Landing pages

What landing pages are

A landing page is a single page built for people arriving from one specific source, such as an ad, an email, a printed code or a link in a talk, and asking them to do one specific thing. It has no menu, no sidebar and no links to the rest of the site, because every exit is a lost decision. The headline repeats the promise the visitor just clicked on, and the page then earns the action it asks for.

It is not a service page. A service page is permanent, lives in the navigation and has to serve every visitor; a landing page is temporary, hidden from the navigation and serves one group. It is also not the home page with the menu removed. A home page has to work for anyone; a landing page only has to work for the person the ad was written for.

When you need one

You need a landing page whenever you are paying to send people somewhere. Paid advertising, a sponsored newsletter, a trade-show code, a direct-mail campaign or a webinar sign-up. Sending that traffic to the home page means the visitor has to find the offer they were promised, and most do not look.

You also need one when the offer is time-limited or audience-limited: a seasonal service, a pilot programme, a workshop with twelve seats. Putting that on a permanent service page confuses the people who arrive later.

You do not need one if nobody is being sent anywhere. A business with no campaign and no advertising gets more from a good service page. And if a landing page already exists and reads well but the form stays empty, conversion copy is the narrower repair.

What goes in it

A landing page is a short argument in a fixed order, and the order matters more than the length.

1. The headline that matches the source. If the ad said "free furnace inspection before October", the headline says the same thing in the same words. A mismatch is the most common reason a visitor leaves inside three seconds.
2. The offer, stated plainly. What they get, what it costs, what it does not include, and by when. One paragraph.
3. Who it is for. The reader should recognise themselves in the first sentence, and the wrong reader should recognise that it is not for them.
4. Why you. Two or three reasons a buyer can check, not adjectives. A licence number, a years-in-business figure, a named guarantee.
5. Proof. One quote with a name and a place, one photograph of real work, or one result you can stand behind.
6. The objections. The three questions this audience asks before they act, answered in the order they ask them. These come from your sales calls, not from guesswork.
7. The action. One form or one button, with the label stating what happens next: "Book the inspection", not "Submit".
8. What happens after. One sentence under the button. Who will call, when, and what they will need.

The form itself is part of the copy. Every field you ask for costs you some of the people who started filling it in, so the page asks for the minimum the next step needs.

What you get

The copy. The full page in a document of two to three pages: headline, sections in order, form labels, button text, the sentence after the button, and the title tag for the page.

Two headline variants. Written to the same promise, so you can run one against the other if your advertising allows it.

The page outline. A one-page sketch showing section order and the one place the form goes, for your designer or developer.

The thank-you page copy. The short page shown after the form is sent, because a landing page that ends in "Thank you for your submission" has stopped one step early.

A walkthrough call. Thirty minutes with whoever builds the page and whoever runs the campaign, so the ad, the page and the follow-up say the same thing.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A heating contractor runs a paid campaign every September offering a fixed-price furnace inspection. The ad sends people to the home page, where the inspection is one of eleven items in a menu. The office gets calls asking "where is the thing from the ad", and the campaign is judged a failure two years running.

The landing page opens with the same eight words as the ad and the same price. One paragraph says what the inspection covers and what it does not. Three short answers cover the questions the office hears most: how long it takes, whether they need to be home, and what happens if a fault is found. One quote from a homeowner, with a first name and a neighbourhood, sits above a form asking for a name, a phone number and a postal code. The button says "Book my September inspection". The thank-you page says the office will call within one working day to fix a time. The page is under four hundred words and has no menu. The office now knows exactly which calls came from the ad.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. The offer, where the traffic comes from, what the ad or email says, and what you want a visitor to do. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Scope, price and dates agreed before anything starts.
3. Research. Two to four working days: the ad copy, your sales calls or inbox for the objections, and any earlier page that was tried.
4. The draft. You read it beside the ad. One round of changes is included.
5. The final copy, outline and thank-you page. Delivered with the walkthrough call.

One to two weeks from first call to final copy is typical. A campaign with a fixed launch date is scheduled backwards from that date.

What it costs

A landing page is quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call. The price depends on whether the offer is already settled or has to be worked out, how much research into objections is needed, and whether the ad or email that feeds the page also needs writing. The number is agreed in writing before the work starts, and the pricing page explains how quotes are built.

What happens next

A landing page is one part of a campaign, and the parts either side of it are usually next. The ad copy that sends people to the page and the lead nurture sequence that follows up with the people who signed up are each written to match it. If the same offer will run every year, a permanent service page for it means the landing page can be retired without losing the offer.