Tell us what you are running.
