Building a Landing Page – The Storefront for a Startup

Marketing is the reason people visit your business;
Branding is the reason people keep coming back;

Then, the Landing Page has to be the Storefront of your Business.

I’ll leave claiming “100% GUARANTEED RESULTS WITH THIS SIMPLE HACK” to the CRO experts out there. Instead I wanted to take this opportunity behind the fundamentals of a landing page that just works.

Being a Product person, I am a big believer in optimizations based on data and feedback. But that’s hard to do if the basics are not met. Good data that can drive decisions can only be collected once we know the expected interactions are there.

“90% bounce rate” won’t help you improve your landing page any time soon. What we need to ensure is that the fundamental setup is done right. And then we can improve and iterate overtime.

As an early stage Startup, there is just too much weight on the landing page, it needs to:
– Explain what your product is supposed to do
– Identify the problems your product can help solve
– Feature the…..well features of your product
– Provide social proof and trust behind your brand
– Educate users about how to get onboard
– Showcase the offer in a compelling way
– Represent the branding and leave a sticky mental image
And frankly speaking the list can go on….forever.

And that, that right there, is exactly the problem.

Too many businesses fail to understand the core fundamentals of a good landing page.
They try to stuff 20 headings, and 30 sections down anyone landing on the page.
Only to get them to run away as fast as possible.

Having worked on landing pages for 100+ web projects, it is quite clear what should be the primary focus areas for most pages to start with:

1 – Lay out the exact problems you are setting out to solve with your product or service. 
2 – Define how your solutions are a fit for the problems listed prior.
3 – Work on defining your value proposition and what features make you stand out to your users.
4 – Have elements of authority and trust building on your page. 
5 – Having the necessary design elements in the landing page structure. 

Now don’t think this is the end all be all guide to every landing page out there. But it is the one that performs the best for any early stage business. And there is good data to back that up all over the internet. Here’s how to cover all the basics for your Landing Page.

Identifying Problems and Tailoring Solutions

This is where you need to be the most honest. 
– No, your product doesn’t solve all problems
– No, your business doesn’t do everything under the sun
– No, your offer is not the best for everyone out there
– No, your solutions are not the most groundbreaking and innovative

But you know what can be true?
– Your product solving the right problems for the right users
– Your business doing what matters most in your niche
– Your offer providing the highest value vs competitors
– Your solutions being driven by your mission – not by fad features

Identifying a key set of problems you are setting out to solve is crucial for success of any Early Stage Startup.

The issue I feel like is you see Post-Product Market Fit Startups and think you need to be the same. You need to offer the maximum amount of features. You need to do ‘everything all at once’.

You Don’t

Now if you read this and are thinking that this is just not true about your Product. Then perhaps either you need to do a rediscovery of your idea, or hey, I guess I don’t have the monopoly on being right.

But if you read this and understand the importance of solving the pain points for your users, here’s a good place to start.

If you’re B2B – 

Focus on mapping out operational and efficiency challenges. Stick to language that is targeted around business needs based on your research. Don’t promise to solve everything. But promise to solve the exact problems your product needs to solve.

Prioritize data based insights into how many businesses are facing the said problem and how you are helping them solve the said problem.

You are likely facing a decision maker here, your language needs to address benefits that are cross departmental. Ditch the cheesy empathy and get to the point with why your solution will integrate into their workflow.

If you’re B2C –

Focus on the pain points the end users face and what personal benefits they will gain from your solution. Keep your language simple, ditch complicated terms and self-invented lingo – stick to what is accessible.

Your page needs to scream ‘I know what this product does’. You are selling to a person here, most likely the end user. Address them with empathy and understanding of the problems they face.

Lastly, less is more in this case, keep your headings short, and your explanations shorter. Integrate multiple media formats to make it easy to comprehend your messaging.

And in either case do this check:
– Are you grade 7 or lower on the Hemingway scale
– Are your solutions tied to the stated problems
– Are your media assets accessible
– And most importantly, can you verbally recall your problem and solution statements?

If you, the founder, cannot visualize your landing page, you can’t expect your users to remember a word about what you have to solve for.

Bringing us to what makes you special.

Showcasing the Right Value Proposition on the Landing Page

Having compelling problem statements and solutions is key to having people scroll. But now what? 

The users are nodding their head
– Yes these are the problems I have
– Yes these solutions seem to fit my case
But…I am still not sure how am I getting value here.

And that is where your value proposition comes in. In most cases, you WILL succeed in any business by either:

Offering more value for the same commitment
Offering same value for a lower commitment

Breaking it down to those two simple facts makes figuring out your messaging a whole lot better.

Now the Value Prop section is done differently by everyone. Some people spam features, some spam benefits, some spam every irrelevant thing they can find.

