How to Design Sales Landing Pages That Convert

Sales landing pages are landing pages designed for the very bottom of the funnel, with one specific purpose: getting people to seal the deal by making a purchase.

Where sales landing pages differ from general landing pages is you’re now asking users for money, instead of just a name and an email, in exchange for the download.

As such, the sales page needs to be very persuasive, building trust and driving action with social proof, great imagery, and yes, some understanding of the psychological forces that come into play here.

In this article, we’ll go over some best practices for designing sales pages that compel users to pull out their credit cards.

Embrace the Long Form Sales Landing Page

A landing page has one job—to drive visitors toward the conversion. But, completing that job means that you need to provide enough information to sell your product or service.

As you might imagine, different types of products or services require different levels of consideration. High-cost or complex offerings, as well as anything that involves a long-term commitment, take more consideration than say, deciding whether you want to buy a new sweater or a pair of boots.

While long-form sales landing pages aren’t ideal for every situation, others benefit from the additional context. Examples include:

• Coaching programs
• Subscription services
• High-cost products
• SaaS tools

If you do need to include a good deal of text, break it up into different sections and use icons to further clarity key points and sources of value.

Focus Your Copywriting on the Jobs to Be Done

If you’re selling a SaaS product, online courses, or professional services, your main selling point is helping users accomplish a specific set of goals. While customer needs vary by offer, industry, and segment, the Jobs-to-be-Done framework is a great way to identify pain points and goals.

Start by answering the “five Qs”

1. Who will use your product?
2. What problems does it solve?
3. How do you differ from your competitors?
4. Why do people use your product?
5. What features does your product use to get the “job” done?

Then… show how you get those jobs done. Your landing page must communicate just what your product can do, and how it’s different than the other options on the market. For instance, PhotoShop and Instagram technically fall into the same category but accomplish very different jobs.

• Explain your offer in plain language. Read it out loud to make sure it sounds like how you would speak naturally.
• Stay focused on the job. Each sentence should line up with how your product or service solves a specific problem.
• Get a second opinion. Ask an outsider to review your sales page copy to see if it has the effect you were going for.
• Use video.

Answer Questions to Build Trust

Your visitors won’t enter their billing info until they know exactly what they’ll get in return. Make sure you set expectations upfront, so users can quickly assess whether the product/service is right for them.

This can help you eliminate unqualified leads, avoiding churns, returns, and complaints down the line.

You’ll want to anticipate the questions potential customers might ask, such as: What kind of fees are involved? What about data protection? This is a great way to build trust right off the bat rather than having the customers search for this information after converting.

UVP-Focused Headline

As with emails, blog posts, and generic landing pages, headlines are everything when it comes to building an effective sales page. With sales pages, however, you’ll need to really emphasize the value of your offer. With that in mind, you’ll often see longer headlines on these types of landing pages because they tend to include a key selling point as opposed to functioning as a title.

While this may seem counterintuitive to many marketers, longer headlines can be effective here because detailed descriptions are more likely to get the reader to keep scrolling.

Your headline should immediately tip off the visitor to the benefits they’ll receive upon making the purchase. The best way to do this is to highlight the Unique Value Position, or UVP.

The UVP represents the main thing you want visitors to come away with. Instead of overwhelming visitors a long list of benefits, consider what the best thing about your product or service is. Not every headline needs to be long, though.

Use Positive Framing

Positive framing is a term that refers to positioning something as a benefit to be gained.

• Negative framing: Don’t lose money.
• Positive framing: Save money.
• Negative framing: Don’t waste time.
• Positive framing: Increase your productivity.

As mentioned above, you should make it clear that you can solve a problem for your customers.

However, you also don’t want to focus on the problem. Your copy should focus on highlighting the benefits of finding a solution.

You want your audience to view your company in a positive light.

Still, it’s worth considering that bringing some negativity into the may help you drive conversions. A study found that using negative framing in ads helped increase conversions by 18.8%. Try pairing a negative ad with a landing page that focuses on solutions and benefits.

CTAs that Close

This is the moment you’ve been working toward, don’t blow it. All of the content on this page should lead to a powerful CTA, encouraging the customer to take the next step and purchase.

Most sales page CTAs are set up so that the action is making the purchase, though it could also be a free trial or demo signup.

CTAs that close consist of three key components:

1. Copy: You’ll need to do better than “buy now” or “subscribe.” The action should be descriptive. What will the user be able to do after signing up?
2. Design: The CTA button should stand out on the page. Use a contrasting color and make it slightly larger than the surrounding text.
3. Trust indicators: Support the action by offering information about secure checkout, total costs, accepted credit cards, etc. The idea is to reassure the visitor that you have their best interests at heart.

Finally, make sure you’re not over-complicating things here. Consider your sign up, check out, or subscription process. Are you asking for too much information? Is your process several pages long?

Pare your sales landing page down to the essentials—ditch the links, tighten up the copy, and make sure that images and videos don’t take too long to load.

Wrapping Up

Sales landing pages offer an opportunity to influence sales directly. By incorporating the right tactics, you can thoroughly explain your offer, build trust with visitors, and win more customers.

Still, it’s easier said than done. If you do not see the numbers you were hoping for or want to make sure you’ve set the stage for conversions, sign up for a free conversion assessment. One of our marketing pros will review your site and provide a free 30-minute critique where we’ll discuss actionable ways to improve. Book here to set up your session.