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Building your course page
Landing page checklist
Landing page checklist

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

Chelsea Wilson avatar
Written by Chelsea Wilson
Updated over a week ago

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

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

  2. What outcomes they can expect to achieve.

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

  4. Why this course is worth their time and money.

Below is a guide for completing key sections of the landing page. We've linked examples and extra resources to help you as you create your course page.

Section

Checklist

Main section/Above the fold

☑️ 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).

Resources:

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).

Resource:

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.

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:

Testimonials

☑️ At least 2 testimonials, even for your first cohort. For your first cohort, pull in testimonials from people you have coached, mentored, or managed.

☑️ 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 helped them.

Resources:

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

Examples:

Course schedule

☑️ The schedule provides a snapshot of your course highlights.

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

☑️ The schedule section can be pulled into the Cohort Launch Campaign as a variable.

Example: Advanced Figma Training Program by Michael Riddering

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.

Examples: Christian Wattig, Dave Kline

Visuals

☑️ Includes visuals such as: frameworks, worksheets, screenshots of happy students on Zoom

☑️ Eye-catching course image: check out Maven Brand Toolkit to create your own image

☑️ Instructor image conveys professionalism and credibility

☑️ Before publishing, look at your page in Preview mode. This button is in the top right corner of the Landing Page editor.

Ensure there are no stock sections or images (ex: featured media isn’t the default Rick Astley video).

Copywriting

☑️ Repeat hot keywords to create eyes light up moments

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

☑️ Active voice

☑️ 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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