Improve your Landing Page Headlines with these Proven Formulas

Great landing page headlines not only grab the reader’s attention, but also nudge them to read the rest of the content and, possibly, engage in a meaningful way with your company.

Attention spans are short and your potential leads are being inundated with content. 

So, how can you get people to click on and read your landing pages?

The answer is - by having effective landing page headlines. Fortunately, there are a few proven formulas to craft headlines. Read on to find out more.

A landing page headline is the primary piece of text that greets visitors on a landing page.

It is the first piece of content that a visitor's eyes land on when they open your landing page. 

Apart from grabbing attention, a landing page headline is designed to effectively communicate the main value proposition of your company’s products and services in a few words.

The landing page headline should hold the reader’s attention and entice them to continue reading the rest of the page. It should be compelling enough to convince visitors to click on the CTA button to sign up, make a purchase or enter a subscription.

A poorly written headline that’s either too long, has no relevance or is too boring will make a lead click away faster than they clicked on the landing page. Thankfully, there are many formulas for crafting effective high converting landing page headlines.

Here are some tips on how to make sure your landing page headline hits the mark:

The message to the reader should be clear and nothing should be left to the imagination. A customer wants to know what you’re selling, what problem your product fixes, and what they need to do to avail the product - all in a few seconds.

Your aim should be to tell your customers how you can help them in the most straightforward way possible.

The best way to write a headline is to not overthink it. Identify what your offering is and the appropriate keywords. Then try to craft a short phrase or sentence that gets your point across to readers.

For example, you’ve crafted a creative headline - ‘Have you wondered why your emails are being deleted?’

A much more effective headline would be - ‘Get expert tips to boost email open rates.’

The headline of the landing page should match the rest of the web page content. Don’t clickbait prospects - this can generate more negative feelings towards your brand.

The rest of the page should elaborate more on the message communicated in the headline.

The landing page headline should fulfill the expectations of visitors and give them the impression that they’ve landed on the right page.

So, you can add your brand’s unique voice, sensibilities, and phrasing to your headlines to set the right tone with your leads. For example, a fun and youthful brand can choose to include similar language in their landing page headlines.

To improve the relevance of your landing page headlines, you need to create customized headlines for different pages and campaigns. It may take more time and effort but it’ll be worth it.

There are time-tested formulas to help you craft persuasive, concise and impactful landing page headlines.

Identify these 3 components of your message:

A landing page headline formula is - Pain Point + Solution + Hook.

Of course, the order of these components will change based on which of the formulas you choose.

When crafting a headline, focus more on the reader’s struggles. Empathize with the reader and show them how your company can help them. 

Customers should feel like you’re trying to solve an issue rather than just sell a product.

You need to research the issues that your target audience is facing and identify the sentiments they may have. Use this information while writing a headline to comfort readers and build trust.

This type of landing page headline is probably one of the most effective while being the easiest to create. A how-to headline goes straight to the point and tells the reader how they can solve a problem.

The structure of the formula forces you to define a solution and a problem. With a snappy hook, you can elevate your headline even further.

The formula - “How to [solve a problem]/[accomplish a goal]”

The formula can be implicit too - you don’t need to add the words “How to” to construct such a headline. The headline should mention a distinct problem and its solution.

Example: “How to add more protein to your meals”. The same can be rephrased as “Add more protein to your meals with X”. Both are examples of how-to headlines.

Take a look at StackAdapt’s landing page. It uses a variant of the how-to formula but is still able to convey the pain point and the solution. The headline is enough to tell you that the company has tools to help agencies grow.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to pack every detail in the headline. It’s not possible to do so while keeping headlines short. The rest of your landing page copy should continue what the headline started.

As can be seen on StackAdapt’s landing page, the paragraph below the headline gives a lot more clarity. It states that the company has an advertising platform that helps digital marketers.

However, it doesn’t give too much away so that customers are curious enough to continue exploring the landing page. In this case, the CTA button has been created to match the headline.

With this headline formula, there’s no need to be modest. It doesn’t mean that your landing page headline should be making unproven, wild claims. The trick to perfecting this type of headline is to find your niche.

You need to find the one thing that your product or company solves best and highlight that in the headline. As you have to describe the niche, superlative headlines are usually longer than how-to headlines.

You need to find the right balance between the length of the headline and specifying the niche problems your products can take care of.

Calm is an app that offers stories, meditations, and soundscapes to help users sleep better, and ease stress and anxiety. They knew that they were the most used app in this segment, which was reflected in their landing page.

