I wrote down some principles for a good landing page

The other day, I was going about arranging my landing page, focused more on the copy than anything else. Having tried a couple, and examined others I thought was good, I wrote out some principles that I wanted to follow for my landing page, reasoning from the basics. I then tried to follow my own advice. Here's what I came up with, and it might be helpful for others to structure their landing page copy:

The main job of a landing page

What is the job of a landing page? It usually has one job-to-be-done, usually exemplified by the main call-to-action. That is typically enter email to be notified, sign up for the service, or buy/subscribe to your product. If your landing page has competing calls-to-action, that can be confusing to visitors. Just pick a single call to action.

Why would anyone want to be notified/signup/pay? Typically, it's because they have a problem--a job to be done--in the context of their work/play/lives that they want solved. In order for them to decide whether to do your call-to-action, they need enough information. These are typically broken down as questions they ask themselves:

• What is this product? What does it do? What problem does it solve?
• Who is this for? Is it for me?
• What are the main benefits (not features)?
• Who else is using this?
• I have objections, are they addressed?

There is also an aspect of landing pages that you won't find reified in an illustration, screenshot, or copy, and that's, "What's the context users are coming in with?" You also need to take this into account when writing your copy, so you can successfully answer questions users ask themselves listed above, like "is this for me?"

• Do they have popular alternatives in mind? How is your product differentiated?
• How do they categorize your product in their minds? What are the expected jobs and attributes of products in this category?
• Are they anchored in price?
• Does it address a particular zeitgeist?

What is this?

There are landing pages that fail at this foundational task. I've visited landing pages, where I'm not exactly sure what the product is and what it does for me. I come away slightly confused.

If the visitor doesn't know what your product is, there's no way they can decide if they should do your call-to-action. When humans aren't sure, we tend to do nothing, not something. The net result is that you may have lots of visitors, but no sign ups. You don't want copy confusion to mask product validation or sign ups.

Why does this happen? Sometimes, it's because the founder doesn't know who this is product is for. Every successful early product that exists is able to draw a clear delineation between who it's for, and just as important, who it's not for.

A common mistake is to draw this boundary too broadly. First-time founders may think value stems from a plethora of features, when in fact, value stems from solving a specific problem in the context of customer's life. This is why you hear advice about "niche-ing down"--it lets you get specific. It lets you get specific about what problem your product solves and who it's for. This clarity will make everything else easier.

Therefore, a sign that you don't know your market yet is if your answer to "who is this for?" is a broad category, like "women" or "developers". There are many types of women that find themselves in different contexts that have different problems. The same is true with a broad category like "developers".

Another sign that you don't know who it's for is if you can't name a group or community on the internet that would be really excited about what you're building.

Once you know your niche and market well, writing the copy for "What is this?" should come more easily. If you're having difficulty writing copy with clarity for your product, you'll have an even harder time building it with clarity. This is a sign that you need to do more research on the places you'd find your market.

Another common mistake founders make when answering "what is this?" is to explain the product in the context of the philosophy of the worldview they espouse. Its vision or "the why" taken too far. This tends to result in abstract, inscrutable, and overly-flowery descriptions of the product, such as

We are going to transform the relationship between individuals and information.

This is how you get campaigns like Chairs are like Facebook. While large companies can afford to make a misstep like that--users will probably bump against them again. For indie hackers and startups, you can't afford to be inscrutable, as most people will just bump into you once.

In How to Apply to YCombinator, it recommends that you be matter-of-fact about what your product is. A sign that you're not explaining your product clearly is if someone can't reproduce your product after reading your answer to "What is this?". The same should be true for your landing page copy.

So if these are things not to do, how should you write your copy for "What is this"?

While it gets made fun of as a cliche, "X for Y" (such as Facebook for dog owners, or Uber for home cleaning), is an effective way of communicating what your product is. That's because you're piggy-backing off of existing shared knowledge for what X is, so you don't need to explain a philosophy, worldview, or context. You want to give the visitor a mental trunk for them to branch their imagination off of. Without this initial mental trunk, it's very hard to convey an idea, because it would require them to make two leaps of the imagination, rather than just one.

Said differently, the "X" in "X for Y" refers to the thing visitors are already familiar with, and the "Y" is the twist. Present something familiar with a twist.

The familiar "X" can be the problem, the existing solutions, or the context in their life they find themselves. It's ok if it's inscrutable for everyone (remember you're not selling to everyone), but it should be understandable to the specific people you're trying niche down and target.

The twist "Y" is the main differentiation that helps convey what your product is and what problem it solves. The twist may be for a new audience, a new solution, or a new context people find themselves in (like say, remote work in a pandemic).

That said, you may not need to use the exact format "X for Y" to get the idea across. For example, Jukeboxes could be "Play music autonomously". "Play music" is the X that people are already familiar with, and "autonomously" is the Y that's the twist. Or maybe "Robot music player", where "robot" is the twist, and "music player" is the familiar. The trick is to convey it in a short sentence of three to eight words.

To be clear, this is not always easy, so if you find yourself struggling, know that it takes multiple passes. I have lots of trouble myself, even though I wrote this. This was longer than I originally intended. If people find this useful, I can continue with delving into the other sections I outlined, like "Who is this for? Is it for me?" and "What are the main benefits?"

If you have other things to add/correct about answering "What is this?", please share.