If you’ve ever bought anything online, you’ve probably been sold through an effective sales page and didn’t even notice it! Now it’s time for you to utilise the magic that a sales page can bring and reap all the benefits!
Depending on the type of business you have, your sales page might look a little different or have different features or must-haves. In this blog, we’ll unpack what a sales page is, whether you should choose a short or long layout and what are the key essentials that make a sales page so successful. Without these key features, you’re just creating another landing page for your website.
What Is A Sales Page?
A sales page is a page on your website that is dedicated to selling a particular product or service that you provide. You may end up having several of these pages for each of your products.
A sales page is made to quell any of your visitor’s hesitations about whether or not to buy your offering, ultimately turning them from a visitor to a customer.
This page should also be highly focused on your target audience. Using research gathered, the page should:
- Answer any questions they often have about the offering
- Speak directly into their pain points and desires using powerful copywriting techniques
- Highlight key features and how they will benefit your target audience
- Show visitors what other customers have said that may fall in the same target audience
- Be transparent about pricing
- Make it easy to buy the product
- Make the sale irresistible
*Pro-Tip* When you are creating your sales page, ensure that you keep speaking into any objections your visitors may have about the product. This helps to get them further down the page wanting to learn more since they can’t find any reasons why they shouldn’t buy your product.
Short Sales Pages VS Long Sales Pages
Not all sales pages look the same, however, and you will need to choose your layout depending on what will suit your business better. Long sales pages will contain lots of imagery and thousands of words of copy, whereas shorter pages will get to the point quicker. Let’s take a look at both a little closer.
Long-form Sales Page
A long-form sales page will be used if the offering is:
- More of a long-term commitment
- Expensive
- Complex and needing more explanation
- More obscure and there is low awareness about the offering
- Example: A new car
The benefits of a long sales page lie in expanding further on benefits, speaking into objections, and building a stronger relationship with your visitors.
A long sales page, however, may lose impulse buyers or other visitors that are put off by the length, not wanting to read through the entire thing.
Short-form Sales Page
A short form sales page is ideal for:
- A simple/non-explanatory product/ offering
- An offering that is relatively low cost
- An offering that doesn’t involve a big commitment
- Popular products consumers are aware of
- Example: A new kettle
Short sales pages give a great short summary of the offering and quickly convey features, benefits and prices of the offering. Ultimately helping visitors make a quick, informed decision.
However, short sales pages lack the deep dive that some products or services need and, therefore, will skim the surface of some products that need more explanation.
*Pro-Tip* Once again it’s up to what you’re selling and your target audience to determine the length of your page. There are always exceptions to the rule so A/B testing is always the best thing to do when creating the most successful sales page!
The Top 7 Things Your Sales Page Should Have
- A sales-worthy headline
Headlines matter, and in the case of a sales page, they could be the difference between a sale or not. A strong headline should persuade your visitors to keep reading the page and find out more about why they NEED your offering.
Use emotive words in your headline, speak into your user’s pain points while making it short and attention-grabbing! Headlines need alot of time and thought put into them, especially for a sales page.
- High-quality imagery
Images and graphics are attention-grabbing, help break up your copy and gives your sales page character. Ensure that your images and graphics are always of the highest quality, especially when displaying the product, its features and how it works!
- How it works/ video
Having a section dedicated to explaining how the product works is a must-have for a sales page, and it’s half the reason why your visitors are there in the first place. Utilise this section to mention pain points and how this product solves them. A simple ‘how it works’ video makes your page much more effective and memorable.
- Benefits/ value proposition
This is your selling point! Make sure your benefits pop on the page and draw the users eye. For longer sales pages, give a brief description into each unique benefit. For shorter pages, you can use bullets for each benefit.
- Pricing details
This is one section that users might skip straight to, so make sure it looks enticing is clearly headlined. If you can give the breakdown of your pricing so users can see exactly what they are paying for. Try not to beat around the bush when it comes to pricing, be as straightforward as possible and state the facts.
- Social proof/ testimonials
People love to know what other people think of the offering, so make sure to include testimonials from previous customers and social proof wherever you can. If your audience is on the fence about buying your product/service, effective testimonials and reviews can get them off that fence and into the shopping cart.
- CTA
Finally, don’t forget about your final CTA. Without this, users won’t know what to do next, and you could have a powerful sales page without any sales! This final CTA should guide users and entice them to buy. It should speak into their pain point, highlight benefits and tell them what to do next, ie. ‘give us a call’, ‘get a free quote’, ‘buy now’.
*Pro-Tip* Another must-have that might suit your page is having a useful FAQ section of commonly asked questions about your product or service. This shows that you know your target audience really well and can quickly assuage fears/ insecurities right at the beginning!
Now that you know a little more about sales pages, are you ready to create your own? Maybe you already have some potential pages that need additional features, or you need a little help creating the best sales page. At The Weblab, we can help you create powerful sales pages that bring in more sales than you could dream of! Interested? Schedule a free strategy call today to find out more!
