ASK IH: What makes a great landing page?

If you're willing to put a bit of time aside, you should check out Julian Shapiro's guide on landing pages.

1. Should load fast. From an engineering perspective, companies like Netflix go so far as to strip out their main frameworks and build the page in vanilla HTML/CSS/JS. The general rule of thumb is that faster sites convert better. If you're building the site yourself, here are some quick wins you can do: (1) compress and resize your images, (2) load fewer fonts, (3) eliminate unused libraries.

2. Should help the user understand what the product does in < 3 seconds.

3. Should describe the value proposition in plain English, or with words the target market will understand. Don't use buzzwords, technical jargon, etc.

4. Should follow a similar visual hierarchy to other landing pages. Take a look at the websites under "Clients" at the bottom of bellcurve.com. CTAs (call to actions) are above the fold, action buttons are at the top right. Don't try to do anything more complicated than this (although you could go even simpler if you wanted).

5. The main CTA should be a different color, or stand out in some way, than the rest of the content. If everything on the page is blue, the most important button on the page should be not blue. :)

6. Define a primary purpose for the page and strip everything else away. Mentioning netflix.com again: their homepage only shows "Sign Up/Sign In" buttons above the fold. So does squarespace.com. If your product is technically complex or unknown, maybe the purpose of your landing page should be to put people on an drip email list that can educate them before pitching a hard sell (likely why sites like shopify.com ask for your email up front, so they can keep you engaged in the selling process).

This comment got me excited about the potential of landing pages. I kinda want to make a tool now...

Plain question - plain answer.

• it takes the user < 3-5 seconds to understand what it is about -> he immediately recognizes if it is something for him or not in his interest (FOR WHAT?)
• user can see and understand the value for him and his problem (SO WHAT? WHY CARE?)
• there is one clear and disctinct call to action, what the page expects the user to do next... (like sign up, learn more, call us, etc.) (NOW WHAT? WHATS NEXT?)

Based on everyone's feedback and advice I have updated my projects landing page - www.zapoco.com, please let me know your thoughts...

Can anyone link any examples of what they consider to be a good landing page, to create some context? Thanks! 👍

After working on that topic for quite a while, I think in terms of content — that is, ignoring all the technical aspects such as making your site load fast, etc. which are the same for all landing pages — there are 5 "pillars" that are important.

I'd copy/paste the answer I wrote to that question on Quora, but I might as well just link it so you get the pictures that come with it :)

I also wrote a pretty lengthy guides of tips you can apply to improve your landing pages, and if you REALLY want to know everything about the topic, I wrote The Landing Page Cookbook, which compiles everything I know about how to build badass landing pages, with tons of examples you can steal and adapt.

http://gen-us.space/
This is my landing page for a side side project of mine. Feel free to offer feedback and things!

For the technicalities of design/coding a landing page, I put out a new video tut a couple months ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKFy0SFZBdM&t=2s