GUIDE

LANDING PAGE
OPTIMIZATION
  

ABOUT THIS GUIDE 

 

Entrepreneurs sometimes make the mistake of sending traffic — whether from social media, paid advertising 
or other channels — directly to their homepage. The homepage, though, was likely designed to appeal to a 
broad audience, so your message isn’t specific, and people might not connect with it. Instead, sending traffic to 
landing pages that are targeted to the individual audience you’re targeting allows you to focus on one specific 
goal or offer. In this guide, we’ll break down each component of a landing page and give you the tools 
necessary to create conversion-driving pages for any goal you have in your business. 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

 
CHAPTER 1 

What Are Landing Pages? 

 
CHAPTER 2 

Your Audience  
 
CHAPTER 3  

Crafting Your Landing Pages 

 
CHAPTER 4  

Split Testing 
 
 
 
 
 
 

   
  

CHAPTER 1 

WHAT ARE LANDING PAGES? 

 
Landing pages are standalone web pages that encourage visitors to take a specific action. They can be used for 
a number of different purposes. The most common types of landing pages are: 

● Sales page 
● Order form 
● Lead generation page 
● Thank you page 
● Event page  

Whatever your landing page is used for, it should have just one goal and one desired outcome, unlike a website 
homepage that has many different paths a visitor can take. Most landing pages rely on a headline, subhead, 
body copy, social proof, and a call to action to catch attention and drive conversions — whether that means a 
purchase or opting in for an email list.  
 

How Do Visitors Get to Landing Pages? 

There are a few ways for your page visitors to get to your landing pages:  

PAID ADS​ You pay to advertise your landing page on the internet. Paid ads are an easy way to direct traffic from 
Facebook, Google or similar sources to your landing page.  

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EMAILS​ You can send emails with links to a landing page. 

YOUR WEBSITE​ You can create buttons and links on your website to drive visitors to strategic landing pages. 

SEARCH ENGINES​ You can organically direct those searching for related information to the landing page. 

Crafting Your Landing Pages  

Crafting individual landing pages for each marketing campaign or each audience you might attract is a common 
practice in today’s marketing world, thanks to personalization tools and CRM data that help us understand how 
best to target every audience. Studies have shown that just one effective landing page can yield an ROI of 300% 
so, even if you only plan to optimize one page, the possible benefits are huge. 

Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when crafting all landing pages: 

BE SPECIFIC  
Above all, your landing page should be specific. According to tests online marketing guru Neil Patel has run, 
highly specific landing pages outperformed generic pages and increased form submissions by 115%. 

LESS = MORE (GENERALLY)  

Creating landing pages that are short and to-the-point is usually the way to go. That, however, depends on the 
goal of your landing page. If it’s a lead generation landing page with a free ebook offer, you’ll probably want the 
page to be shorter and more concise. Selling higher-priced products on a click-through landing page generally 
needs a longer explanation to convince visitors to purchase. The trick is finding a balance between pages that 
are so short that visitors aren’t motivated to convert vs. pages that are so long that visitors are distracted or 
lose interest. 

CONTINUITY CONVERTS  
Consistent design on all the marketing related to your landing pages — links on your website, online ads, etc. — 
is vital in converting visitors. This instills trust; potential customers won’t purchase a product or provide their 
contact information to a business they don’t trust. 

LIMIT LINKS  
Make sure to create your landing pages with as few outbound links as possible — outbound links kill 
conversions! You want to keep your readers on your pages so they hit your call-to-action. Make sure to limit the 
clicking options available to your visitors so as to remove possible exit routes. This will guide them to your 
landing page goal: conversion. If you must include a link, then a company logo with a link back to your 
homepage is acceptable. 

GET PERSONAL  
You’ve created your segments and completed demographic research. Now’s the time to use that key 
information. For example, your women’s health supplement ads on Google most likely won’t be targeted 
toward men, so don’t make a landing page which caters to men. Align your overall message and conversion 
goal with the person to whom you are selling. 

