Jump to Section
arrow down

19 Kinds of Compelling Landing Page Content—and When to Use Each One

By The Leadpages Team  |  Published Aug 21, 2019  |  Updated Oct 06, 2023
Leadpages Team
By The Leadpages Team
19 Types of Landing Page Content

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in June 2016 and has since been updated.

Are you lacking creative ideas for your landing pages? Falling into the same-old-same-old style that keeps your business from blowing the competition out of the water? Not sure what kinds of landing page content to use and when?

We’ve gathered together 19 different kinds of compelling landing page copy to help you add a little more variety and persuasive power to every page you publish. Whether you’re working on a 50-word splash page to collect leads or a long-form sales page that’s 5 scrolls deep, the more tools you have in your arsenal the more effective you can be for your particular audience.

Sure, you know the basics: a headline, a call-to-action button, a little bit of descriptive text.

But most landing pages and offers require more content and a carefully crafted experience so that each visitor understands your key messages, engages with the offer, overcomes their own objections, and, ultimately, takes action.

That’s quite a story arc to accomplish in a single web page—but, it can be done. You simply need to include the right elements in an order that moves your audience from curiosity to conversion.

What kind of content and how much you include will vary according to your audience and objective.

Long-form, multi-media content might be required if:

  • Your audience doesn’t know you yet. If your landing page is receiving traffic from ads, prospects (or first-time visitors) may be encountering your brand for the first time. They, therefore, have little to no idea who you are or why they should trust you. Unless you provide some context for your offer on the landing page and credibility to win their trust, they’re unlikely to take action.
  • Your ad platform requires it. Ad platforms like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads want you to be successful—really. (Which makes sense, because you’ll keep buying ads from them in the future). Therefore, most advertising platforms have quality standards that landing pages must meet and may require a certain amount of content. For instance, AdWords might reject your page for “lack of usefulness” if Google perceives that you haven’t included enough content to present a clear benefit to visitors.
  • Your visitors aren’t impulse buyers. Even an opt-in for a free download or a registration for a free event requires a certain level of commitment. After all, people are investing their time and trusting you with their email addresses. Accordingly, you need to earn their trust and make a case for what you’re asking them to do.
  • Your visitors have different content preferences. People have diverse habits when it comes to gathering information online. Some may be happy to read through detailed information, while others prefer to watch an explanatory video at 2.5x playback speed. Knowing your audience means including the kinds of landing page content that will best convince them to opt-in.

When we talk about ‘content,’ we’re referring to information + format.

Obviously, the quality (value) of that information and the nature of the format are variable, so the possibilities are nearly infinite.

Let’s look at the formats that persuasive information can take on your landing page. Along the way, we’ll help you spot the kinds of audience-appropriate content you’ll want to use on your landing pages again and again.

The most common kinds of landing page content that every marketer should know

Jump to the section that interests you the most, or follows along as we
discuss real-world examples for each content-type:

1. Bullet points
2. Numbered lists
3. ‘How it works’ section
4. Sales letter
5. First-person video
6. Quick quiz
7. Mini blog post
8. ‘Our story’ section
9. Comparison chart
10. Accolades11. Testimonials
12. User-generated content (UGC)
13. Staff profiles
14. Interactive content
15. Photo spread
16. Icon set
17. Illustrations and diagrams
18. Schedules and syllabi
19. FAQs

1. Bullet points and a bulleted list

There’s a reason so many Leadpages landing page templates have sections that look like this

Bullet points are an excellent type of landing page content for all sorts of offers because they cater to an ingrained tendency we have as online readers: the tendency to scan.

Open a webpage you’ve never seen before and your eyes are likely to take in the first few lines of text, then drop down and dart out into the middle of the page here and there, looking for anything interesting enough to make you stop and dig in.

Bullets naturally follow this F-shaped reading pattern, so your audience is more likely to take in all the important bits first. They make complex topics digestible and make the benefits of your offer pop.

At Leadpages we’ve found that certain formatting and wording choices make bulleted lists convert even better—download our bonus guide to get our top three tips for bulleted text:

Good for pages that … offer anything that can’t be summed up in a few lines. Sets of 3–7 bullets are especially useful to promote “medium-weight” opt-in offers for things like free ebooks and webinars.

Good for audiences that … prefer to get all the most important details upfront and make a quick decision.

