A landing page has one job: get a specific type of visitor to take one specific action. Everything on the page should be evaluated against that job — not against "does it look good," but "does it move a qualified visitor closer to the CTA." Here are the nine decisions that determine whether it does.
1. One offer, one CTA, repeated
The single biggest conversion killer is ambiguity about what to do next. Every landing page we ship has exactly one primary action, repeated at every natural pause point — never a second competing CTA pulling attention toward a different goal.
2. The headline states the outcome, not the category
"AI-powered platform for teams" describes a category. "Cut support response time by 40% without hiring" describes an outcome. Visitors decide whether to keep reading within seconds — a headline that names the specific result does more work than one that names what kind of product this is.
3. Above the fold answers "what, for whom, why now"
Before any scroll, a visitor should know what this is, whether it's for them, and why it's worth another ten seconds. If any of those three is unclear, the rest of the page never gets read.
4. Social proof sits next to the claim it supports
A testimonials section at the bottom of the page proves less than a single relevant quote placed directly beside the claim it validates. Proof works when it's contextual, not when it's quarantined into its own section.
5. Forms ask for the minimum, and explain why anything else is needed
Every additional form field measurably reduces completion. If you need more than name, email, and one qualifying field, be explicit about why — "so we can route you to the right specialist" — rather than asking silently.
6. Page weight is a design constraint, not an afterthought
A landing page that takes four seconds to load loses visitors before the headline ever renders. Hero media, fonts, and third-party scripts get budgeted the same way copy and layout do — see our piece on why speed is a revenue metric.
7. Objections are answered before they're asked
Pricing concerns, implementation effort, "is this actually for a company my size" — the objections a sales team hears on every call should show up as sections on the page, addressed directly, not left for a follow-up email.
8. Mobile is the primary design, not the adapted one
For most B2C and a growing share of B2B traffic, mobile is the majority of visits. Designing desktop-first and compressing down produces cramped, low-priority mobile layouts. Designing mobile-first forces the real hierarchy to the surface.
9. The page is instrumented before it launches, not after
Scroll depth, CTA clicks, and form abandonment points should be tracked from day one. Without that data, every post-launch "improvement" is a guess. With it, you know exactly which of the eight decisions above to revisit first.
These nine decisions are the default checklist behind every landing page we design and ship — built as conversion engines from the first sketch.
View our landing page work →None of these are exotic. They're the difference between a page that was designed to look good in a review meeting and one that was designed to convert a stranger into a lead.