Deploy your words to make landing pages more powerful
The best landing page designs aren’t about design.
OK, they’re sort of about design. I know that my copy can enhance and work with the design, or it can put the reader off the product featured in even the best landing page designs.
Though some people consider any page where a visitor first arrives at your website to be a landing page, I’m talking about two basic types whose only goal is to either convert a visitor to an email subscriber, which we call the Rapid Conversion Landing Page, or sell a premium, paid product, which we usually refer to as a Sales Letter Landing Page.
For the latter, I always write about 1800-3000 words, and the more expensive the product, the longer the letter will be. For RCLPs we usually suggest a letter of 800 to 1500 words, since giving something away for free requires less persuasion. Either way, I consider my job to include not just writing words, but keeping in mind the landing page design and considering how I can contribute to the overall goal of the page.
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How copywriters contribute to the best landing page designs
But Mary, you say, I’m a copywriter! Why should I care about best landing page designs? Ah, but a good copywriter pays close attention to the design of the pages where your copy will reside, which should accommodate the reader’s comfort zone and expectations of the product. That look and feel must be reflected in your copy.
For example, if you’re writing copy for an investment product, whose audience is largely older white males, the design should feature plenty of white space and a plain text sales letter. This audience also responds well to what many consider old-fashioned: Blue, underlined hyperlinks that will take the visitor to a conversion page.
Your copy for this audience must therefore be well blocked, including regular indented paragraphs like this, to allow for extra white space. And when you include those blue text links, remember that a link should never simply say, “Click here.” Use that link to insert keywords for Google search! Write “Get your FREE Gold Investments Advisor now” and make that the link. “Gold investments” would be a keyword phrase for that product – not “click here.”
Of course, good blocking is always part of the best landing page designs, because letters ranging from 800 to 3000 words can look like an eye exam … and who wants to read an eye exam? And while you’re carefully indenting key paragraphs, you should also make liberal use of bulleted lists and subheads. Not only does this make the page easier on the eye, it also allows skimming, which most readers will do when initially faced with your nice long sales letter.
Formatting type to enhance best landing page designs
Another way to contribute to best landing page designs is to incorporate bold and underlined copy, which also makes scanning easier. Caution: Don’t randomly use your bold and underlining. People will read just those words – as you should when you’re writing – and if they create nonsense or simply don’t tell the story you’re trying to convey to a skimmer, you’ve lost them. Do this:
You know what I love most about Hidden Gardens? It’s a completely unique gardening magazine that doesn’t just give growing advice, it’s also about travel and photography for gardeners. I’d love for you to come with me to the orchid gardens of Hawaii and discover the master gardeners’ secrets for growing the world’s most beautiful orchids. Or venture into the farmlands of the Netherlands to discover the history, the majesty, and the diversity of the tulip and the bulb industry that it built!
Wherever Hidden Gardens takes us, we interview the master gardeners behind the world’s garden gems to share in the secrets of their success.
Not this:
You know what I love most about Hidden Gardens? It’s a completely unique gardening magazine that doesn’t just give growing advice, it’s also about travel and photography for gardeners. I’d love for you to come with me to the orchid gardens of Hawaii and discover the master gardeners’ secrets for growing the world’s most beautiful orchids. Or venture into the farmlands of the Netherlands to discover the history, the majesty, and the diversity of the tulip and the bulb industry that it built!
Wherever Hidden Gardens takes us, we interview the master gardeners behind the world’s garden gems to share in the secrets of their success.
Another technique for enhancing best landing page designs is using lots of power words. The most commonly known, of course, are “free,” “sale,” “you” and “save.” But power words are more than just those: They are usually adverbs, adjectives and nouns, like “pure,” “discover,” and “happily.”
Even better: Use bold power words in a bulleted, indented list of the benefits your product conveys (you remember about benefits instead of features, don’t you?).
Finally, the best landing page designs will feature copy that uses language understandable by the audience, avoids jargon, and relies on clear language and good grammar. No, not everyone would recognize good grammar when they see it, but imagine the page visitors who do recognize bad grammar – you’ve just lost them.
There are thousands of copywriters out there, so make yourself more valuable and employable by taking to heart the mission of enhancing and contributing to the power of the best landing page designs you’re writing for! Designers, marketers and yes, the consumer of your products will thank you. And if you have some tips for using your words to contribute to best landing page designs, please share them here. The community will thank you, and we’ll all be better copywriters.