Did you know? Pages that contain a bulleted list with an odd number of bullet points tend to have a higher conversion rate than landing pages with an even number of bullet points. That’s a bit odd, right?

Perhaps it’s because odd numbers tend to be more visually appealing.

2. Numbered list

Package components, product features, multi-step processes—all can benefit from a numbered approach. If you can quantify something you’re offering, try one out.

Good for pages that … advertise a signature service, promote a particular package, or break down a complex information product.

Good for audiences that … want to understand exactly what they’re getting into.

3. “How It Works” Section

Information that is clearly displayed and educates visitors about your offer is one of the best ways to combat barriers to convert. People tend to be skeptical about vague promises and confusing offers.

The more clearly you’ve communicated the who-what-where-when-why of your offer, the less your audience will be ambivalent about what you have to say.

If you’ve done much user testing for any business website, you’ve probably heard some variation of this common complaint:

“Okay, but what does this actually do?”

Oof.

All your careful branding and inspirational messaging is for nothing if visitors can’t answer this basic question right away. On a targeted landing page, it’s even more crucial to lay out exactly what you’re offering in terms that visitors can understand.

Adding a “how it works” section can let you do just that. Here’s an example:

No matter what industry you’re in or business you’re running, the more transparent you can be with what you’re offering, the more secure your audience will feel in engaging your services or purchasing your products.

Good for pages that … are trying for a direct sale, offer an especially complex service, or are making a bold and potentially hard-to-believe claim.

Good for audiences that … tend to be skeptical, or may not be highly familiar with what you do.

4. Sales Letter

Sales letters (when done correctly) have the power to move and motivate digital audiences through a compelling, unified narrative.

It’s a marketing truism that effective copywriting addresses one ideal customer and a sales letter takes that notion to its logical conclusion. It’s a chance to address visitors’ problems and show them that you truly get it by telling a very personal story.

In this example, one entrepreneur tells a story about her family in order to demonstrate how buying her starter kit could change readers’ lives:

If your brand is powered by one key figure and you have one major product or service to sell, a sales letter might make a unique emotional impact.

Good for pages that … are selling a big-ticket item directly or rely heavily on the entrepreneur’s personal story.

Good for audiences that … are already familiar with you to some extent or are highly likely to respond to emotional appeals.

5. First-Person Video

Sometimes the best sales letters aren’t letters at all. They’re videos.

If you’re not a natural-born writer, consider setting up a camera (or your smartphone) and making your pitch that way instead. A simple script, a quiet and well-lit corner, and a lapel mic are all you need to get going.

In this example, a page making an emotional appeal about what visitors feed their families gets a boost from a video from a farmer involved with this nonprofit’s cause.

Good for pages that … are making a big announcement or an emotion-based pitch, are powered by a particular personality, or promote a video-centric offer (such as a webinar or a video course).

Good for audiences that … prefer videos to text, or are already familiar with your multimedia web presence.

6. Quick Quiz

Online quizzes seem to be the world’s favorite wastes of time—but they can also be excellent opportunities to engage your audience and learn about them, while also entertaining folks at the same time.

You have several options for adding the engagement power of a quiz to your landing page. If you use Leadpages, you can start with a template that offers a two-option quiz and then provides the answer along with a relevant offer:

Though it doesn’t allow people to vote, you can build similar intrigue by posing a quiz question in the copy and asking visitors to watch a short video or opt into your list to learn the answer.

If your first forays prove successful for your audience, you could even invest in a dedicated quiz tool and deliver results by email, as marketer Taylor Welch did to great success (as he explained to the Leadpages team in a ConversionCast episode).

Good for pages that … make a simple opt-in offer, especially if the offer involves “how-to” content of any kind.

Good for audiences that … are short on time and enjoy “gamified” approaches to learning.

7. Mini Blog Post

If your blog is a big part of your business, why not showcase it on one of your core landing pages by featuring a shorter blog post or article abstract? See how Bryan Harris does this with his homepage here:

Content like this serves two functions: it teases the kind of knowledge leads will get when they download your lead magnet, and it reminds them to seek out your blog on a regular basis for more insights. Plus, if you add a publish date, it tells visitors that your page is up to date and reflects the latest information on the topic.