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DON’T FORGET SEO  

While landing pages are separate from your homepage, they still function as a page on your website, so don’t 
forget about SEO. Although your pages may not rank highly, you’ll be seriously docked by Google for having 
pages on your website that aren’t SEO-friendly, which now also includes mobile responsivity. 

  

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CHAPTER 2 

YOUR AUDIENCE 

Understanding your audience involves knowing a lot of information about their relationship with your brand 
and product. Here are some things you’ll want to know about your audience:  
 

● How did they get to your landing page?  

● What problems do they have? 
● How do you solve their problems? 
● Have they interacted with your brand before? 
● If so, what was their experience? Did they buy something, subscribe to your newsletter, or keep their 
eye on a specific product?  
● Do they follow you on any social media platforms?  
 

With an integrated CRM software, you would ideally have all of this information in your database already. By 
analyzing this data about your audience, you can find trends regarding who you typical customer is, how long it 
takes for them to purchase after their initial encounter with your brand, and what information they need to 
make their buying decision. All of this information can and should be used to create your landing pages.   

Eugene Schwartz, author of Breakthrough Advertising, which has been referred to as “the bible of copywriting,” 
says there are five stages of awareness that every prospect on your landing page can fall into.  
 
 

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1. UNAWARE:​ This visitor doesn’t realize that he/she has a problem.  

2. PAIN-AWARE: T
​ his visitor is aware that he/she has pain from something but hasn’t started diagnosing 
the problem or looking for a solution.  
3. SOLUTION-AWARE:​ This visitor is looking for solutions to their problem, but this is probably the first 
time they’re encountering your brand as an option.  
4. PRODUCT-AWARE: T
​ his visitor has heard of you, has narrowed down his/her search for a solution, and 
you’re still in the running.  
5. MOST AWARE:​ This visitor has more or less decided to go with your solution but is still evaluating your 
pricing and offers.  

Segmenting  
You can segment your audience based on different qualities of each audience your offer might attract, such as 
pain-points, gender and stage in the customer lifecycle.  
 

SEGMENTING BY PERSONAS 

Developing personas or avatars for your audience is a common way that businesses segment. The data you 
collected when researching your audience might show trends in gender, age, location or any other qualities that 
a majority of your customers have. That information can then be used to create a fictional character that 
represents your customers.  

While this type of segmenting can help you tailor your messaging around specific audiences who are often 
interested in your offer, it has some gaping holes. If your business sells comfortable shoes, and you only target 
your two most common personas – doctors and pregnant women – you might miss out on all the other people 
who might need your product, such as a 45-year-old dad who works on his feet or a 22-year-old college student 
who has back problems.  

SEGMENTING BY PAIN POINTS 

To cover all your bases, try segmenting by pain points instead. The one thing your customers will have in 
common is that they have a problem you can solve. The soon-to-be-mom, doctor, dad and college student are 
all looking for comfortable shoes, and you can provide that.  

The first step to segmenting based on pain points is to step back and consider the true outcomes your 
customers experience from each of your products or services. What problem are you solving for them, and how 
are you making their lives better? What are their goals with each product or service?   

It’s important to get specific. You may solve similar problems across a variety of products, and it would be 
tempting to bunch many products under one pain point, but going a level deeper will garner better results. 
Your messaging, images, offers and positioning would all be precisely related to what the people in each 
audience can relate to — the first step in building a relationship with a new prospect. 

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CURATING INDIVIDUALIZED LANDING PAGE CONTENT 

Once you’ve segmented your audience, you can start crafting your landing page content to reflect each 
audience using pain points and solutions that are most relevant to them. For example, you can use separate 
landing pages to show content about the importance of comfortable shoes for people with back pain or the 
importance of comfortable shoes for people who work on their feet all day. However you choose to segment 
your audience, crafting individualized content that resonates with your readers as relevant and specific to their 
needs will greatly increase conversions.  

Some landing page builders, like ONTRAPORT, allow you to use conditional blocks on your landing pages. This 
means your landing pages will show different content to different visitors depending on predetermined 
conditions such as where they came from or who they are.   

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CHAPTER 3 

CRAFTING YOUR LANDING PAGES 

 

Landing pages will vary for every business since they will be optimized for many different personas and 
audiences. However, there are some guidelines that you can follow to ensure your landing pages have all the 
right components. 

