We all want to believe that our products and services can sell themselves through their unmatched quality and irreplaceable value. Even though we’re certain these things are true for you, people can’t find that out for themselves until they’re actually interacting with what you’re selling. Before they can fully appreciate what you have to offer, you have to woo them a bit, and in the digital age, that often happens through a killer landing page.

Research has shown time and time again that online shoppers look for further information on products and services prior to making the decision to purchase. This is true across most industries and is likely to become even more common as people try to shift away from in-person experience in favor of online alternatives. As such, it’s crucial for you to have a solid landing page — one that is informative, visually appealing, and incites action.

Of course, creating landing pages is harder than it sounds. It’s easy to think you can just put a webpage with some general information on it and it will do the trick, but your landing page simply existing isn’t enough to convert potential customers. You want traffic, but you also want qualified traffic that will be interested in purchasing your products and services.

Whether you’re new to creating landing pages or you’ve written hundreds of them before, it’s always a good idea to learn more about what a “great” landing page looks like, how you can improve your own landing pages, and how to use them as leverage to grow your business. Here’s everything you need to know about building an effective landing page.

The Purpose of a Course Landing Page

First and foremost, the most important thing to keep in mind regarding your landing page is the intent, or the purpose behind it — to convert readers into paying customers. You want to get people to sign up for your course. It’s this purpose that should drive every decision you make surrounding your landing page, including the layout, the copywriting, the information included, etc.

It’s also important to keep in mind that your landing page is the first impression of your fitness certification or course. For referral traffic (people who came upon your landing page from somewhere else, such as from your employer), this may be less crucial, as they might be coming here because that’s what their employer told them to do. Perhaps the gym sends all of their trainers to your website, and if that’s the case, you’re ahead of the game.

These visitors are already going to have a reason to be on your landing page — someone told them to specifically take that course. For them, they need a few tidbits of information and easy access to the sign-up form.

However, you’ll also want to pull in trainers who are just getting started or gyms who are shopping around for new certification or course options. These may come in via organic leads, which means that people are Googling (or Bing-ing or Yahoo-ing) to find more information about a topic. They are the main reason you need to write a killer landing page.

It’s the organic leads that you’ll need to focus on converting. There are plenty of other courses that are similar enough to yours that they’d have other options. You’re trying to convince them that your certification or course is the best option available and that they should take yours above any others. In this instance, this page is your elevator pitch.

How to Build a Landing Page that Converts

Keep It Simple

Some will tell you that the only point to a landing page is to provide a place for people to sign up for your course. They feel so strongly about this notion that they recommend you don’t put much of anything on the page — simply a title and spaces for people to enter their information.

The point of keeping a simple landing page is that you don’t want to overwhelm people, but you also don’t want to make them think they’re in the wrong place. If they see a lot of copy but nowhere to sign up for the course, they may click off of the page in confusion. While this is a perfectly valid strategy, we’d recommend finding a happy medium between under sharing and oversharing.

Give visitors enough information to know that they’re in the right place, but not so much that they’re overwhelmed. They’ll need pertinent information and that’s basically all. If you need to give them additional information for the course, you can do it after they sign up via email.

Give an Overview of the Course

An effective landing page details exactly what someone can expect to learn from the course offering. This may seem like a simple piece of advice — something you’d assume you wouldn’t overlook, but you’d be surprised at how often people write landing pages that are full of fluff, but sparse on real content.

People need to know what they can expect because it helps them determine if your course is what suits their objectives and career goals the best. This is particularly important if people are looking to specialize in a given area or niche.

For example, some fitness professionals have a desire to specialize in postpartum recovery and will need to look for courses that suit those needs or include requirements moving forward with that certification. Even if they have already completed that certification, they may be personally interested in learning more about a specific subject matter.

Pay Attention to Formatting

Every web page needs to focus on formatting because it helps people get through information quicker, and walk (or click) away with better understanding. Copywriters utilize H2 and H3 headers to notate new sections and break information into smaller, more readable sections.

Another common strategy is using bullet pointed lists, which are always helpful for multiple reasons.
• First, they help break up content blocks and make the page feel less dense.
• They break down information into easily digestible snippets.
• Visually, they stand out, which draws attention.

However, you don’t want to overdo the list-making. Save your lists for the things that really matter, such as outlining the important points they can expect to learn in the course. If someone is skimming the page (realistically, most people are), this is a great way to draw their attention to the most critical information.

Additionally, you’ll want to use images to your advantage. Rather than haphazardly placing images on your landing page, use them to help shape, format, and demonstrate your text. For example, you can use an image of an instructor assisting a yoga student during a class if your landing page is geared toward yoga instruction certification courses. This image could be used to balance out a block of information that is offset to the side.

Include Testimonials if Possible

Testimonials are an asset to any business, regardless of the industry. They’re essentially positive reviews that you can use in your marketing materials to show potential clients what your current and former clients have enjoyed about your services.