Good for pages that … provide a comprehensive introduction to who you are and what you do, and ask for a simple subscription opt-in. Also great for minisites and blog welcome pages.

Good for audiences that … are discovering your site and your business for the first time.

8. “Our Story” Section

Often relegated to a corner of a well-hidden “About” page, a company’s story can in fact be a powerful element of a landing page.

Don’t have a long track record in business? Lack of credentials in your area of expertise? Don’t have enough customers yet to provide testimonials or other kinds of social proof?

For most landing page offers, you’ll want to find some way to establish your authority with content. Using your landing page, to sum up, your story as a business in an engaging and authentic way can do the trick.

And of course, the next chapter in your story starts when the visitor says yes to the offer on that landing page.

Good for pages that … provide a comprehensive introduction to who you are and what you do, and ask for a simple subscription opt-in. Also great for minisites and blog welcome pages.

Good for audiences that … don’t know you well yet and like to patronize businesses that make them feel good.

9. Comparison Chart

Got competition? You have two options: ignore it and stick to talking about what you do best, or tackle the topic head-on.

Either can be valid, but if you go the second route, there is a right way and a wrong way.

The wrong way: tear down your competitors and build your own business up with wildly hyperbolic statements about how great you are. This tends to make you seem insecure about what you have to offer.

The right way: try a more balanced, neutral tone. Sometimes, this doesn’t require many words at all—a comparison chart can convey all the convincing data you want to present.

This Leadpages template is designed to sell your product by showing all the ways you’re better than the alternatives:

You could even try this kind of content if one of the main alternatives to your service is “doing it yourself”—that is, use a comparison table or chart to spell out expenses or pitfalls that customers avoid by choosing you.

Good for pages that … sell one feature-heavy product or service directly.

Good for audiences that … do a lot of research before making a purchase.

10. Accolades

Have you received any press attention? High-profile clients? Business awards? You’ll probably want to present these somewhere on your website anyway, but content like this can be a useful addition to sales and opt-in pages, too.

The easy route is to give this kind of content its own section on a longer-form landing page, but you can also select one particularly strong testament to your business’s quality to build a shorter landing page around. A TV appearance or rave review in a well-known publication could fit the bill.

Good for pages that … are either selling a product or are presenting an opt-in offer that depends heavily on your expertise.

Good for audiences that … don’t know you well yet, or tend to make purchase decisions based on recommendations from trusted sources.

We’ve got more ideas on how to add accolades to your landing page in our free quick-tips guide below:

11. Testimonials

Similar to other kinds of accolades, testimonials are often included on a website but not positioned to make the impact they could. Rather than corralling them on their own page, try adding them to relevant landing pages.

An in-depth testimonial can sometimes tell the story of what you have to offer even better than you can. Or, if you have a lot of testimonials, you could let different users present a well-rounded picture of your product on a longer sales page, like this one:

One brief, believable testimonial from a customer can do more than a thousand words of persuasion when it comes to your landing pages.

Good for pages that … aim to get product sales, opt-ins for a substantial piece of content, or blog subscriptions.

Good for audiences that … put a lot of stock in user reviews when making a purchase.

12. User-Generated Content

A special kind of social proof, user-generated content signals that your offer or business has attracted an interested, engaged community.

That content can be curated or not. The testimonial sales page above also contains space for you to add your favorite tweets from customers; you could also add reviews from places like Facebook or Yelp if you’re a brick-and-mortar business.

If you think your audience will use it responsibly and you’re committed to keeping an eye on it, you could also add a Facebook comments section. This can be worthwhile if your page naturally invites a lot of questions, as when you’re promoting a course or an event. You can also use a comments section to generate content for an FAQ webinar directly from the people who’ll attend.

Good for pages that … promote a complex offer, include blog-style content, or lead up to a webinar or event.

Good for audiences that … are inclined to crowdsource advice or are interested in a high level of interaction.

13. Staff Profiles

So your business is filled with “top experts” and “professionals who care about every customer.”

But who are they?

If the human resources on your team are a major selling point for prospects, show them off! Customers may feel better about your offer if they can imagine talking with the real people behind it. It’s unlikely to be the main focus of your landing page, but you can incorporate this kind of content in a section like this:

Good for pages that … promote your services or function as a central hub for newcomers to your business.

Good for audiences that … enjoy making an in-depth connection to companies they purchase from.