Landing pages that are used for selling a product or service typically have a headline and supporting subhead, 
an offer, benefit statements, a form, images or media, social proof and a call to action. Other types of landing 
pages might have different elements (check out the Landing Page Optimization Checklists for exactly what you 
need for five different types of landing pages: a thank you page, order page, sales page, lead capture page and 
event page). Here’s an overview of each component.  
 

Components of Landing Page Copy 

HEADLINES 

Headlines are the first thing people read when visiting your landing page, so they need to clearly state the value 
and content of your landing page — and weed out the visitors you can’t help.  

If visitors landed on a page with the headline “Learn to Speak Norwegian With a 30 Minute Lesson Every Day,” 
but they were looking for a website that would translate English into Norwegian, they’d likely click back 
immediately. The headline clearly showed that this page wasn’t going to solve their problems. The visitors who 
landed on this page and were interested in learning Norwegian, though, would stay.  

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The goal of the headline should not be to get all visitors to stay and read more. If the headline read, “English to 
Norwegian, Fast!” you might have wasted your visitors’ time. They’d be left with a negative opinion of your 
brand as a company that wasted their time and couldn’t solve their problems.  

The first headline, “Learn to Speak Norwegian With a 30 Minute Lesson Every Day,” might send some people 
away, but that’s okay. You want a headline that keeps the right people on your page, people you can actually 
help.  

In order to make sure your headline attracts only you right-match visitors, it should spell out exactly what your 
page is for. To put it simply, your headline should explain:  

● What your offer is (lessons everyday) 

● What your offer does (helps you speak Norwegian) 
● Why your offer is valuable (only 30 minutes)  
 

PROVEN HEADLINE FORMULAS THAT CONVERT 

Although headlines will need different tactics depending on your product and the page, below are a few 
formulas that have been proven to work for a majority of business.  
 

1. SHOW YOUR VALUE:​ This headline highlights your unique approach to the problem visitors have and 
why your approach is valuable.  
○ Example: For 30 Minutes a Day and Less Than 4 Cents a Minute, You Can Learn Norwegian on 
Any Budget or Time Crunch”  
2. LIST SOMETHING:​ This headline shows that your offer is clear and easy to use. You might list tips, 
tricks, strategies, or anything else that your landing page offers.  
○ Example: “Try These Three Tricks to Learn Norwegian Fast” 
3. MAKE A PROMISE (BUT ONLY ONE YOU CAN KEEP): T
​ his headline offers a promise that your product 
can actually follow through on.  
○ Example: Have a Conversion in Norwegian in One Month With Just 30 Minute of Practice a Day 
4. SHOW THE PATH: T
​ his headline outlines the path of getting from Point A to Point B.  
○ Example: Go From Beginner to Advanced With These Norwegian Speaking Lessons  
5. USE A TESTIMONIAL:​ This headline uses your customers’ own words to share your value. 
○ Example: “In One Month I Was Ready to Have Dinner With My New Norwegian Family — While 
Speaking Norwegian!” 
6. MAKE A COMPARISON: ​This headline is used when you know you have popular competitors that your 
visitors might know of and/or be considering.  
○ Example: “Don’t Waste Your Money On Expensive Workbooks — Try Our Proven Method to 
Learn Norwegian Fast!”  

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7. HIGHLIGHT THEIR PAIN POINTS:​ This headline will expose the problem or difficulty that they’re likely 
encountering.  
○ Example: “It’s Hard to Find Time to Learn a New Language. That’s Why We Only Ask for 30 
Minutes a Day to Start Speaking Norwegian In Weeks!”   

SUBHEADS 

While headlines capture attention, subheads hold attention. Subheads are great ways to reinforce your 
headline and provide extra information about your offer. They’re typically the second thing people read, the 
first being the headline, so they need to both support your headline and entice your visitors to keep looking at 
the page. You can also use multiple subheads throughout your landing page to break up content — as long as 
they don’t steal any attention away from the headline. 

