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Guide to developing a top-converting landing page

Read on for some best practices and tips to build a landing page that sells.

Written by Chelsea Wilson

Your landing page is the synthesis of all your course or workshop ideas. It's the place where you communicate to students:

  1. What they'll get out of your course or workshop.

  2. What outcomes they can expect to achieve.

  3. Why you're the right person to teach them.

  4. Why your course or workshop is worth their time and money.

Below is a guide for completing key sections of your landing page. We've linked examples and extra resources for inspiration.

Section

Checklist

Course title & description

☑️ Start with the format X skill for Y persona.

☑️ Description explains tactically what students will learn or do in the course.

☑️ Avoid "-ing" style verbs (students want output, not process) and words like "Unleash," "Supercharge," and "Bootcamp."

Above the fold (bio, logos)

☑️ Highlights the key outcome.

☑️ Simple but powerful language that illustrates the problems of the target student and briefly explains their transformation.

☑️ Include your name and credibility markers (e.g., PhD, Founder of XYZ, taught/coached XXXX# of product managers, etc.).


Example course:
Claude for Non-Technical Operators: Advanced Certification by Pietro Montalto


Resource:

Target audience

☑️ No more than 2 personas, each closely related.

☑️ Clearly explains the problems and needs of your target student.

☑️ Specific enough to disqualify people. The scope is not overly broad in your industry.

☑️ Evokes emotions from your target student (and is not fear-mongering).


Example course:

The AI Bootcamp for L&D by Dr. Philippa Hardman

Resource:

Course overview

☑️ Use this space to: (1) discuss the challenges your target student is facing, (2) provide an outline of the key topics you'll cover in the course or questions you'll help students answer, (3) show how the course is designed to help your students master the outcomes, (4) outline the bonuses students will get as part of joining your life course.

☑️ Your main goals here are to communicate the rigor and depth of the course. Share enough so that they want to dig in and learn more in the Key outcomes and Syllabus sections.

Example courses:

Key outcomes

☑️ Written as outcome statements.

🔖 Template: “You’ll be able to [action word] so you can [achieve outcome]. You'll leave with [this takeaway/output]."

☑️ Uses higher-order skills from Bloom’s Taxonomy. Do not use passive verbs like learn or understand.

☑️ Sell the benefits of joining a cohort-based course. Click here for examples.

☑️ The outcomes offer a tangible or relevant benefit to the student. For example, if you’re teaching a course on salary negotiation, the outcome is to earn more in their next role. For courses without obvious financial upside, the outcome should still be valuable in that it’s hard to get from other sources. For example, if you’re teaching a course on philosophy, your unique offer is an engaged and diverse community to have debates about philosophy.

Example courses:
Forward Deployed Engineering Bootcamp by Hamza Farooq

World-class Product Sense in Practice by Shreyas Doshi

The Product Storytelling Cohort by Elliott Rayner

Staff Designer: Influence & Lead as an Individual Contributor by Catt Small

Resource:

Instructor credibility

☑️ Showcases your relevant experience, relevant personal details.

☑️ Appeals to your ideal student. Includes a line about why you’re building this course and who it’s for.

☑️ Student-centered in that you’re telling about your experience while focusing on how it will lead to student outcomes.

Resources:


Wes Kao’s tips on how to improve your bio in this video (at 2:00)

Testimonials

☑️ Includes name and company/role

☑️ Relevant to your target student (e.g., if you are targeting CEOs, the testimonials should feature CEOs).

☑️ Illustrates a before/after, or shares a specific detail on how you or your course or mentorship helped them.

Resources:

Automatically gather testimonials with Maven end-of-course surveys

Course syllabus

☑️ Module titles are specific and action-oriented

☑️ Outcome-oriented description:

  • 1-2 sentences: why students should care about this topic

  • 1 sentence: what students will do in the course.

  • 1 sentence: a tangible outcome students will produce

🔖 Here's a template as a jumping off point: "What usually gets in the way of {this outcome}? {This struggle}. That's why learning how to {X} is foundational. You'll learn how to {X} using {this tool/framework}. By the end, you'll {produce a thing}."

☑️ Uses higher order skills from Bloom’s Taxonomy. Avoids passive verbs like learn or understand

Example courses:

AI Prototyping for Designers by Anna Arteeva

MGMT Accelerator: AI-Enhanced Leadership by Dave and Marsden Kline

AI Evals For Engineers & PMs by Hamel Husain and Shreya Shankar

Course schedule

☑️ The schedule provides a snapshot of your course highlights. It shows at-a-glance the "eyes light up" moments of your course.

☑️ The schedule can be customized. You don't have to stick with the templated format.

FAQs

☑️ Use this section to sell the benefits of your course and preemptively answer questions/concerns that you target student may have, such as:

  • “What’s this course about?”

  • “Are there any prerequisites for this course?”

  • “What if I can’t make the sessions?”

  • “How much time should I expect to spend on the course?”

  • “What deliverables/outcomes can I expect to walk away with?”

  • “What’s your refund policy?”

  • “Who is this course NOT for?”

  • “How much access to [the instructor] do I get?”

  • “What if I have more questions about the course?” Here you can include your contact information or an option to book a 15 minute coaching call with you.

  • For business/work related courses: “How do I get this course reimbursed by my company?” In this case, you should include a templated letter to their manager that they can download.

Copywriting

☑️ Repeat hot keywords to create eyes light up moments

☑️ Use sentence case (Sentence case looks like this, Title Case Looks Like This)

☑️ Concise and easy to understand

☑️ Avoid cheesy marketing terms like “supercharge”, “10x” or “unleash”

☑️ Avoid superlatives like "best", "works every time", "most effective"

☑️ Writing and visuals show your personality and unique voice

☑️ Grammar and spelling is correct

Resource:


Additional resources:

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