Don’t deceive your reader
This should be obvious, but it’s not about lying. When you are in the middle of writing a landing page, you will find that it’s very easy to start exaggerating certain elements of your product without even realizing it. Always ensure that you are accurate and truthful about every aspect of your product, and be prepared to double check all your text several times before constructing your landing page and making it live. We’ll get into this in more detail in the section on editing your writing.
Don’t forget to insert those keywords
Remember all that keyword research you did? Well now is the time to keep that list of keywords close at hand while you are writing. You will need to make sure that your text is peppered with these without it spoiling the overall appearance of your writing. If you have ever read any piece of writing that has gone overboard with keywords and phrases, you will know how stilted and uninformative it can be. It becomes clear that the main task of the writer has been to get as many keywords in as possible. So while you should try and ensure that your landing page is as appealing to the search engines and to your potential buyers as possible, the number one priority should always be that your text is readable and that it flows.
Avoid using long sentences
Here’s a quick tip for you – once you have completed the first draft of your landing page, read it out loud. This is the single best way for rooting out any long sentences. Keeping them short will make the page easier to read. It will also make it easier to order your thoughts and to make sure that you don’t confuse the reader by throwing them too much information in one go. The rule of thumb is this – if you are reading the text aloud and you run out of puff before you get to the end of a sentence, try rewriting that sentence so it’s shorter.
Don’t apologize for anything
Every product has a downside in one form or another. It may only be a disadvantage when you compare it to a rival product, but you can still usually find something to point to. However, the trick is to turn that downside into a positive. And you should certainly never point out any disadvantage your product might have, because you will lose sales if you do. Try and identify any potential problems before you start writing, and think about how you can turn them around. For example, let’s say you are releasing a new eBook on starting your own business. You know there are others on the market and they are twice the length of yours. But instead of bringing attention to that in a negative way, you should think about how you can throw a positive light on it. Don’t even mention the length of the others. Instead, you could say something along the lines of your guide being the most no fluff and compact guide around today.
The 800-Pound Gorilla: 305-page guide for Writing, Publishing, and Selling EBooks and 17 video tutorials at The Wealthy Plumber: Writing, Publishing & Selling EBooks.
Write a great headline
We’ve mentioned headlines already, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the headline is one of the ten most important parts of any landing page. As such it should press some buttons and grab your reader’s attention. If it doesn’t, they may not get any further at all. That’s why you shouldn’t settle on the first headline you think of. It’s a good idea to make a shortlist of all the ones you can come up with, before evaluating each one carefully to see which one is the most powerful. Once again, take a look at as many landing page headlines as you can lay your eyes on; they will all help you to learn exactly how to reel people in. Even one word changed here and there could elevate your conversion rate significantly. For more information on optimizing headings check out the ultimate 305-page writing, publishing, and selling guide on the planet at The Wealthy Plumber with the link at bottom of this page.
Put words in their mouths
This is a neat psychological technique that takes a while to get used to, but once you know how to use it, you will be amazed at the results it can get you. You are probably familiar with the power of suggestion, where you state a fact rather than asking if someone believes that fact. By stating it positively you can have a huge influence on how someone reacts to the words on your landing page. For example, if you want someone to believe that your eBook is the best one on that subject; you would make sure you put that positive statement into a sentence. So the statement would be: “You know that our eBook is the best one on this subject.” And the sentence that you’d put this phrase into would go something like this: “Whether or not you know that our eBook is the best one on this subject…” You see how that positive sentence is still there? This can be very effective if used several times during the course of the page.
Put the price in the right place
The price of your product is of course very important, and most people will want to know how much money they are going to have to part with in order to get the product. But you should never disclose that price until near the end of the landing page itself. If you reveal it too quickly, you stand a chance of putting people off buying it altogether. The benefits must come first – you must pre-sell it before letting people know how much it will cost them. You cannot make a valued judgment on whether or not the product is worth buying – regardless of the price – until you know more about it. So make sure you save this bit for last, otherwise you will lose a lot of sales that you may otherwise have made.
Add relevant bonuses
This is a technique that works well if you choose the right bonuses to offer alongside your main product. The perfect bonus is one that has much more value to the customer than it does to you. For example, if you are selling an eBook you can easily give away free reports and other similar items with it. These may be worth a great deal to the customer if they would have to pay twenty or thirty dollars to get them separately elsewhere, even though to you they are sitting on your hard drive, and there is no inherent cost in giving them away. Make sure the bonus complements your main product though; don’t give something away that is unrelated to it.
The 800-Pound Gorilla: 305-page guide for Writing, Publishing, and Selling EBooks and 17 video tutorials at The Wealthy Plumber: Writing, Publishing & Selling EBooks.
Make sure you understand what a landing page is
This might sound strange, but some people THINK they know, but they have never done their research properly. A landing page is a single web page whose entire purpose is to sell a single product. You should never try and squeeze more ‘value’ out of a landing page by trying to sell more than one thing from it.
Research other landing pages
There’s nothing better than taking a look at what is already out there. It goes without saying that you shouldn’t copy anything, but the more landing pages you read, the more the techniques that have been used on them will percolate into your brain. And that will make writing them yourself much easier. It doesn’t matter what products are being promoted on those landing pages either. If you are selling an eBook for example, you should still look at landing pages that have been created for physical products of all kinds. The techniques used in all of them will be very similar, and you’ll start to spot them after a while.
Determine what other successful sellers do
This goes hand in hand with the previous point. You’ll probably come across landing pages that are similar in nature to the one that you will want to create. They may tackle a similar product. Take a look at how they work and whether or not you feel compelled to take action and order the product yourself. How do they draw you in? Watch for any particular techniques they use and make a note of them as you may be able to do something similar yourself. Learning by association is a very good way to master the various techniques that will lead you to sell more products yourself.
Make sure you focus on online techniques
It is tempting to start looking at all kinds of sales letters when you start learning about copywriting. But make sure you don’t look at any which may fall through your mailbox, because the techniques for writing an offline sales letter are somewhat different to those that are used online. So stick to your area of interest, and if you are writing a landing page, learn about landing page copywriting techniques and nothing else.
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