How do I know if my landing page copy is working?

Run a five-second test with 5 people from your target audience. If fewer than 4 can accurately describe what the product does and who it's for, the copy needs work. A/B test specific headlines against your current copy with your real traffic.

Should landing page copy be short or long?

As long as it needs to be to answer every question a visitor in your target audience would have before converting — and no longer. High-consideration purchases (over $100/month) typically require more copy than impulse purchases. Test length as a variable.

What's the single most important copy element on a landing page?

The headline. It determines whether visitors read anything else. A mediocre headline with great supporting copy loses to a great headline with mediocre supporting copy.

Should I write copy myself or hire a copywriter?

For landing pages, hiring a specialized conversion copywriter is often worth the investment — they typically improve conversion rates by 20–50% relative to founder-written copy. But run your founder-written copy first; you may be closer to your customer's language than a generalist writer.

Landing Page Copy Mistakes That Kill Conversions

Mistake 1: Writing for the Company, Not the Visitor

The most pervasive landing page copy mistake is centering the narrative on the company: 'We built X to solve Y', 'Our team of experts has...', 'We believe that...'. Visitors don't care about you until they care about what you do for them.

The fix: rewrite every 'we' as 'you'. 'We analyze 5,000 personas' becomes 'You'll see exactly how 5,000 different user types respond to your landing page'. The information is the same; the orientation is completely different.

Mistake 2: Features Instead of Outcomes

'AI-powered persona simulation engine with 500+ training datasets' is a feature. 'Find out why users leave your landing page before they convert' is an outcome. Visitors buy outcomes, not features. Features are only compelling after the visitor has decided they want the outcome.

Map every feature on your landing page to a visitor outcome. If you can't articulate what the visitor gets from a feature, the feature shouldn't be prominently placed on the landing page.

Mistake 3: Vague Superlatives Without Proof

'Industry-leading', 'best-in-class', 'most powerful' — these words are invisible to modern web visitors. They've been trained to skip over them because every product claims the same things. Vague superlatives consume space that could hold specific proof.

Replace superlatives with specifics: 'Industry-leading speed' becomes 'Results in 28 minutes'. 'Best-in-class insights' becomes '5,000 persona simulations per test'. Specific numbers are harder to fake and more credible than adjectives.

Mistake 4: No Clear Next Step

Landing pages that end with a footer — no final CTA, no last-chance offer, no re-engagement mechanism — lose the visitors who scrolled through the entire page, found it interesting, but needed one more nudge. These are high-value visitors who've indicated significant interest.

Add a compelling final CTA section at the bottom of every landing page. This is the second-best converting CTA placement (after the hero). Reinforce the core value proposition, add one more social proof element, and include the primary action with a zero-risk statement ('No credit card required', 'Cancel any time').

Mistake 5: Writing at the Wrong Reading Level

Landing page copy that uses industry jargon, technical terminology, or complex sentence structures creates comprehension friction. Visitors who have to work to understand your copy won't do the work — they'll leave.

The target reading level for landing pages is Grade 8–10 (14–16 years old). Use short sentences (under 20 words), common vocabulary, and active voice. Tools like the Hemingway App score your copy's reading level and highlight complex sentences to simplify.