6 Tips for Mapping Out Your Sales Page Design (to Save Time and Sanity)
By: Tiffany Hathorn
Tags: Copywriting, Online Business, Online Marketing, Copywriting Tips, Sales Page

Here’s something about me — I love writing sales pages, but HATE designing them.

I know I’m not the only one!

So, here’s what I do to make the process a bit less stressful. This can help make the design process easier whether you do it yourself or hire a web designer to do it for you.

Use Headlines and Subheadlines

Headlines and subheadlines make your sales page easily scannable for vital info. Although you don’t want your ideal buyer to skim your sales page, if she decides she needs to, you should make it easy for her to find what she needs. After all, she might be really close to buying, but just need to confirm one thing.

In addition to telling the reader exactly where to find vital info, headlines and subheadlines can help YOU stay on track while you’re writing so that you don’t end up bouncing all over the place. You want your sales page to make sense — from beginning to end. This is one way to ensure that happens.

Some common headlines and sections to include on your sales page include:

Your attention-grabbing headline and subheadline (usually calling out your ideal client, their pain, or the results they want)

Introducing (where you finally introduce your offer and its benefits

What’s Included/What You Get (where you talk about all of the features of your offer)

How This Works (where you talk about the process of working with you — from start to finish)

Testimonials (where you share the results other people have gotten after working with you)

Who This Is For (where you discuss who would get great results with your offer)

Who This Is Not For (where you talk about who is not the ideal customer for this offer)

Bio (where you share who you are, why you created the offer, and why you are the best person to get it from)

FAQS (where you answer questions and address common objections)

Break Up Your Text

Have you ever read something online that was just one big, long block of text?

Did you automatically get pissed off at whoever wrote it and refused to read it?

Or perhaps you made an attempt to read it because the topic was interesting, but you just couldn’t muddle your way through.

That’s because reading long blocks of text makes our eyes work harder than is necessary. We learn as early as elementary school to break up text into paragraphs.

Online, you have to take it even further. You want to make things scannable and easy to read.

Use short paragraphs. 2–3 sentences per paragraph should do it! You can also use single sentences as long as that sentence stands on its own well.

Also, use bullet points whenever it makes sense.

Use Visual Emphasis

When it comes to online writing, bold, italics, and capitalization are your friends. Use them strategically to draw attention to important words, phrases, and sentences. I also like to use pops of color throughout my sales pages.

Make a Note of Where to Place Visual and Design Elements

When you’re writing your sales page, you don’t want to break your creative flow by stopping to create or add visual elements like pictures, testimonials, graphics, or call buttons. You need to focus on getting all the words down and THEN you can go back in and add all the visual stuff.

To make it easy for you to remember where everything goes (or for your designer, if you are outsourcing the sales page design), make a CLEAR note of where things go. For example, you can type things like “Pricing Table Here”. “Testimonial from X Client Here” or “Buy Now Button Here”.

To avoid ending up with a published sales page that still has those placeholder notes on it, make it really hard to overlook them by changing the font, type, size, and/or color of the text.

Embrace White Space

While having great visuals definitely makes a sales page more effective, there is such a thing as too many visuals. Don’t feel like you need to fill in every blank space with something. In fact, having white space on your sales page is good because it gives the eyes a bit of a break while reading.

Use Call-to-Action Buttons Strategically

The whole point of a sales page is to get your ideal client to take action, whether that is to buy a coaching package, enroll in a course, or book a sales call. You MUST include a clear call-to-action. Personally, I love using call-to-action buttons with micro-copy like “Yes, Sign Me Up!”, “I want in!”, “Take My Money”, “Book a Call”, or the classic “Buy Now”.

Whatever your call-to-action is, though, you want to use it strategically. Don’t jump the gun by introducing it too soon. You want to wait until your reader has learned what the offer is and how it will help them before inviting them to buy it.

Unless they arrive at your sales page already knowing everything, a premature call-to-action is the sales page equivalent of yelling “Hey, baby…can I get them digits!” to an attractive woman from across the street — before you even know her name or have had a conversation with her. Even if you could have been a match made in heaven, she’s probably going to think “Boy, bye” in her head while she quickly walks past you.

Talk to your ideal client first. Tell her about yourself and what you do for a living. Let her see your value and how you can change her life. THEN you can invite her to give your offer a shot.

Personally, I also think it’s smart to put your call-to-action in a few places if you’re using a long-form sales page. Remember, your goal is to make it super easy to work with you. Having to scroll forever to find the Buy Now button doesn’t help.

That’s it! Write persuasive copy and use these design tips to create a sales page that puts more dollars in your bank account each month.

Check out screenshots of my Blog with Authority: Pull in Paying Customers with Your Blog” sales page to see these tips in action!