The Landing Page Formula

Insights from 1,000 Roasts

Author

Zaid Al Kazemi
February 02, 2025

I’ve roasted 1000+ landing pages. I do this every Friday and it’s open to all, sign up to get notified here: feedback-friday.zalkazemi.com

Here’s the order of elements that makes your landing page replace a sales team (with examples) ↓

Table of Contents

1• Identity (Logo + Name)

The most important part of your business is a name. The name is what you build trust with. The logo is secondary.

Goal for both the logo and name = Easy to remember

Logo = simple + low visual processing + striking

Name = easy to say + easy to spell when you hear it + includes TLD when not .com

Examples: fly(dot)io, A Hundred Monkeys, jam(dot)dev

2• Headline

Make a BIG promise that relieves a big PAIN in a SPECIFIC target market.

Goal = Create a ton of excitement and hope for your solution that relieves their pain.

Examples:

  • Build in a weekend, Scale to millions (Pain: time + scale)

  • Own Your Email (Pain: security + recurring payment)

  • Fire your photographer (Pain: high costs of real photographer)

3• Sub-headline

Tell your customer exactly HOW you’ll deliver the promise in the headline.

Goal = Give the customer an idea of ownership and the top features they’ll enjoy.

Examples:

  • Supabase is an open source Firebase alternative.Start your project with a Postgres database, Authentication, instant APIs, Edge Functions, Realtime subscriptions, Storage, and Vector embeddings.

  • Over 3 million apps have launched on Fly .io, leveraging global Anycast load-balancing, zero-config private networking, hardware isolation, and instant WireGuard VPN connections, with push-button deployments scaling to thousands of instances.

  • Need more than just a sign-in box? Clerk is a complete suite of embeddable UIs, flexible APIs, and admin dashboards to authenticate and manage your users.

4• Hero Image / Magic Trick

To seal the deal, SHOW the results / how easy it is to get the results your solution promises.

Goal = Make it super easy to IMAGINE ownership.

Examples:

5• Call to Action (CTA) + Assurances

This is the main reason the landing page exists. So make it clear and stack all your assurances around the CTA. It should be obvious what the next step will be before you click.

Assurances = guarantees, easiness, compatibility

Goal = Give customers the confidence that their pain relief is a click away.

Examples:

6• Social Proof and Credibility

Your customer should be sold by now and is looking for proof that your product is trustworthy.

Show them a snapshot of total usage / reviews / results.

Goal = Proof your solution works for your customers, their peers, and their role models (influencers, leaders, publications, etc.).

7• 0-100 Demo / Live Demo / Portfolio

The easiest way to show how easy it is for your customer to get value is to show them how to go from 0 → 100 in less than 100 seconds if possible. For service businesses show a gallery of your work.

Goal = Reduce / eliminate the time-to-value.

Examples:

  • Click watch demo above the fold on Clerk(dot)com (they should have just put it full dimensions below the fold but the video is great)

  • tldraw(dot)dev

  • For more elaborate demos, show the demo AFTER explaining the features

8• Steps to Value

How does a user get started? Show them at a glance the steps required to get rockin’ and rollin’ with your product or service. An overview of the time to full value.

Goal = Show the customers how easily it is to get started

9• Hero Features / Services

Pick up to 3 of your top (most valuable) features / services and showcase them. Imagine each feature is its own product and follow the headline sub-headline combo like this:

  • Feature Name

  • Headline

  • Sub-headline

Remember to imply the benefit with the copy and explicitly show the feature working in the supporting visual.

Goal: Differentiate your product and excite the prospect

•10 All Features / Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Smaller showcases of the rest of the features. A masterful way of doing is to predict objections and address them with features or standard-operating-procedures if it’s a service.

Goal: Handle objections and show the full scope of the product or service

•11 Testimonials / Case Studies / Results

Make the excitement real. Show how others have loved these features / services you created. Focus on highlighting results.

Goal: Anchor the benefits of the features or services in real life examples.

•12 Pricing

Ask. Show them your packages and make sure your pricing is competitive with the competition. Too high and you’re delusional. Too low and you’re desperate. Make your pricing fair for you and fair for your customers.

Goal: Give the customer options based on their needs.

•13 Lead Capture for Nurturing / Invite to Community

If for any reason a customer doesn’t buy but is still interested, you want to give them an easy way to stay in touch. Invite them to your community platform or have them sign up to a nurturing sequence to raise their education level to the point they need the product.

Goal: Capture high-intent leads

•14 Use Cases

No need to show the full use case. Just list a couple to get the imagination flowing. You can link out to the full use case. This can also be anchored in a case study to make it more real.

Goal: Convince the skeptical and capture the lead

•15 FAQs

FAQs are not necessarily frequently asked questions. It’s a place to frame unanswered objections as questions. A successful FAQ anticipates objections the customer hasn’t thought off to give them a higher level of assurance.

Goal: Handle unanswered and high-level objections

Examples:

  • bland(dot)com Not a single FAQ section but the objection handling in the security section is a masterclass

•16 Contact Info

If for any reason the customer still has questions, make it easy to contact you.

Goal: Connect with customers with questions

This is your typical footer and to make it even more useful, turn into a directory of your educational (SEO) resources.

Goal: Give a complete curriculum that takes a prospect from noob to pro and ready for your product

Examples:

•18 Optional: Founder’s Letter

Share your story from the perspective of “why would they care?”

Goal: Give them reasons to root for you + Show them you’re in it for the long-haul

The Landing Page Checklist
by @zalkazemi

[ ] 1. Identity (Logo + Name)
[ ] 2. Headline
[ ] 3. Sub-headline
[ ] 4. Hero Image / Magic Trick
[ ] 5. Call to Action (CTA) + Assurances
[ ] 6. Social Proof + Credibility
[ ] 7. 0-100 Demo / Onboarding / Portfolio
[ ] 8. Steps to Value
[ ] 9. Hero Features / Services
[ ] 10. Rest of The Features / SOPs
[ ] 11. Testimonials / Case Studies / Results
[ ] 12. Pricing
[ ] 13. Lead Capture for Nurturing / Invite to Community
[ ] 14. Use Cases
[ ] 15. FAQs
[ ] 16. Contact Info
[ ] 17. Resources / Legal
[ ] 18. Optional: Founder’s Letter

If you want your landing page roasted by me, I host a free roasting event every Friday on 𝕏. Sign up to get notified here feedback-friday.zalkazemi.com

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