There are a few tactics you can follow to create a good subhead but, whichever you choose, it should align well 
with the headline.  

1. HIGHLIGHT THE VALUE: B

​ y highlighting exactly how valuable your offer is, you can lead visitors into 
learning more further down your page. One way to do this is to put a price on the value of your offer, 
something that should be higher than what you’re charging. You can also use testimonials to show how 
other people found your offer so valuable. 
2. DESCRIBE WHAT THEY’LL GET: U
​ sing the subhead to tell visitors exactly what they’ll get if they keep 
reading or convert will help them more quickly decide if they want to stay on your page or not. If you’re 
offering audial language-learning, your subhead can say exactly that. Aside from the value, this tactic 
might also include adjectives about the type of product, how it works, or how the visitor will get it (i.e., 
download, email, free shipping, etc.). 
3. TELL THEM WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO:​ This is a great tactic for reinforcing your call to action. If 
your call to action is very specific or needs explaining, the subhead is a great way to introduce it. This is 
also a good way to drive conversions because it keeps the call to action at the forefront throughout the 
visitors whole experience on your page. 

Whatever strategy you decide to go with, try following these tips to maximize the effectiveness of your 
headlines and subheads. 

● Keep them short and sweet — get right to the point.  

● Be persuasive! You have to convince visitors they’ll benefit from what you’re offering. 
● Focus them on one thing, and make them relevant to your offer. 
● Be creative! A unique headline and subhead will help your landing page stand out and  
gain attention.  

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BODY CONTENT 

The body of your landing page should start and support the conversation that you want your clients to have 
about your product. In order to write conversion-driving copy, you need to know exactly what you want your 
clients to feel, think and do when on your page. In our example above, you have a product that helps people 
learn Norwegian.  
 

1. You want them to feel: ​that it’s easier and more affordable than they thought it would be to learn 
Norwegian. 
2. You want them to think: ​that this is a product they actually have time and budget for and could really 
benefit from. 
3. You want them to do: a
​ n activity such as fill out a form, subscribe to a newsletter or get a free trial. 
 

The body copy of your landing page needs to provide details and benefits of your offer, prompt your visitors to 
your page’s call to action, and ultimately convince them to convert. Once you begin to understand that people 
only care about how they can benefit from your offer, copywriting will become much easier.  

Landing page expert Liston Witherill expands on this concept in his post on the ONTRAPORT Blog:  

“Plain and simple, your business writing is not about you — this is by far the most important axiom of any 
copywriter. The reason? Because you’re selling to other people, and what they need and want is much more 
important than you.” 

Landing page copy will vary in length and format. Depending on the type of landing page, you might have just 
one paragraph describing your offer and CTA, or you might have tons of text going into more detail, personal 
client stories, sharing free tips, etc. Studies have shown that there really is no particular length that drives 
conversion — it solely depends on your business, offer, and the specific landing page. Whatever your unique 
page calls for, using bullet points, stats and other tips listed below is a great way to keep your audience 
engaged. Here are some tips:  
 

● BULLET POINTS:​ Using bullet points is the fastest way to get your message across and makes your 
copy highly scannable — which is how most people will be reading your landing pages. Make sure your 
content is simple, easy to read, and to the point. Also, psychologically, people prioritize the first and 
last bullet points of a series, so include the most important points at the very beginning and the very 
end. 
● FEATURE-BENEFIT STATEMENTS: T
​ hese bulleted benefit statements tell your leads exactly what your 
product or service offers and what they will gain from your business. When writing feature-benefit 
statements, it’s very important to understand the difference between the feature and the benefit. A 
feature is a tangible item or skill that your product or service offers (i.e., a zoom lense). The benefit is 
the feature’s impact (i.e., takes higher-quality photos). 

