Salesmanship is about transferring confidence, and you can’t inspire confidence without first establishing your credibility. So when it comes to Landing Page copy, credibility is truly Job #1.Here are five must-haves for building that credibility where it often counts the most:


1. Scent


They’re called landing pages because they’re where you plan for visitors to “land” after clicking through on PPC and targeted search terms. So before you do anything else, convince those visitors they’ve come to the right place by prominently featuring their “trigger” or search terms on the page.


For instance, if you’re paying for “Monster Truck” clicks, make sure your headline includes the phrase “Monster Trucks.” Having pictures of those same kind of trucks wouldn’t hurt either. Simply improving your landing page’s scent can improve sales success by multiples when compared to pages that don’t include the appropriate trigger words/scent.Bottom line: if visitors can’t verify that your site has what they came looking for within 5-7 seconds, you’ll have already lost their confidence.


2. Transparency


While only a (relatively) recent buzzword, the use of transparency to drive credibility is as old as salesmanship itself. In fact, check out these sales letter excerpts from Robert Collier’s Million Dollar Sales Letters:

“790 Leftover Ulsters At A Big Discount!Dear Sir:In the rush and excitement of selling, in the past two months, of 21,000 “Keep Warm” Winter Ulsters - there was no time to pay attention to exactly how sizes and colors were running.The result is that now, with the season near its end, we find ourselves with 790 coats left over - in all sizes - BUT WITHOUT A COMPLETE RANGE OF SIZES IN ANY ONE COLOR!There are dark grays and blues and beautiful brown heather-mixtures, in Greatcoats that we sold in the past all the way up to $47.00 - really handsome colors, all of them - but we can’t be sure of having your exact size in the color you specify.” 

And for a modern update on that, check out Roy William’s brilliant bit of web copy for vactionlikekings.com:

“You’ve seen the condos in Myrtle Beach that overlook the ocean.Rich people own those. And when they’re not using them, we rent them out to nice families like yours for about the same prices you’ve been paying for hotel rooms.Put yourself in their shoes.The condo is paid for and empty.Why not let it generate a few bucks?Now put yourself in their condo.We’re Condotels. Our job is to welcome you upon your arrival in Myrtle Beach and hand you the keys to your luxury condo. It’s as easy as staying in a hotel. But better. A lot better. VacationLikeKings.com” 

What you’ll find in both excerpts is a skillful use of transparency. The copy very quickly tells the reader WHY the company is able to offer them such a good deal. It’s not enough just to say what’s in it for the reader, because compelling offers will inevitably raise the questions: “Yeah, but how can they do that? What’s in it for them?”


Notice how the first letter also does a fabulous job of raising the downside as a means of lending credibility to the upside. The very fact that not all colors are available in all sizes lends legitimacy to the “left over stock” explanation.*People are rightfully cynical. They want to know all the angles. Provide that to them through a transparent explanation. Once they believe your explanation, they’ll have gained a world of confidence in your offer.


3. Specificity


Specifics force themselves into the reader’s imagination while generalities remain handcuffed to the hard-nosed intellect. Engaging the imagination more easily creates emotions, like confidence. This is called the vividness effect and it’s why specifics are more believable then generalities.


Dan and Chip Heath provide an excellent, specific example of this in their book, Made to Stick. They cite psychological research wherein two groups of jurors where presented with eight arguments fore and against a mother accused of parental neglect.The difference between the two groups was the level of detail in those arguments. One group, heard supporting arguments with vivid detail and arguments against the mother’s fitness that were unadorned with any extra details. The other group heard the opposite combination.


As an example of the kind of vivid details included or left out of the arguments, the book provides the following:

“…An argument against Mrs. Johnson was: ‘The child went to school with a badly scraped arm which Mrs. Johnson had not cleaned or attended to. The school nurse had to clean the scrape.’ The vivid form added the detail that, as the nurse was cleaning the scrape, she spilled Mercurochrome on herself, staining the uniform red.The researchers carefully tested the arguments with and without vivid details to ensure that they had the same perceived importance – the details were designed to be irrelevant to the judgment of Mrs. Johnson’s worthiness. It mattered that Mrs. Johnson didn’t attend to the scraped arm; it didn’t matter that the nurse’s uniform got stained in the process.” 

And the results? On average 1.5 more jurors (out of 10) voted for the arguments with the irrelevant details than the arguments without them. We’re talking about a 15% increase in “conversion” – just from the inclusion of a few irrelevant specifics. Now imagine the impact of relevant, specific details to your copy’s credibility.


4. Proof


Proof overlaps a bit with Transparency and Specifics, but it’s an all-important aspect of confidence-building. In fact, it’s so important, I wrote a series of posts on how to transform un-substantiate claims into confidence-inspiring proof.Here’s a quick summary:

• You say you’re the best ______ on the net - says who? And by what criteria? How are you measuring it? How can I test these claims myself?
• Answer the previous question with fact-based and falsifiable statements.
• When possible, show me through a demonstration. Dramatize the benefit.

5. Readability


We do indeed come from a “fragmented MTV rap video culture,” causing us to flee the mere prospect of having to read dense blocks of text. And that goes double for overly complex or jargon-filled text. This makes the readability of your landing pages crucial. And I’d break that down into two aspects:

• Formatting. Use short paragraphs not to exceed 5 stacked lines. Use headlines, sub-heads, bullets, and bolding. Make sure your page is skimmable and scanable and that your key or trigger words are featured within your headlines, bolded text, and hyperlinks.
• Speaking your customer’s language. Avoid we-we language. Speak about “you,” and in terms of customer’s desired benefits rather than product features. Don’t assume your readers are familiar with your industry’s jargon and technical terms. Don’t use more than one buzz-word per sentence. Keep things as conversational as you can get away with.

So there you have it. Cover those 5 bases and you’ll effectively transfer your confidence to your landing page’s readers – and be able to measure the difference in both your conversion rate and your wallet.


* Of course, the company may not have been truly transparent (they may have had plenty of colors in all sizes and just been itching to sell coats off-season), but the simulation of a full disclosure was enough to inspire confidence. That said, in today’s world of hyper-connectivity, I’d suggest you stick with genuine (vs. simulated) transparency. Editor’s Note: For more tips on increasing your landing page trust and credibility, sign up for our free webinar later today at 12pm EST.