How to Write a Landing Page for Cold Traffic

The most common landing page mistake is writing it like a shorter service page. They are built for different situations: a service page is read by someone already on your site who can click elsewhere for reassurance, and a landing page is read by a stranger who arrived from an ad and has nowhere else to go. That difference dictates almost everything.

One Page, One Job, One Action

A landing page that offers a demo, a newsletter, a phone call and a downloadable guide converts worse than one offering only the first. Not because visitors are incapable of choosing, but because every extra option adds a decision before the one that matters.

Pick the single action, then check every block on the page against it. Anything that does not move a reader toward that action is either supporting evidence or clutter, and most of it is clutter.

Match the Promise That Got the Click

If the ad said fixed-price website copy and the page opens with a paragraph about your agency's story, the visitor has to work out whether they are in the right place. Many will not bother. The headline should echo the language of whatever sent them, closely enough that the match is obvious in under a second.

The Order That Works

There is no sacred structure, but this sequence handles objections in roughly the order people raise them.

1. The promise: what this is and who it is for, in the reader's words rather than your category's.
2. The problem, stated better than they could: proof you understand the situation, kept short.
3. What they get, concretely: deliverables, not benefits. Benefits are inferred from specifics; they cannot be asserted into existence.
4. Why you can be believed: results, named clients, credentials, sample work — whatever you actually have.
5. What happens next: the steps after they click, so the button stops feeling like a trapdoor.
6. The objections, answered plainly: price, lock-in, time required, what if it does not work.
7. The action, repeated: at least twice, because scroll depth varies.

Remove Everything That Leads Away

Navigation, related articles, social icons, a link to the blog — on a page you are paying to send people to, each of these is a way to lose a visitor you bought. Strip them. Keep the footer links you are legally required to keep and nothing else.

The same applies to the form. Every field costs you completions, so ask for what you genuinely need at this stage. A phone number you will not call for three days is not worth the drop-off it causes.

Write the Button Last, and Write It Specifically

Submit tells a reader nothing. Get started tells them slightly less than nothing, because it hides how much they are committing to. Say what happens: send my brief, book a 20-minute call, get the quote. Specific buttons reduce hesitation because they close off the worry that clicking starts something unclear.

Test the Page Against a Stranger, Not a Colleague

Everyone inside the business knows what you sell, which makes them the worst possible reviewers of a page written for people who do not. Show it to someone outside for five seconds, take it away, and ask what was on offer and what they were meant to do. If they cannot say, the headline is doing too little regardless of how good the rest reads.

For how much copy a page of this kind usually needs, see word counts by page type. If you would rather have the page written for you, our website copywriting service covers landing pages as well as site copy.