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● CONGRUENCE:​ Make sure all of your body copy reflects your headline — congruence is key. This 
ensures the entire page strategically follows the same goal and message, which keeps your readers on 
one track to your call to action. 
● STATS: ​Using stats can be a highly persuasive and effective copywriting strategy to employ on your 
landing pages — they help back up your statements with data. 
● URGENCY:​ This is a really important one. Urgency is a highly powerful motivator and proven to 
substantially increase conversions. To get people to act and respond to your offer quickly, adjust your 
copy to include phrases such as “limited time offer,” “instant,” “today,” “now” and “hurry.” 
● EMOTIONS: W
​ rite with your prospects’ emotions in mind. Describe how your offer will solve one of 
their problems or improve their lives in some way. 
● HIGHLY FOCUSED:​ Omit any useless content, and only include copy that is relevant to your page and 
directly supports your call to action. 
 

TESTIMONIALS AND SOCIAL PROOF 

Including testimonials and social proof within the body of your landing pages is a great way to build trust with 
your visitors. If visitors trust your business, they are much more likely to convert.  

Testimonials are powerful endorsements when they appear on landing pages: Visitors want to see how other 
people like them succeeded — they want to be able to really relate to these people and think, “That guy was 
just like me and now he’s a success. I can do that too!” Adding elements such as customer testimonials, awards 
and partner logos are validators and tell visitors they can trust your business. 

Tips for using social proof on landing pages: 

 

● Include a short yet convincing testimonial. Make sure it “proves” that your business is awesome.  
● Choose customer testimonials that will appeal to the audience you’re targeting. If a specific landing 
page is meant for younger people, then use a young person as your testimonial. 
● If you work with any recognizable companies, include their logos. It’s trust by association and increases 
conversions. 
 

Components of Landing Page Design 

IMAGES 
Including high-quality images on your landing pages is an excellent way to engage visitors and keep them from 
quickly leaving your page. A captivating image can take your landing page from good to great. Here are some 
basic image components you can consider including in your landing page. 

CAPTION 
Images that are used just as backgrounds might not be appropriate for caption, but testimonial images and 

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product images are often good candidates. If you have room for a caption in your image, you can use the space 
to more information about what’s pictured and use keywords that can help improve your page’s SEO. Often, 
people who don’t want to read your body copy will instead scan the page to look for images and read the 
captions, so making sure the captions reflect the page content is imperative.  

FILE NAME 
If your page has images, it also has file names. Although most visitors won’t notice the file name which appears 
in the URL if your image is clicked, it’s still important your site’s SEO and is an easy way to boost ranking. When 
uploading your image, save the file as a name that reflects what’s depicted in the image to get the most SEO 
optimization from your images.  

ORIGINAL CONTENT 
Using original images and media is better than stock images because they perform better in SEO ranking. Even 
if you’re not a professional photographer, hiring someone to take photos of your products or investing in a few 
classes and tools yourself can be worth it for future landing pages.  

ALT TAGS 
Although often overlooked, alt tags are another good SEO tool that you can easily add to your images. Using 
associated keywords, the alt tags will increase ranking and will be used if the images on your site don’t load 
properly, ensuring visitors still understand what should be seen.  

Including these components is a great way to maximize your images’ potential. Here are a few general tips to 
follow for the actual image you choose to use: 
 

● If possible, show your product being used in context. Try showing your product in action with real 
people, in real situations. 
● Make your images eye-catching. Don’t bother adding a photo if it isn’t interesting or doesn’t add 
significant value to your landing page. 
● Don’t use stock photos. They make your page look tacky and unprofessional — visitors will immediately 
leave your page. 
● While it’s nice, you don’t need a professional photographer to take photos of your product — standard 
smartphones act as completely suitable cameras these days. 
● Include a product hero image that shows the visitors everything they’re getting or what they can 
expect. 
 

VIDEO 
If used correctly, an interesting video can be more impactful than any other element on your landing page. 
Engaging videos are smart to incorporate on landing pages because they immediately capture your visitors’ 
attention, take very little effort to consume, and have shown to improve conversion by up to 80%. You can 
follow the same image tips for your videos, including alt tags, file names and owned content.  

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CALL TO ACTION 
The call to action, or CTA, is where your visitors convert — the most important job of a landing page. All the 
elements on your landing page must be strategically aimed at sending visitors to your call to action, which you’ll 
describe in copy but also typically portray in a button that you want the visitor to click. Your CTA will likely differ 
depending on what type of landing page you’re using. Generally, sales landing pages will include a CTA button 
to link users to the next page where they can make a purchase. A lead generation landing page will likely 
feature a form where visitors enter their contact information.  

