Are you trying to figure out how to make money with landing pages?
Landing pages are a key component to any successful sales funnel. They’re powerful, versatile, and usually become the deciding factor that makes or breaks your conversion rates.
But for a landing page to be successful, your copywriting needs to be sharp. That’s why, today, we’re going to look at 5 tips on how to make money with landing pages.
Before we do, though, let’s get clear on what a landing page is and why you *really* need one.
What Is a Landing Page?
A landing page is any page on your website that you intentionally drive traffic to with a specific goal in mind.
In most cases, landing pages are designed to capture contact information (like email addresses), book sales calls, or make direct sales.
Here’s an example of a landing page by Shopify:
It’s a simple, short page that prompts users to start a free trial.
To be fair, ANY page on your website can function like a landing page. Even your homepage is considered a “landing page” if you’re intentionally driving traffic to it.
In fact, Shopify sometimes bids on keywords (like “Shopify”) and uses their homepage as the landing page to send traffic:
It’s a different layout, design, and uses different copy.
Yes, it’s still the homepage, but it functions as a landing page for certain marketing campaigns.
If your homepage can be a landing page, though, do you really need to create other landing pages for specific offers?
In short, YES.
By creating landing pages for specific offers, you’ll:
- Gather more relevant data about your audiences’ wants/pains
- Learn more about your audience engages with your website
- Increase conversions by keeping your reader’s attention laser-focused
Now that we know what a landing page is and why it’s important, let’s look at 5 ways to leverage those pages to increase revenue.
How to Make Money with Landing Pages
1) Identify the Pain Point for Each Page
Each landing page should have a single CTA. If you didn’t know that yet, check out this post on the 5 components of a good landing page.
That call to action needs to be focused around a single pain point that your reader is feeling. This is a common problem with landing pages: people try to make them do too much in too little space.
Instead, try making a list of the pain points your target audience feels.
Then create a CTA that leads users to the solution. This will make the rest of your page incredibly easy to write.
You’ll simply need to figure out which features of your product will address that pain-point, and break down the solution to your audience.
You can see how Unbounce does this by addressing a single pain point in their heading (though you’ll notice the rest of the copy doesn’t change).
Here’s one that focuses on converting more leads (targeted to SaaS):
And one for converting more sales (targeted to eCommerce):
Finally, here’s a landing page for converting more customers (targeted to a mix of everything in between):
These are small changes in the pain points the page is addressing, but that level of personalization can be the make-or-break it factor for conversions.
2) Focus on the Benefits, Not the Features
When someone lands on your page, you have a handful of seconds to show them why your product is worth exploring.
Many companies make the mistake of talking about the products features, rather than the benefits that come from those features.
Remember, most people don’t really care about what your product does. They want to know how the things your product does will lead to a tangible benefit for them.
Here’s a great example by Decodable:
(The benefits have been magnified which is what’s interfering with the sub-header text).
At just a glance the user knows that the software is:
- Fast
- Easy
- Open
Then the text below those benefits translate those terms into the concrete benefits. For example, “Fast” doesn’t do much but get the reader’s attention. The follow up copy, “Build pipelines super fast in minutes, not days or weeks.”
This section is from Decodable’s homepage, which is why it’s not geared to a single pain-point.
But if you were building a specific landing page for a paid platform (like Google Ads, for example), you’d want to follow the same concept by attacking a single pain point from the angle of multiple benefits.
3) Use Odd Numbers & Stats
You’ve likely seen this tip before, so we won’t harp on it for too long.
But, for whatever reason, statistics and numbers are persuasive to online consumers. When it comes to using numbers for landing pages, though, they’re usually in the form of social proof.
One of the most common uses for numbers is showing how many clients you’ve helped in the past:
This can lend instant credibility to your brand and really supports the rest of the copy on your landing page.
Another way to grab people’s attention is with a compelling statistic:
In this, there’s a statistic that immediately shows why a user would want to use Wise as a service: it’s 6x cheaper than international account alternatives.
Make sure to use your stats ethically and research the credibility of the source.
It’s like that anonymous quote, “67.83% of all stats are made up.” Don’t prove that anonymous author right.
4) Rely on Other People’s Words
You might be surprised to hear this from a professional copywriter, but the BEST copy isn’t written by professionals.
It’s written by your audience.
The most convincing copy on the planet comes from the satisfied messages your audience puts online.
In many circles, this is known as user-generated content (UGC). And it’s crazy effective.
When it comes to landing page copy, though, this usually falls in the form of quotes, testimonials, or screenshots from social media/review sites.
Quotes are always a great way to boost your brand’s credibility, and you should have an entire block section on your page for it (if you can):
Other people simply take images from social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram being the most popular):
Here are a few tips for doing this well:
- Make sure the review/testimonial is authentic (fake social proof will KILL your brand if you get found out… it’s just not worth it)
- Start gathering as many testimonials from customers as you can from DAY 1
- If you have a quote, add the image, name, and title of the person you’re referencing
- Load this kind of social proof in as many places on your landing page as you can
Some people might disagree with this, but I don’t think you can ever have too much social proof on a landing page. Those words are like gold because, unlike you, the people speaking aren’t profiting from posting those words.
Leverage social proof and steal as much of your customers’ copy as you can.
And hey, it’ll save you loads of time as you struggle to fill that blank page.
5) Test Everything & Track the Results
This is, by far, the most important tip of the article: you need to run targeted tests on all your landing page copy to see what works and what doesn’t.
This really is the secret to learning how to make money with landing pages. All your headlines, sub-headlines, CTA buttons, social proof placements… everything should be tested at some point if you really want see results.
I recommend going with a tool like Google Optimize to start out.
It’s a free tool that lets you run limited A/B tests. It’s as easy to set up as Google Analytics (you just add a bit of code to the header of your website).
Then you can isolate elements on your page and run tests.
Even the most simple tests can give you data on things like conversions, bounce rates, time on page, etc.:
Pro-Tip: If you’re using the free version, only test one thing at a time to make sure you know what changes worked and what didn’t. If you have more resources, consider running multi-variate tests for the best results. For more information, LeadPages has a great article on this.
And that’s all for today! This has been my 5-step process on how to make money with landing pages.
I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, you should definitely check out the following resources:
- 5 Key Components of a Landing Page That Converts
- Become an Email Ecommerce Copywriter That (Actually) Sells
- How to Learn Email Copywriting in 5 Easy Steps
The first article will give you more information on how to create high-converting landing pages. The other two articles will teach you how to create emails that can nurture your new leads into paying customers.