The landing page checklist we use on every launch
Key takeaways
- Make one offer that a stranger understands within five seconds.
- Put specific proof near the top and answer price and fit objections on the page.
- Use one call to action, five form fields or fewer, and a useful next step after submitting.
- Load in under two seconds on a phone, track every conversion end to end and reply to leads in minutes.
A landing page that converts makes one offer, proves it quickly, asks for as little as possible and loads fast on a phone. Before any page we build goes live, it has to pass the 14 checks below. Most failed launches we've rescued missed at least three of them.
The offer
- 01A stranger can say what you offer within five seconds. Show the page to someone outside the company for five seconds, then ask. If they can't repeat it, rewrite the headline.
- 02The headline names the outcome, not the product. "Fill your clinic's empty slots" beats "Next-generation appointment software".
- 03The page matches the ad or email that sent people there. Same promise, same wording, same image. A mismatch here is the most common reason paid traffic bounces.
The proof
- 01Proof sits above the fold or right below it. A client name, a number or a short quote. "Trusted by businesses" isn't proof.
- 02Numbers are specific. "2.1x demo bookings in one quarter" is believable. "Massive growth" isn't.
- 03Objections are answered on the page. Price, time to results, and "will this work for a business like mine?" usually cover most of them. A short FAQ works well.
The ask
- 01There's one primary call to action. Repeat it, but don't compete with it. A page that offers a demo, a newsletter and an ebook converts worse than one that offers a demo.
- 02The form has five fields or fewer. Every extra field costs completions. Ask for what you need to reply, and collect the rest later.
- 03The button says what happens next. "Get my quote" beats "Submit".
- 04Something useful happens immediately after. A calendar link, a confirmation with a real name, or the resource they asked for. Not a blank "thank you" page.
The build
- 01It loads in under two seconds on a mid-range phone over 4G. Test on a real device, not your office Wi-Fi. Our median mobile load time at launch is 0.9 seconds, and it's worth the effort: see what Core Web Vitals do to conversion.
- 02Nothing jumps while it loads. Images and banners have reserved space, so visitors don't tap the wrong thing.
The measurement
- 01Every conversion is tracked, end to end. From ad click to form submission to a record in your CRM, with the source attached. If you can't tell which campaign produced a customer, you can't improve the page.
- 02Leads get a reply in minutes. The best page in the world fails if the lead waits two days. We wrote a whole piece on why lead response time beats ad spend.
What usually goes wrong
Two things, mostly. Teams add sections until the page says everything and therefore nothing. And they launch without tracking, so three weeks later nobody knows whether it worked.
When Harbor & Pine Dental relaunched, the biggest single change was replacing "Call us to book" with live availability and a two-step booking form. Their visitor-to-booking rate went from 0.9% to 3.4%.
Use this checklist
Copy it, print it, adapt it. If you'd like us to run it against your current pages, our conversion optimisation work starts with exactly this review, and our landing pages and lead generation service builds pages that pass it from day one. Or take the two-minute assessment.