Consumers who are still trying to make a buying decision enjoy reading reviews because it helps them gather additional information. They’re able to see what people like and dislike about a given product or service because it helps temper their expectations. Testimonials serve the same purpose, but you’ll be focusing on obtaining positive quotes from satisfied customers. They can be anonymized if need be by using first names and last initials, or by listing the type of customer (i.e. a personal trainer, a chain of gyms, etc).

The testimonials section doesn’t need to be very formal. It can include a congenial heading (i.e. See What Our Satisfied Clients Think of Us) and then a few short quotes that demonstrate what each client likes best about your company and your service. This is particularly important if you have distinguishing factors that set you apart from your competition.

That being said, if you don’t have testimonials, it’s not a deal-breaker. You can always add them in later as you accumulate them. Testimonials are nice to include, but they’re not critical.

Build in a Form to Sign Up Immediately

The sign-up form is very possibly the most important component of any landing page of this sort. After you’ve given your best elevator pitch, you want to strike while the iron is hot. You want to make it incredibly easy for them to sign up for your course, and the best way to do so is to create a brief form that is right there on the page. The operative word here is brief. Only require a few pieces of information, like a name, company, and email address to get started — you can ask for more information on the next page.

Depending on your business and desired branding, you may also consider a strong call to action button over a form. This could be language peppered throughout the page (once at the beginning, once at the end, perhaps once in the middle), that is accompanied by a clear, clickable/touchable button that shows your potential clients how to sign up for the course.

For example, on the Inspire360 website, we use a button that says “Request a Demo” in a few places — it’s at the top of our website on every page, as you see here at the top right corner, in addition to a large, bold button in the center.

It’s quick (only 4 boxes) and it defines exactly what information we’d need in order to set up a demonstration.

Be Sure Your Language is Clear and Concise

While it’s important to make sure you’re clear and concise on every landing page, it’s most important when you’re providing any kind of instruction on how to fill out the form, and what the next steps may be. You want to make sure that they know exactly what is expected of them, particularly after they fill out the form.

Will they be taken to another page to fill out billing information? Will they receive an email with further instructions and course materials? How do they access the course? (You don’t need to tell them how they’ll access the course now, but you can tell them they’ll receive this information via email after they complete their registration.)

Providing clear instructions will help ensure that people complete their registration properly, don’t miss any important information, and put their minds at ease.

Killer Landing Page Examples

There are really excellent examples of effective landing pages all over the internet. To give you an idea of how diverse great landing pages can be while still accomplishing the same goal, we wanted to provide some of our favorites for you.

Stash is a financial planning and investment app that is geared toward making sure everyone has access to tools that will help them give healthy financial lives through something called “micro investing.” This is their sign-up landing page: https://www.stash.com/invest

As you can see here, there is a sign up button at the top, as well as a quick form with a bright button drawing attention to how people can get started immediately. Further down the page, there is more information, such as frequently asked questions, links to pages where people can learn more about investment opportunities, explanations about micro investing, and pricing information.

At the bottom of the page, there are two calls to action — one of which is to get started with the app, while the other is an offer to sign up for their newsletter for financial advice delivered to your inbox. Overall, it’s clean, it’s visually appealing, and it sparks interest.

Another great example is FreshBooks, cloud-based accounting software available for a monthly fee that is determined by your volume of billable clients.

As with most other killer landing pages, FreshBooks provides immediate opportunities to sign up for their services. In this case, they offer a “try it free” option in the top right corner and an option to save money on their services, even inciting action by advertising their sale as a limited time offer.

Further down the page, there are pricing options, a list of features, and frequently asked questions. It’s very simple, but it’s effective.

The final example we’ll mention is Peloton, which does things a little bit differently, at least in part because they’re selling two things: the equipment and the membership.

In order to entice potential customers, they offer a 30-day in-home trial, during which time they hope you’ll call in love with the bike (or treadmill) and won’t have a desire to return it. (Yes, they will take your equipment back and give you a full refund if you truly hate it.)

Further down the page, they list benefits of the in-home trial, and even a testimonial that specifically speaks to the price tag. The customer they quote admits that the price made him hesitate, but that he was ultimately glad to have taken the plunge.

After that, they list the equipment options and include some frequently asked questions. All in all, it’s a clean page tailored to their product without ignoring the fact that their products and services aren’t cheap.

How Inspire360 Can Help You

At Inspire360, our goal is to provide the tools you need in order to more effectively run your business. We offer customizable learning management systems, certification management systems, and live workshop management systems so that your clients can easily access and utilize all your training materials and courses.

We have over 35 years of combined experience, working with companies like BOSU, Yoga Journal, TRX, Mike Boyle, and over 200 others. We’re confident that we can help you run a tighter ship, while freeing up your time to focus on the bigger picture and a future full of continued success.

If you’re ready to take the next step in your business, we’re more than happy to help. To get started with Inspire360, contact us or request a demo so you can see how our products can work for you.