So you have a product to sell and recently hired a web designer to convert your primitive 2015 design to something more modern.

Then, browsing through Twitter, you find a “marketing guru” talking about lead capture pages, and you’re hooked. So much so that you can’t believe you didn’t come up with this idea yourself — a page that captures information about your visitor who you can sell to (genius!).

So you call your designer to tell him about this lead capture page, and he asks you for some examples or guidelines to create something that will work for your brand.

You go back to the “marketing guru,” and his post has some gibberish about understanding your customer or copywriting hacks and what not, but nothing actionable.

Now you are stuck, and you feel that bringing focussed traffic to a dedicated page is too much work, and you can’t afford a $3000 course by a lead page “guru/expert,” so you decide to direct all that traffic to your home page instead.

Does this sound familiar? This is a common pitstop if you have dabbled in creating your own sales website.

But fret not, mortal. There is hope.

In this blog post, I’ll list items that, if covered, will ensure that your landing page is decent and your conversion rate respectable.

And in return, you can name your firstborn after me — Shiva Prabhakaran.

Let’s jump in.

Item 1: Pick and stick to the end goal

If your goal for the lead capture page is to get the email, then make sure everything on your page reflects that goal.

No ambiguities around, sign up for our services or look at our team…blah, blah, blah.

Your main headline should tell your customers why they should give you their email and not why your product is the best.

Conflicting messages will lead to a bounce.

So instead of “Best ice creams in town,” use something like “Grab the discounted special ice-cream menu.” with the sub-heading, “Drop your email, and we’ll send you the details.”

This is not being pushy; it is about being precise.

Item 2: Add social proof

People are comfortable buying goods, trying tools, or sharing information when they know someone else has done the same thing with a positive outcome.

So add testimonials, user reviews, purchase pop-ups, trust pilot scores, what your mom thinks about your product, etc.

Add these right below your page’s banner so that once someone scrolls down to find more information, most of it reinforces the trust towards your product/brand.

Item 3: Showoff your certifications and authorizations

You respect the doctor not because of his fancy stethoscope (FYI: You can get one for $80) but rather the letters “Dr.” before his name, his degree/practice certificate in the hall, and (of course) his reviews.

While we mentioned reviews in the social proof section, the other two are equally important.

So if you’ve been accredited, awarded, certified, and whatnot by industry and/or reputable body, showcase it on the page.

You can add these in the hero section if possible, but if not, you can push it right below social proof.

Item 4: Customize it to your audience

If you are building a lead capture page for Facebook ad campaigns vs. LinkedIn campaigns, the copy has to be different for each.

Your copy should reflect the tone, wording, and aesthetic of the platform/source your audience is coming from.

(Tone) If your audience is from:

· Facebook/Instagram/TikTok — Keep it casual

· LinkedIn — Keep it semi-formal, at least

· Google — Add a sense of urgency

(Aesthetic) If your audience is from:

· Facebook/Instagram/Tiktok — Add visual assets or maybe even add a video and have low text.

· LinkedIn — Establish authority by showcasing testimonials, accreditations, etc.

· Google — Similar to LinkedIn but showcase urgency using an incentive. Reviews are key.

Item 5: Error-free and crisp copy

Do not add fluff to your copy. Period.

Few things are a bigger downer than reading things that were unnecessary in making a decision.

So be merciless in the editing bay and remove anything that doesn’t add value. Scrutinize every word.

Once you’re done with the scrutiny, check the copy for errors and correct them.

You can use a tool like Grammarly to do this. Their paid plan is worth it too.

Item 6: Limit form fields

The longer the form, the fewer the conversion rate.

You are losing out on a prospective sign-up with every new field added.

You might try to justify additional fields with their utility to your data intelligence, but the downside is that the visitor might not complete the form at all, and you end up with nothing.

Sometimes, it is a zero-sum game.

And you should encourage people to take the first step to enter your product universe, limit the form fields to 2 or a maximum of 3 fields.

Once someone has signed up, you’ll have more opportunities to ask for additional information.

[BONUS] Item 7: Get your page roasted

There are a lot of page roasters with a fair bit of experience in lead capture page design, so pick a couple of them and get roasted.

Spending 100 dollars to optimize a page is better than spending thousands of dollars sending traffic to an unoptimized page.

Here is one such roaster from Brandhero

Once you have got a roast, make changes and run A/B tests with those changes and double down on the version that works best.

Final thoughts

Run your lead capture page creation process through this checklist every time and tell me how it worked.

If you liked this piece and would like to read more of my content, Google “Shiva Prabhakaran,” and you should be able to find some pieces.

If you haven’t already, consider checking out Brandhero. Thanks for reading.