In my experience, the best way to position this section is to stick to a max of 3 unique benefits that your Product or Service offers. Why 3? Well 3 is easy to remember I suppose. 

The rule is, don’t just focus on the outcomes of using your product. You must first address HOW you are helping achieve said outcome.

And a picture tells a thousand words – the best way to show your value is to demonstrate how you can help users achieve an outcome.

Format for each subsection should be something along the lines of:
– Stating a key benefit – An XYZ to help you do ABC
– Explain further using subheadings or paragraphs
– Show how your feature is solving the problem (using visual aid)

Here’s an example from one of my all time favorite landing pages:

Source: https://www.rewind.ai/

And

Source: https://fathom.video/

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A Landing Page Structure That Just Works

The meat of it is out of the way. You understand what problems your users have, you have tailored your solutions to address those problems, and you have shown how the features of your product provide value. Now comes laying it all out in a format that is easy to understand.

Here’s one thing I say to everyone I work with – ‘don’t reinvent the wheel’

Websites have been out for a very long time, and what a landing page structure SHOULD be like is pretty much out there. An example of such an approach is linked here.

To lay it out here is how the sections should be structured:

1. A hero section with clear CTA + Lead magnet or Offer
   • Hero section is the above the fold section of the website. Meaning the first thing you see on the landing page without having to scroll any further.
2. A social proof section showcasing authority
   • Social proof is usually represented by the companies you have worked with. It can also showcase any achievements or accreditations your business has.
3. A problem statements section
   • Usually a section with a 1 2 3 approach to listing the top problems a specific user segment has.
4. A solution statements section
   • Usually a section expanding further on what are the solutions for the said problems.
5. A how it works section (if applicable)
   • This section is optional and usually applicable only to Products that may seem really hard to integrate. Make use of a simple to understand How it Works to demonstrate ease of adoption.
6. Value proposition section
   • In this section you show ‘how’ you are solving the problems with your solutions. Usually a visually aided section, explaining features of your product or areas of your services.
7. Testimonials
   • Similar to social proof section but with real words, real people – building authority and trust. Integrate a third party solution to showcase authenticity.
8. Re-Offer section
   • A ‘before you leave, check this’ section to give the users another opportunity to commit to what your offer is.

These are the basics, at the least, you should have all of these. Depending on your product or business, there can be variations in the messaging, design, branding BUT the structure will mostly remain the same.

The best thing about this structure is that you can easily build a wireframe yourself in a tool like Miro. Speed-running your way to final design.

Lastly, this structure helps you visualize placement of everything in the best manner. Dividing up all the key areas in segments like this ensures it is easy to do the final design and development of the page as well. 

Taking Care of The Basics

Once your landing page is designed and developed – you need to take care of the basics. It sounds lame but the number of times Startups miss out on this is kinda ridiculous. You don’t need to be an SEO expert or a CMO to figure out the basics. 

Here they are:

1 – Make sure your page is mobile and tablet responsive. Upwards of 50% of users access websites on their smartphones these days.

2 – Click through ALL CTA buttons and make sure they are functioning as intended.

3 – Have appropriate title tags for the various sections. Your page MUST HAVE ONLY ONE H1 tag. Use a tool like this to scan for issues.

4 – Have a page meta description of appropriate length.

5 – Link your page to Google Search Console and make sure it is indexing. You can check by typing site:www.yoursitename.com in the Google search bar. 

6 – Your site must force https:// and should not allow someone to allow access to just http:// version.

7 – All the images are optimized for performance. Use a tool like https://pagespeed.web.dev/ to assess common issues on your page.

8 – Integrate necessary analytics to track user behavior.

9 – If you have an email, sign up, test it, and test it again after going live. Users should receive an email in their inbox to prevent future spam marking.

10 – Make sure your header is sticky on desktop and minimized on mobile. For single pagers leverage html anchor hashtags to provide smart navigation between different sections.

The Road Ahead For Your Landing Page

There is a lot of weight on any landing page. You need to generate impact with your product. You have to gain trust in your business. You need to empathize with users’ needs. You need the users to take action. 

I don’t believe in ‘perfection’ – only iteration.

The goal of this article was to provide you a holistic insight for everything you need to know when developing your landing page. My perspective as a Product Manager will for sure have some biases. But one thing is clear, as a Startup in the early stages, you need the correct fundamentals first – that’s it. And when the time comes to iterate, you won’t have to redo a whole much.

With or without my help – I wish you the best.

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• You need someone who knows enough to “execute faster”
• You need someone who “gets the job done”
• You need someone who adapts to “how you work”

I am your best bet for quicker results.
Schedule a call today!

Or email at hello@saqibtahir.com

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