Landing Page Redesign
August 21, 2021
The conversion rate on a product landing page can make or break the profitability of a business. High conversion rates lead to lower customer acquisition costs and improved unit economics, while low conversion rates mean you likely won’t be in business for much longer.
Part of a growth marketer’s job is improving these landing pages to optimize for conversions. Whether it’s rewriting copy, changing up the size of buttons, or inserting eye-catching photos, they’ll do anything to get you to sign up.
Recently, I was hired to help optimize the landing page of a career prep product. I’ll be covering what I did and the rationale behind each of the changes I made.
The Product
A bit of background on the product. The Career Launchpad is an online video course and community taking you through the entire job recruiting process from interview to job offer negotiation. The course covers networking techniques, interview prep frameworks, salary compensation research, and much more.
Above The Fold
Currently, when you first land on the website home page, the above the fold header reads “A recruiting system built by and for high achievers. Land offers in Product” with the word “product” animated to switch between different careers like data science, consulting, and software engineering.
While I love the design of the first section of the website, I would revise the header to read “Land your dream job in Product without the guesswork. Say goodbye to ghosted applications, botched interviews, and endless rejections.”
This revised header better encapsulates the core reason users buy this course. They don’t particularly care it’s a recruiting system “built by and for high achievers”— they care it’ll help them land their dream job. By bringing “Land your dream job in Product” to the first part of the header, we instantly give users a reason to pay attention.
The second component of the revised header repurposes text from the subheader to highlight common pain points users might face. By emphasizing “avoid the ghosted applications, botched interviews, and endless rejections,” we demonstrate why users should purchase The Career Launchpad.
Because I repurposed part of the subheader text into the header, I would simply change the subheader from “Say goodbye to ghosted applications, botched interviews, and endless rejections. Get proven results with our step-by-step course, Slack community, and high-performance coaching” to “Get proven results with our step-by-step course, Slack community, and high-performance coaching.”
Clear and concise— exactly what we want.
Value Prop 1
As we scroll down the product landing page we begin reaching the value propositions section. The first value prop currently reads:
At first glance, I would say there is too much text in both the header and body text of the value prop. Users tend to skim landing pages so it’s imperative the core reasons to purchase the product stand out. Because of this, I would revise the value prop header to read “No more guesswork and anxiety about recruiting.” The phraseology “An engineered, step-by-step system” is jargon users don’t care about and by removing it we highlight the real reason users will want The Career Launchpad— to have “No more guesswork and anxiety about recruiting.”
My rewritten version of the body paragraph would read:
“Our comprehensive video course guides you through the entire recruiting cycle, from choosing your career to negotiating your final offer. We’ve tested and refined our strategies after working with hundreds of successful job seekers.
There’s no fluff. Only actionable advice— so you know exactly what to do every step of the way.”
This version places more emphasis on what exactly the course includes by clearly defining what it covers. It also swaps out the more academic “We turned recruiting into a science by analyzing hundreds of high achievers” for “We’ve tested and refined our strategies after working with hundreds of successful job seekers,” demonstrating more real-world experience and proven results. This will make users more comfortable purchasing the course knowing the lessons within it have been proven to be effective.
Value Prop 2
The second value prop highlights the community aspect of the course. However, it doesn’t emphasize the core value users get out of the private Slack community and live office hours.
Because of this, I would revise the header from “You’ll no longer recruit alone with our private Slack community and live office hours” to just “Get personalized guidance and support.”
This new header highlights a more meaningful value prop— the prospect of getting personalized advice. This is way more powerful than saying “no longer recruit alone” because what customers want is advice tailored to their situation.
I would then change the body to read:
“Navigating your career alone is tough. When you sign up for Career Launchpad you’ll gain access to:
- A private Slack community of ambitious young professionals to interview prep with and hold you accountable to your goals.
- Live office hours with the course creators, so you get advice specific to your situation.
- Exclusive events to learn from industry experts, explore different career paths, and expand your network.”
No major changes here. I only reworded some of the text for clarity and concision.
Value Prop 3
We’ve now arrived at the final value prop. It’s time to seal the deal. While the current header does play into a very real fear job seekers have, it still feels broad and not particularly convincing to a prospective user.
The phraseology “Shortcut years of mistakes” also makes the problem seem far removed from the user’s current state. We want to highlight the urgency of the problem now, not years into the future.
With this in mind, I would change the header to read “Sidestep the recruiting mistakes people aren’t even aware they’re making.” This plays up the FOMO and pushes the user to action because they don’t want to be making the same mistakes as everyone else.
I would then double down on the revised header in the body paragraph by writing:
“The job search process is full of unspoken rules people won’t tell you. With our word-for-word cold networking scripts and interview prep frameworks, you’ll know what recruiters and interviewers really want to hear. Whether it’s building networking relationships over time, gracefully asking for a referral, or crushing trick interview questions, we’ll teach you everything you need to know.”
With this new body paragraph we play up the insider knowledge the course provides on helping users impress recruiters and stand out from other job applicants. We also have refined the messaging to center around what exactly the course will teach and how there’s no ambiguity on what the user should do in each step of their job search. This helps users feel reassured they won’t purchase the course only to have more unanswered questions.
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