Landing page copy is the text on a page built for one visitor and one action: the headline, subheadline, body, proof and call to action.
Good landing page copy says plainly what the offer is, what the visitor gets from it and what to do next.
A/B tests show that small, specific wording changes, such as naming the product type in the headline, can move purchases and leads by double digits.
This guide covers how to write landing page copy, then walks through real landing page copy examples from our database of A/B tests, each credited to the team that ran it.
For the wider topic, see our copywriting hub.
Landing page copywriting: what the tests support
Most landing page copywriting advice is opinion. The tests in our archive point to a handful of habits that keep showing up in winning variants, plus a few that backfire.
Say what the product is
Visitors arriving from an ad often don't know what they are looking at.
Source Patrol tested a Movexa joint-product landing page headline that never said what kind of product it was.
Adding the single word "supplement" produced +89.97% purchases at 98% statistical significance.
The case study gives no sample size, so treat the size of the lift with care, but the direction is a useful reminder: clarity beats cleverness.
Lead with the outcome, not a slogan
Vasta replaced Infinite Age's broad wellness slogans with headlines under 12 words that led with the supplement's main outcome and a light urgency cue.
Only the headline changed, and the result was +35% completed purchases over a 10-day, even-split test at 95% confidence.
Imsider.ru saw the same pattern on a lead page: "Open your internet store in one evening" beat "A step-by-step plan for opening your internet store" by +9.52% leads.
The winner names a result and a timeframe instead of describing the content.
Both winners are concrete. A reader can picture the result, and the headline answers "what's in it for me?" before the visitor has to scroll. Our headline guide goes deeper on this.
Write for scanners
Most people don't read a landing page word by word.
In Nielsen Norman Group's 1997 study, 79% of test users always scanned a new page and only 16% read word by word.
In the same study, a version that was concise, scannable and objective scored 124% better on usability than a promotional control.
That is a usability finding, not a conversion test.
But store tests point the same way. Clean Commit rewrote a science page into short paragraphs, bullets and visuals without changing the content, and recorded +19.6% revenue per visitor.
The sample was small (4,018 visitors over 20 days, 77.7% probability on revenue per visitor), and desktop conversion fell 13.2% on 710 visitors, so it is a lead worth retesting rather than proof.
Use the customer's words
Customer language often beats marketing language. Laura Roeder Social Media swapped the newsletter headline "Could You Use a Free Plan For Promoting With Social Media?" for a line lifted from customer feedback: "Yours is the only newsletter that I actually read."
Sign-ups rose +24.31% over 12 days, with a 97% chance to beat the original.
Match the copy to the visitor's awareness
A visitor clicking a problem-focused ad needs different copy from one who already knows the brand.
AGConsult split one Yoast SEO product page into separate pages for WordPress beginners, free-plugin users and web professionals, each with benefit-led copy.
After a year of research and testing, Yoast reported +62% conversion rate and +118% revenue.
That figure covers a whole program of bundled changes, not one split test.
The same idea applies to paid traffic: the headline should echo the ad that brought the visitor in.
If the ad promises fast joint relief, the page should open with fast joint relief, not the brand name.
See ad message match for tests on this.
Match length to the decision, not to a rule
There is no correct length for landing page copy.
The tests split both ways, and the deciding factor is how much the visitor needs to know before acting.
| Test | Change | Result | Why it likely went that way |
|---|---|---|---|
| HealthSpire (MECLABS Institute) | Short Medicare page replaced with a longer page adding value copy, agent framing and a Q&A | +638% leads | High-stakes, complex choice; visitors needed reasons to trust the call |
| Reclaim My PPI Tax (Apexure) | Long page before a claim form replaced with a shorter page | 1.02% to 1.77% conversion | Simple offer; the long page delayed the form |
| AssessmentDay | FAQ section removed from a landing page | +62% sales (screenshots removed: +56%; both removed: about -3%) | Some content helps and some distracts; removing everything didn't work |
The AssessmentDay result is the most useful of the three.
Cutting either section helped, but cutting both hurt, so "shorter is better" is not the lesson.
Test sections one at a time. HealthSpire's long page also changed several things at once, so length alone did not cause the full lift.
Don't add copy that slows down people who are ready
More persuasion is not always better. NextAfter added a value proposition and quotes from well-known Christian figures before the donation ask on a Dallas Theological Seminary page.
Donations fell 28%. Visitors who reached that page were already motivated to give, and the extra copy stood between them and the form.
VastaLanding page copy examples from real A/B tests
These examples show the control copy, the variant and what happened.
Each links to the full test record with its caveats.
Headline: "What it is" beats "how it feels"
- Before: A joint-product headline that didn't say what the product was.
- After: The same headline with "supplement" added.
- Result: +89.97% purchases (Source Patrol for Movexa).
Headline: a result and a timeframe
- Before: "A step-by-step plan for opening your internet store" (translated from Russian).
- After: "Open your internet store in one evening."
- Result: +9.52% leads at 99.99% significance (Imsider.ru).
Subheadline above a form
- Before: A subheadline inviting visitors to call or fill in the form to reach a venue coordinator.
- After: An attention-grabbing "Stop right now!" line promising the team would do the hard work for free.
- Result: +69% form submissions (VenueSphere). The test ran on close to 1,200 visitors, which is small, so the true lift is likely smaller.
Copy next to the call to action
- Before: Generic messaging beside the CTA on artist websites.
- After: Contextual messaging explaining what the visitor gets.
- Result: 14.0% to 18.6% conversion rate (Warner Music Group).
For button wording itself, see our CTA copy tests.
Explaining an unusual offer
- Before: A free shampoo bar offer page where buyers paid shipping, with the original copy.
- After: Dozens of micro-edits, including a note explaining why shipping wasn't free (framed around fairness), why the first bar was free, and a lightbox telling the brand's anti-plastic story.
- Result: +5.97% new orders (Frictionless Commerce for Grüum). Many changes were bundled, so no single edit can take the credit.
Story page vs listicle
- Before: A story-driven landing page.
- After: A listicle-format page for the same gummies.
- Result: The story page converted 3.3x better over six weeks (Mojo Country Club, in-house). The audience was warm, and the brand thinks listicles may still suit colder traffic. Format is part of the copy: the same claims told as a story and as a numbered list did not perform the same.
How to test your own landing page copy
Copy tests are cheap to build, which makes it easy to run too many weak ones. A few habits keep them useful:
- Start with the headline. Several results above came from changing only the headline. It is the copy almost every visitor reads.
- Change one idea per test when you can. Bundled rewrites like Grüum's and HealthSpire's can win, but you won't learn which line did the work.
- Source wording from customers. Reviews, support tickets and survey answers give you phrases like the one that won for Laura Roeder.
- Read the sample size before copying a result. A +69% lift on about 1,200 visitors is a hypothesis to test on your page, not a forecast.
- Watch the whole funnel. A headline that raises clicks can still lower purchases if it overpromises. Measure the action the page exists for, such as purchases, leads or sign-ups, not just clicks on the button.
- Retest big wins. A large lift from a small or short test is often partly luck. If a result will change how you write every page, run it again before rolling it out.
For layout, speed and form changes beyond the copy, see landing page optimization.
To judge where your page stands, compare it against our landing page conversion rate benchmarks.