Most landing page advice sounds like it came from a content farm. "Use clear CTAs!" "Make it mobile-friendly!" Yeah, no kidding.
After building hundreds of landing pages through TEZELA and watching how real people interact with them, I've noticed patterns that actually move the needle. Some are obvious but rarely executed well. Others contradict what you'll read elsewhere. All of them work.
1. Your headline has one job: make people read the next line
Not "communicate your value proposition clearly." Not "encapsulate your brand promise." Just make someone curious enough to keep reading.
I've seen perfectly "correct" headlines fail miserably. "Build websites faster with AI-powered tools" checks every copywriting box and converts like garbage. You know what worked better? "We built 347 landing pages last month. Here's what we learned."
The second one makes you want to know what they learned. The first one makes you think "cool, another AI tool" and leave.
Your headline doesn't need to explain everything. It needs to create momentum. Once someone's reading your second paragraph, you can actually explain what you do.
2. Visual hierarchy isn't about making things bigger—it's about making people look where you want them to look
Everyone tells you to "use size to indicate importance" and then you end up with giant headlines and buttons that look like they're shouting. Real visual hierarchy is more subtle.
Try this: instead of making your CTA button bigger, make everything around it smaller and give it breathing room. Use a color that appears nowhere else on the page. Add a subtle animation when someone hovers over it.
Better yet, design the entire page to point at your conversion action. Not literally with arrows (please don't), but with layout flow. If your page is a river, your CTA should be where the current naturally takes someone.
Here's the test: blur your eyes and look at your page. What catches your attention first? If it's not your headline or CTA, you've failed. Everything else—features, testimonials, screenshots—should fade into the background until someone needs them.
3. The "fold" is dead, but the first screen still matters more than anything else
People scroll now. We know this. The obsession with "above the fold" is outdated.
But here's what nobody mentions: people only scroll if you give them a reason to. Your first screen needs to accomplish two things:
- Make it crystal clear what you're offering
- Make someone think "okay, I need to know more about this"
That's it. You don't need your entire pitch, three testimonials, a feature list, and a pricing table crammed into 768 pixels. You need just enough information to create interest and just enough incompleteness to create curiosity.
I've watched session recordings where people immediately scroll because the hero section was too vague. I've also watched people bounce because the hero section tried to explain everything and they got overwhelmed. The sweet spot is narrower than you think.
What worked for us: headline, one-sentence explanation, one piece of unexpected social proof (not "trusted by 1000+ companies"—more like "used by the design team at Stripe"), and a CTA. Then let them scroll for the details.
4. Cut your form fields in half, then cut them in half again
Every field you add to a form is a reason not to fill it out. This is obvious. Everyone knows this. And yet I still see landing pages asking for:
- First name
- Last name
- Company name
- Phone number
- Company size
- Role
- Industry
- How did you hear about us
For a free trial. Of a $29/month product.
You need email. That's it. You can ask for everything else later, after someone's invested enough time that they actually care about your product.
"But our sales team needs to qualify leads!" Great. Qualify them after they sign up. You know what's easier to qualify than nothing? Something.
The only exception: if you're selling enterprise software where every lead is potentially worth six figures, sure, gate it. But most of us aren't, and our forms show it.
5. Show the actual product, not a sanitized version of it
Stock photos of diverse teams pointing at whiteboards don't convert anyone. Screenshots with fake placeholder data don't convert anyone. Generic SaaS dashboard illustrations definitely don't convert anyone.
Show your actual product, with real data in it. Not "Sample Project 1" and lorem ipsum text. Real project names. Real content. Even if it's messy.
People want to see what they're actually getting. When you show them a pristine, empty-state version of your product, they can't visualize using it. When you show them the product in use, even if it's chaotic, they can imagine themselves in it.
We tested this with TEZELA. Version A showed a clean, empty website builder interface with perfect placeholder content. Version B showed the actual builder with a half-finished landing page, some elements clearly being adjusted, layers panel open, the works. Version B converted 34% better.
Why? Because version A looked like a marketing render. Version B looked like something you could actually use to build a website. The slight messiness made it feel real.
One more thing: landing pages are never done. The best converting page I've ever seen has been through 47 iterations over two years. Each change was small—different headline, adjusted spacing, rewritten CTA copy, new screenshot angle. Compounded, those changes tripled conversion.
Start with these principles, ship something, watch what actually happens, and adjust. The data will surprise you. Your assumptions about what works are probably wrong. Mine usually are.