Words, explained

The one line that tells somebody exactly what to do next.

Not "learn more" or "submit" but "Get the checklist" or "Save my seat". A page without one is a page people read and then leave, feeling vaguely interested and doing nothing. Most pages that fail do not fail because the writing was poor; they fail because nobody was ever plainly asked to do a specific thing.

The path you put somebody on, from first click to buying, one small step at a time.

A typical one: an advert, then an opt-in page, then a thank-you page, then a sequence of emails, then an offer. It is called a funnel because fewer people reach each stage than the one before. That is normal and not a fault. Knowing where most people stop is what tells you which single page to fix.

Whatever page somebody arrives on when they click your link.

The broadest of these words - it describes a job, not a design. An opt-in page is a landing page. A sales page is a landing page. What makes it a landing page is simply that traffic lands there, and the whole point is that it is built for those arrivals rather than being your home page with everything on it.

A page with one job: get an email address. Usually a headline, a promise, a box, and a button.

No menu, no links out, nothing to click except the thing you want clicked. Every extra choice on the page costs you addresses. It is the single most important page most people will ever build, because it is what turns traffic you rented into a list you own.

A page whose only job is to get somebody to buy, right now.

Usually long, because it has to answer every objection a person has before they will part with money. Different from an opt-in page, which asks for something free and therefore needs almost no persuading. Sending cold traffic straight to a sales page is the most expensive mistake in this business.

A very short page built to be seen in a few seconds, in a traffic exchange.

Big headline, one image, one button, almost no words - because the person looking at it is waiting out a timer and will click away the moment they are allowed to. A splash page cannot explain anything. Its only job is to earn one click to a page that can.

Another name for an opt-in page: one headline, one box, one button, and no way out.

The name comes from squeezing out every other choice until the only thing left to do is leave or type your address. See opt-in page, which is the same thing said more plainly.

The page somebody lands on straight after giving you their address.

The most wasted page on the internet. The person has just said yes to you - that is the warmest they will ever be. Use it to tell them to go and check their email, and then to make your first offer. Most people put the word "Thanks" on it and nothing else.