Whatever your CTA is, you want to make sure it’s simple, clear and friendly. Nobody likes to do things when 
they’re yelled at and told they have to, so make sure your copy doesn’t come off that way on your landing page. 
Instead, you want them to make the decision to act based on all the great reasons you’ve given in the body copy 
so far.  

A good example of a friendly CTA for a sales page would be, “Give us a try now!” This CTA isn’t forcing them to 
buy from you or telling them why they’re making a mistake if they don’t. It’s just prompting them to act on all of 
the information they’ve already been given. For an event page, you might say, “Join us” or “Grab your tickets 
here” to slightly nudge them to buy their tickets. Here are some tips for writing CTAs for two different types of 
landing pages: sales and lead generation.  

Tips for enticing CTA buttons for sales landing pages 

● Make them big! Above all, you want people’s eyes to land on the headline and the CTA. Finding your 
CTA should be easy. 
● Place them above the fold — the whole point of your page is to get people to click your CTA, so don’t 
make them hunt for it. 
● If your landing page is longer (it depends on the context of your product or service), make sure you 
include multiple CTAs so the visitor can convert from anywhere on the page. If you do this, make sure 
the CTAs are all the same. 
● While there’s no one color that’s proven to be best, choose a color for your CTA that is distinctively 
different than the color scheme of your page. For example, if your landing page features a lot of blue, 
then choose a contrasting color such as orange or red for your button. 

Tips for enticing CTA forms for lead generation landing pages 

● Make them large — they need to stand out, and it should be apparent to the visitors that their next 
course of action is to fill out the form. 
● Include as few fields as possible. If you only need their name and email address, don’t waste their time 
by including fields asking for their website or company name — you risk scaring your visitors off. 
● Make sure your forms are mobile-responsive so people can view and fill them out from their phones. 
● Place the form on the right side of your landing page — it converts much better there than on the left 
side of the page. 

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Don’t use boring text on your CTA buttons. Try replacing weak verbs such as “Submit” with an actionable phrase 
like “Send me my free PDF!” 
 

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CHAPTER 4 

SPLIT TESTING 
 

Once you have all of the copy and design ready on your landing page, you can start split testing which elements 
on your page convert and which don’t.  

Split testing is the process of running experiments on two or more pages simultaneously and then comparing 
them to see which prompts more engagement with your CTA. Just like experiments in your seventh grade 
science class, you need a “control” page that doesn’t change and a “variant” page that does change. Once your 
pages are set up and you’ve chosen something to test, you can start sending 50% of visitors to Page A and 50% 
of visitors to Page B. After a set period of time, you can measure which version is more successful at converting, 
and choose to continue using that one only.  

The best part about split testing is you can choose any element you want to test. Headlines, content, CTAs, 
forms, offers, design, colors, and testimonials are all great elements to test. 

Tips for split testing your landing pages 

 

● Always be testing. Maintaining an up-to-date and optimized iteration of your landing page will ensure 
your page is working effectively and help you learn why. 
● Pay attention to key stats for measuring page effectiveness, including page visits, conversions, and 
time on page.  
● Be wary of basing your landing page’s effectiveness on conversions. By always choosing the elements 
that convert the best, your page could risk being too spammy (multiple CTAs, lightbox, popups, etc.). 

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● Test for a long enough period of time to get accurate results. Many studies suggest six months for one 
test is a good time to see real, untainted results from your split test. However, many people don’t want 
to wait that long. A couple weeks or months is a good place to start because anything else might have 
outside factors influencing your results.  
 

Split testing your landing pages allows you to pinpoint the area of your pages that are working and areas that 
could use improvement. With each improvement, you’ll be working towards optimizing each component of your 
landing page, leading to a fully optimized page that drives conversions. Testing and tinkering with the copy and 
design components will help you determine what works — and what doesn’t — so that you can be sure you’re 
putting your marketing efforts and budget to their best use.   

 
 

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