14. Interactive Content

Interactive maps. Special calculators. Calendars and scheduling tools.

Content widgets like these give visitors a very concrete piece of information about your business while drawing them closer to a purchase or a real-life interaction.

Inside Leadpages’ drag-and-drop landing page builder, you can use an HTML embed field to drop in iframe code for widgets like these—for an instant extra dose of engagement potential.

Good for pages that … drive visitors toward personal interactions, especially for service-based or brick-and-mortar businesses.

Good for audiences that … have enough existing interest in your page topic to spend a few moments interacting with these tools.

15. Photo Spread

At Leadpages, most of our landing page templates are designed so that you don’t have to have tons of original imagery on hand. That said, if you do have high-quality, relevant photos, a longer-form landing page can be a wonderful place to flaunt them.

Ideally, you’ll use photos less as a gallery and more as a guided tour through your offer. To that end, you may want to consider a left/right array of photos and text, like this section in our Mobile App Download Page:

If you’re selling event tickets, an experiential service package, or a product that becomes clearer in context, try finding or taking some photos to use in a content section like this one.

Good for pages that … promote something with real visual appeal.

Good for audiences that … like lots of visual information.

Did you know? Shutterstock Premium Images are Available Inside
Leadpages. Illustrate your ideas and elevate your designs with
Shutterstock’s finest photography, available right inside your account at a special discount price. Learn more →

16. Icon Set

Feature sets and process steps alike gain extra clarity when you assign each individual part an icon and quick description. Three icons might be plenty for a simple lead magnet page, while three rows of icons might be fine on an “our services” page.

Good for pages that … list all your primary services or break down a complex package or product.

Good for audiences that … want to quickly locate the most relevant parts of your offer.

17. Illustrations and Diagrams

Intangible offers (such as professional services) can sometimes be hard to represent with live photography and icons. But that doesn’t mean you can’t illustrate your offer to help your audience connect with the value you provide.

In that case, it might be time to start making diagrams: flow charts, process illustrations, mind maps.

You can show part or all of images like these on your landing pages. If the diagram itself is complex, you’re likely to get more opt-ins if you leave a little to the imagination. Try your own version of this successful webinar page from James Schramko, which represents the mind maps related to the webinar in two different ways:

Good for pages that … promote one particular info product or service, especially anything based on a “formula” or a special process.

Good for audiences that … are looking for repeatable results they can eventually master on their own.

18. Schedules and Syllabi

Got something to teach? You’ll want to make sure you’re fully communicating the value of the guidance and information you have to impart.

For online events, in-person events, and information products alike, a detailed schedule or course syllabus can be an ideal way to conceptually “bulk up” what you’re offering.

One note: don’t expect every visitor to read all the way through your breakdown. For many customers, the important thing will be that the information is relevant and clearly communicated.

Good for pages that … promote a course, event, webinar, or training.

Good for audiences that … like to know lots of details before they commit.

19. FAQs

An FAQ might sound like it’d be the driest part of your landing page, but in fact, it can be a powerful sales tool.

Think about it: you have the chance to anticipate points of confusion and objections, and then answer them outright. No need to weave them into a clever narrative or worry too much about the order—just field them one by one.

While an FAQ can’t stand alone on a landing page, it can support and flesh out a simpler description of your offer.

If lots of your best page content appears only in your FAQ, make sure your design choices draw attention to it. However, if you don’t necessarily need everyone to read every answer, try using a section with hideable answers (which you can find on several Leadpages event pages) like this one:

Good for pages that … promote a course, event, or in-depth information product.

Good for audiences that … like to know lots of details or are hoping to have specific objections answered.

Leadbox Graphic 794x1024

Free Download: Quick Tips for 19 Kinds of Landing Page Content

Send me a copy!

Ready to add all kinds of compelling content to your landing pages?

The next time you're scrambling to plan out your landing page content, you have 19 options to skim through—and don't forget, we have one more resource to help you make sure whatever types of content you choose are compelling. Download our new bonus guide below:

Did we miss a kind of landing page content that's been important for you?

Tell us in the comments section below!

Share this post:
Leadpages Team
By The Leadpages Team
19 Types of Landing Page Content
squiggle seperator
Try it free for 14 days

Curious about Leadpages?

Create web pages, explore our integrations, and see if we're the right fit for your business.