The other school of thought is that shorter copy, possibly broken up among multiple pages forming a sales funnel, is the way to go. There are advantages and disadvantages to each one, and each one can be better suited to different types of conversion goals.

Short copy is often better suited to calls to action with a low cost, low commitment, or low perceived risk (think newsletter signup or free trial). They also work better for impulse-driven conversion goals. Short copy also works well when your company or product is already well-known, so little explanation is necessary.

Long copy works better with need-based conversion goals, and when there is a higher perceived risk (and therefore more assurance needed by the visitor). It’s also better when the product is new or complex, and more explanation is necessary. In very basic terms, the more investment of time, energy, stress, or money a person needs to make, the longer the copy should be.

Long copy answers more potential user questions, reducing anxiety. That can also convince more customers to make the purchase without contacting you for more information first, streamlining the process and reducing your costs. Long copy can definitely result in more conversions than short copy in a lot of situations. As just one example, Conversion Rate Experts increased Crazy Egg’s conversion rate by 363% by making their homepage about 20 times longer than the control version.

Of course, when your lead already knows what they’re looking for, a shorter page can increase conversions. Take, for example, the gym featured in this article that increased conversions by 11% by shortening their page by about a third.

While you, as the designer, may not be writing the copy, you can help guide whoever is writing the copy to create either long or short copy based on the perceived market (particularly if whoever is writing the copy is not a professional copywriter).

Break up the copy

Regardless of whether your copy is long or short, it’s important to break up the copy so that it’s easier to read (or scan).

There are often four basic parts to a landing page:

the headline;

the sub-header;

the must-know information;

the nice-to-know information.

With shorter copy, breaking up just along these four sections can be enough. But with longer copy, you’ll want to create additional breaks in the text.

It can be helpful to use things like bullet points and additional subheads to break things up more.

Use design elements to break up copy, too. Inserting images, lines, differently-formatted areas, and the like can be a great way to divide and separate the content in a way that makes it both visually appealing and easy to read.

One other note on breaking up the copy: include calls to action at intervals throughout the page. When a visitor is ready to take action, you don’t want them to have to scroll around to find where to do so. Ideally, you should have at least one call to action in each section of the page.

There can only be one conversion goal

Each landing page should only have a single conversion goal. That goal might be to request more information, to make a purchase, to sign up for a trial, or something else.

If you try to split attention between more than one goal, you’re diluting the effect. So decide which goal is the one that’s important, and focus exclusively on that. You can always add additional goals (like signing up for a newsletter) on the confirmation page after the initial goal is reached.

Consider the attention ratio

The attention ratio of your landing page is how many links there are on your page compared to the number of conversion goals (which should always be one). So if you have a ton of links on the page that aren’t directly leading to the conversion goal, then that raises your attention ratio. Ideally, you want this ratio to be 1:1.

This is another reason landing pages work better than simply sending people to a link to your homepage. Your homepage might have an attention ratio approaching something like 10:1, 25:1, or even 100:1. That means there are way too many things competing for your visitor’s attention beyond the goal you actually want them to reach.

Remember: your landing page should be focused on one specific goal. If you have more than one goal, you should have more than one landing page with more than one campaign.

Understand the competition

Before you start designing your landing page, make sure you know what the competition is doing. Are they all doing long sales pages with tons of copy? Or are they doing shorter copy in a series of pages creating a sales funnel? Do they use landing pages at all?

Once you have an idea of what the competition is doing, you can decide how much you want to deviate from the industry norm. You may not want to deviate too far, or you may want to do something completely different.

Where is the traffic coming from?

Traffic arriving on a landing page is generally coming from one of two sources: paid advertising or a PR/marketing campaign. Advertising might include video ads, social media ads, search ads, or banner or text ads on a website. PR or marketing sources might include press releases, non-paid social media updates, blog posts (either on your blog or on someone else’s), or news outlets.

When traffic is coming from advertising sources, you have complete control over the message that is sending traffic to your landing page. When it’s coming from PR sources, though, it may be more difficult to control the message. Your landing page may need to be more straightforward and explanatory, since you don’t know how much information the visitor will already have when they arrive.

Make sure your message matches

When you’re driving visitors from an advertising campaign, it’s vital that the landing page they arrive at has the same message as the ad. For example, if your ad is offering a free trial, then make sure the landing page also offers a free trial, and not a newsletter signup.

If you’re using banner ads or video ads, make sure the style is echoed between the ad and the landing page. Keep imagery, color schemes, and the like consistent between all elements of a campaign. If using text ads, make sure that the headline in your ad is clearly echoed in the copy on your landing page.

You have the same level of control over the message when you’re driving visitors from sources you own: namely social media or your company blog (or sometimes with sponsored posts on other blogs). So make sure that your message between these sources matches as well.

When users are arriving from a PR source that is outside of your control, you may have little influence over the copy that is sending visitors to your site. In that case, you need to make sure that your headline tells them exactly why they’re there and what they will find. You can try to echo the language used in a press release, but realize that it may be altered depending on the source.

First impressions are vital

The first impression your landing page gives is vital. A bad impression can lead to your visitor leaving before doing anything further. A good impression can do just the opposite.

The keys to a good first impression on your landing page are pretty simple:

a clear headline;

a well-thought-out design;

appropriate visuals;

a strong call-to-action.

Those four elements work together to instantly give your visitor a sense of your site and what they might expect to find there. Of course, the page’s content is also vital to the success of the page, but that comes after the first impression.

Check out the Ghost site for a great example of a good first impression. It hits all of the main points mentioned above.