How to Land Gently on a Landing Page

After rewriting and writing literally hundreds of landing pages, I have a couple of things to admit. First of all, I'm not an expert for landing pages. Secondly, I have no intention to lecture someone how a landing page should look like. Finally, I can summarize my findings and help you to avoid some of the mistakes I didn't have to make, in the first place.

So, here we go:

#1 Don't you even dare to reinvent the wheel

All landing pages look alike, don't they? However, there's not much you can do about it. Believe me, I have asked my clients for hundreds time the same thing over and over again. Why can't we create something original instead of following the boring and annoying pattern of hundreds of landing pages, which look as if they were copy-pasted a moment ago? The answers are extremely disappointing. This is something our users are used to see and use. So, "experimenting" in this field would be extremely dangerous. And I was like, this is perfectly OK. Who am I to question my client's decisions? Right?

My word of advice. Find a landing page you like, and make sire you follow the safe path.

#2 There are no picky Landing page doers

What's this supposed to mean? Well, it doesn't matter what you plan to do with your landing page: write text for it, design it, or promote it. You simply have to forget how do you feel personally about it. I have seen all kinds of enhancers and miraculous solutions.

Do you know what happened? After a few projects, I decided to look the other way. How do I feel about them? Would I buy or recommend some of these heavily endorsed solutions? I respectfully decline to answer this question.

There's no bad or indecent landing page. You do your job like a true pro and please don't complain.

#3 You will have your creativity chance

The structure and patterns of landing pages are painfully boring and similar. Yet, you will still have your chance to be unique and creative with catchy headlines and original descriptions. I know that people who like to buy and order products endorsed by landing pages have certain expectations in terms of composition and main structure. Yet, rest assured that no one cares if you can present a product in a funny and interesting way. So, follow the landing page rules on the outside, but do your thing from the inside, where it truly matters. Hope this makes sense to you.

#4 Don't underestimate testimonials

This is something that has happened so many times already. You give your best shot with shiny designs and eye-catching phrases. You use someone else's testimonials or write your own versions with no much attention given to the details. At least, you should give it try for testimonials to sound as if they were taken from the real people. In addition, include a realistic tone here and there. Meaning, all testimonials shouldn't be ridiculously flattering and positive. Respect your audience and treat them as intelligent people. This is a funny thing to say, but some landing pages are the true IQ tests, if you know what I mean.

#5 It's not all about design and pictures

People tend to pay too much attention to the visual impact of a landing page. If this is the case, then we wouldn't need the good old content. Right? This may come as a surprise, but people like to read as much as they want to examine all pictures, videos, and similar visually appealing material on your landing page. Therefore, all components of your landing page matter. So, don't make a mistake by favoring designers or writers.

#6 The endless and pointless scroll down

I have seen and made gigantic and monstrous landing pages with more than 20,000 or even 30,000 words. Believe me, those aren't landing pages, but rather endless one-page books. We think that people get impressed by the never-ending stories we present them on our landing pages. Yet, the truth is that you can make your point with 3,000 or 5,000 words just fine. There's really no need to create your own War and Peace landing page versions. You believe that you'll knock your potential customers off their feet, but you're actually creating a mission impossible scenario regarding your content.

Final thoughts and the future of Landing pages

You have probably realized by now that I'm not a huge landing pages fan. However, they're paying my bills, so I'm not going to bite my feeding hand. In addition, landing pages aren't going to become an outdated form any time soon. Yet, some changes and innovations are more than welcomed. Mobile versions represent the biggest challenge for landing pages. Mobile devices ask from you to rationalize all available space very carefully.

I'm not sure how helpful was this "critical reflection" on landing pages for you. I know it sounds like too much theory. That's why it's always better to discuss a real-life example in order to clearly determine all of its strengths and weaknesses. That's the thing with landing pages. You think that you have seen them all. However, there's always a surprise with a new landing page you're working on. So, prepare to be bored, but don't forget to keep an open door for surprises.