The headline clearly states that it’s the No. 1 app in the sleep and meditation niche. You must ensure that your headline is factually correct if you want to attempt a superlative headline.

The call-to-action headline infuses a sense of urgency into the headline. Usually, the call-to-action of a landing page is placed on the button. However, it can also be added to the headline.

These types of headlines always start with a verb, such as “get”, “save”, and “grab”. They urge people to take action immediately and work best for landing pages for products such as sports goods, and energy drinks.

They also work well for limited-time offers such as promotions and deals, and special content such as newsletters and ebooks. The headline tells people what they need to do to get what they want. For example: “Grab the latest copy of X”.

Here, the customer needs to take action (grab), which is to use their CTA button, to be able to get (possess the latest copy of X) what they desire.

edX, the education platform, offers a huge catalog of online courses on a wide range of topics. Their landing page headline is only 3 words with no accompanying text - just a search field and a button.

Their simple headline aims to rekindle the ambitions of visitors and encourages them to search for subjects they’re interested in. They could have gone with longer headlines, such as “Do you want to learn Artificial Intelligence from X university?”. Yet, the shorter headline “Fuel Your Ambition” seems more inspirational and packs a better punch.

The platform offers thousands of courses so it was better for them to not mention specific subjects that students might be interested in. Adding specific subjects in the headline would reduce the size of their target audience.

The value proposition headline focuses on the benefit of the product rather than the pain points of the customer. We did say that good landing page headlines consist of the pain point, problem, and hook.

In a value proposition headline, the pain points are obvious even if they aren’t explicitly stated. If you need to hype up the unique selling point of your product, then this headline formula would be a good choice.

This formula is similar to the how-to formula but places even less of an emphasis on pain points.

For example, take a headline that focuses on pain points - “Get rid of X, Y problems”. To convert it into a value prop headline, it can be rewritten as “Achieve A, B, C goals”.

Let’s look at the landing page for OptimizePress. The company offers WordPress tools that help entrepreneurs build an online business, improve their online presence and maximize conversions.

From building WordPress websites, sales funnels and checkouts, OptimizePress has applications that any small business would need. All this is encapsulated and effectively communicated to web visitors in a short headline on their landing page.

The headline has a positive tone and doesn’t directly mention the customer’s pain points. Instead, the focus is on the fact that their products can help the reader improve lead conversion rates and thereby, sales.

Take a note of the phrase “all-in-one”. It conveys that the company can help businesses with all their WordPress site needs. It’s a nice touch that shows web visitors how they’re a better choice than their customers.

An agitator headline focuses on a customer’s pain points rather than the selling point of the company’s products.

Customers often don’t realize how big their problems are or that they even have problems that your company can solve. In this case, it is best to remind them with agitator landing page headlines.

Such headlines tend to be more negative in tone in comparison to the other types. They also tend to play on the fears that customers have.

A popular agitator format is “Tired of X? Click here for help”, where X is the issue the customer is dealing with. The usage of negative terms exaggerates the negative sentiments that customers may have about the pain points.

A landing page headline that follows this formula was used by Industrial Strength Marketing. The headline “Don’t make me zoom”, immediately brings up the feeling of annoyance one has while using non-responsive websites on mobile devices.

The company doesn’t tell you that it helps build responsive websites but the headline highlights their prospects’ pain points. The headline is short and bold, yet can create an emotional connection with readers.

To attract more leads and increase conversion rates, companies often offer special discounts, coupons, and promo codes. To promote these offers, landing pages have headlines that follow the special offer formula.

Nobody can resist a good deal so make sure to add the details of the deal in the landing page headline. It is best to highlight the number, like the discount percentage as numbers grab more attention and are easier to read and understand.

Special offer headlines state a clear benefit - save money. Usually, such headlines are of the format - “Save X% on Y product”.

Here’s an example of a Nordstrom landing page. It was for their summer sale and the landing page headline is simple and tells you exactly how much you can expect to save.

You need to make sure that the period for the special offer is mentioned near the headline. In this example, the last date of the sale is shown right below the headline.

Effective landing page headlines are those that follow time-tested formulas. Sometimes, too much creativity can actually spoil your landing page headline.

This is good news for those who want to optimize their landing page headlines. Follow one of the six formulas that we have described and you’ll be good to go.

Implement these strategies to transform your headlines from mere statements into powerful, persuasive tools that enhance your landing page's effectiveness. 

With the right approach, your headlines will not only capture attention but will also lead to higher conversions, helping you achieve your business objectives with greater efficiency.