Landing page copywriting

landing-page-copywriting

Write landing-page copy that reads as specific and human, not generic AI slop.

The failure this fixes

Asked to write landing-page copy, a model produces generic, invented, self-referential lines — abstract slogans ("Innovation, redefined", "Empowering teams to do their best work"), fabricated-sounding proof, and made-up urgency, all in the even-cadence "grammatical symmetry" that readers now consciously flag as AI-written. It commits to nothing because it did no customer research. The fix: extract real language and state concrete outcomes; never invent claims, stats, testimonials, or scarcity.

When to use / when NOT to use

Use for the words on the page: headlines, subheads, body, CTA labels, social proof, objection copy, microcopy.

Not for: the section skeleton / ordering / form-field decisions (landing-page-structure), palette and type (visual-design-system), running tests (landing-page-experimentation), or plain translation (a native task, not conversion rewriting).

Workflow

1. Mine before you write (VoC first). Do not draft from imagination. Pull verbatim phrases from 3-star reviews, support tickets, sales-call notes, and community threads; bucket them into pain / desire / objection / proof / emotional language; the most-frequent pain becomes the hero, in the customer's words (paraphrasing into marketing-speak strips what converts). If no research exists, say so and gather a lightweight sample first — never fabricate to fill the gap. Full process: references/copywriting-playbook.md.
2. Pick a framework by audience awareness, not taste. Cold/unaware → AIDA; problem-aware/retargeting → PAS; hidden-gap audiences → BAB; skeptical, high-consideration → PASTOR / 4Ps. One page cannot serve all awareness levels — segment. Table + structures in the playbook reference.
3. Draft block by block, generating variants. Produce 3-5 options per block (headline, subhead, bullets, proof, CTA), not whole pages. Apply the rules below to each.
4. Self-QA against the slop filter. For every line ask: does this sound like every other page in the category? Would a competitor say the same thing? Does this sentence add information or just words? Cut anything that fails. Banned vocabulary and AI tells: references/copywriting-playbook.md.
5. Hand off for human edit. State plainly that raw output should be human-edited before shipping, and that specific % lift numbers from the research are directional, not promises.

The rules

• Clarity over cleverness. The hero answers what is this, who is it for, why care in 3-5 seconds. ~80% of visitors read only the headline and first subhead. Read at a 5th-7th-grade level.
• Headlines: outcome-first + specific. Use [specific outcome] for [specific audience] without [pain], anchored with a number or timeframe ("Cut invoice reconciliation from 3 days to 20 minutes"). Statements beat questions. ~4-11 words. Write the headline last, after the offer and proof, so it distills the strongest supported claim. Avoid the generator tic The [adjective] [category] for [audience].
• Value prop: benefit-led and concrete. Translate every feature via "so that…"; replace adjectives with facts ("Works with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive - connect in under 2 minutes", not "seamlessly integrates").
• CTA discipline. Describe the outcome of clicking, not the mechanism: "Start my free trial", never "Submit" / "Learn more". One primary CTA per page; repeat the same CTA down long pages rather than adding competing ones. First-person edges second-person. Match commitment to traffic temperature: cold → soft ("See how it works", "Get the guide"); warm → trial/demo; hot → direct buy. Never "Request a demo" for cold traffic.
• Social proof = specificity. Generic proof ("Great service!", bare star counts, "Trusted by thousands") now hurts - it reads as fake. Use attributed, quantified, outcome-specific proof (full name + role + number: "Booked 23 calls in the first month"). Put at least one proof element in the first screen and place each proof adjacent to the claim or objection it answers (ROI proof near pricing, security near the form).
• Message match. Headline, offer, visual tone, and CTA verb must continue the exact conversation the ad or search query started. Fix this before anything cosmetic - it is the single highest-leverage, most under-executed lever.
• Objection handling is structural. Put a proactive "You might be wondering…" block mid-page near the CTA plus risk-reversal microcopy under the button ("No credit card required"). Cover the 7 recurring objections (reference).
• B2B vs B2C. B2B = one person justifying to a committee: direct, credentialed, ROI/risk-framed, named case studies, staged CTAs. B2C = single buyer: conversational, aspirational, reviews/UGC, one decisive CTA. Don't apply B2C urgency tactics to risk-averse B2B buyers.
• Mobile is a separate pass. Trim AI drafts 15-20%; headline + CTA must fit a 390px screen above the fold.
• No fake anything. Fabricated countdowns, fake low-stock, invented metrics/testimonials are actively harmful to trust. Urgency must be literally true.

Output

Copy that is customer-sourced, specific, one-primary-CTA, message-matched, and free of the banned AI tells - delivered as labeled blocks (headline / subhead / bullets / proof / CTA), with any research % framed as directional and a note that a human edit pass is expected.

References

• references/copywriting-playbook.md - VoC mining process, framework table with structures, awareness stages, the 7 objections, the banned-vocabulary / AI-tell list, and the self-QA filter.