I recently ran a feedback survey in my newsletter and a bunch of you wanted help with the basics of copywriting or to simplify the process – so friend, you asked and I’m here to deliver. 

And because the universe loves synchronicities this is something I’ve been feeling lately tool. A few days back, I messaged my coach referencing copywriting courses and said, “I’ve realized so many of these courses overcomplicate things and try to teach non-copywriters to become copywriters”.

Welcome to part 1 of the Simplify Your Copy series, where we aren’t overcomplicating things and you’re getting just what you need to know as a non-copywriter.

As I LOVE sales pages and call them my bread and butter, I thought it would be fun to start with the most foundational piece you need. Because before you write your own sales page you need to know what goes on one.

If you want to follow along, this is the sales page I wrote for a client that I use in the examples.

So, let’s dive into the sections that go on a sales page…

The 16 Sections of a High Converting Sales Page (with sales page examples)

A lot of people ask, “How long should my sales page be?” and there isn’t a great answer to that. I’ve written sales pages that are 1000 words and I’ve written long-form sales pages close to 4000. 

I choose how long they are by completing the sections with enough information to give the reader everything they need to make an informed decision based on price point. 

For example, a $9 offer will have all the same sections as a $3000 program, however, there is less information needed for someone to hand over their credit card information in the $9 offer, so I don’t need to use as detailed a response. 

Prefer to listen to this episode?

Overview of the sections to come in order of appearance:

1. Headline

2. Trusted by banner

3. Possibility

4. Problem

5. Solution

6. Meaning

7. Bio

8. Offer

9. Social Proof/Testimonials

10. Benefits

11. Features

12. Bonuses

13. Stack

14. Guarantee

15. FAQs

16. Stack

17. Close

⌃⌃⌃ If you’re wondering why it’s titled the 16 sections but there are 17, the stack gets included twice.

Let’s dive into the sections

Headline

Starting at the top of the page, your headline is the MOST important section of your sales page. According to Copyblogger, 8 out of 10 people will read your headline, but only 2 out of the 10 will read the rest of your page.

Without a good headline, the rest of your copy goes to waste. So, now that the pressure is on what makes a great headline?

Your headline should answer 3 things:

1. Who is it for?

2. What does it do?

3. And why should they care?

I love using the main transformation or benefit of the offer.

Tip: Consider including a pre-headline (the line that sometimes comes before the headline) and/or a subheader (the line that comes after a headline) to support your primary headline. The pre-headline is a great place to call out who this is for. The subheadline expands on your headline. 

If you don’t get your headline on the first go, don’t worry. Some copywriters write hundreds of headlines before choosing a winner. 

Trusted by banner

Next comes your trusted by or as seen in banner. This is where you can show off all your features and recognized media. If you’re still working on getting logos get creative here, you can list podcasts you’ve been featured on or if your work has helped clients get featured publications, share clients featured in…

Possibility

The possibility section is something I’ve newly added to my sales page structure. I used to go straight into the problem, but in alignment with my own values and more people choosing ethical marketing, I think this is a really nice addition. Plus, it fits in with the AIDA copywriting framework – Attention-Interest-Desire-Action.

Use this section to paint a detailed and vivid picture of what life after working with you will be like. Dive deep into imagery and see how many emotions you can pull out from your reader.

Problem

The problem section cops a pretty big beat within the ethical marketing community. HOWEVER, even as an ethical marketer myself, this section is a must and the way to use it ethically is by not rubbing in people's pain points, but building trust and credibility with your readers by showing that you understand what they are struggling with.

Brandon Lucero has a great example of this which I’ve been waiting to share since I heard it. So I’m excited to finally have the place…

Let’s say you’ve been experiencing daily stomach pains but only in the morning before you wake up between 1am and 6am.

You go to the first doctor who doesn’t talk about your problem but discusses the solution – promising to get rid of your stomach pains. You think, great – I’m ready to have a good night's sleep and be pain-free.

But, you go to another doctor for a second opinion anyway. 

This doctor asks you a few questions and then very accurately describes what you are going through, what caused it, and what you are dealing with. That’s the doctor describing the problem. 

And how do you react? It builds trust and belief in their skills and credibility because they know exactly what is going on. You know they aren’t guessing and “hoping” to solve something they’ve never solved before, you know they’ve experienced this before because they so accurately described your situation.

Like with this example, you can identify the problem, and express empathy with how it makes them feel without having to poke at pain points.

Solution

Now that you’ve built credibility and shown an understanding of what your audience is experiencing what is the solution to this problem? 

Reminder, you haven’t introduced your offer yet, so this isn’t the place to do that. Just like you did for the headline you’re going to create a vision of what their life will look like after working with you. 

Think of this as the “Imagine” section, what is their ideal future? Your headline had one benefit or transformation, here you have permission to add 3-5 scenarios or stick to just the one and turn it into a detailed story. 

Meaning

Next up we have the meaning section. I love this section and think most people skip this. This section is where you can REALLY get inside your ideal client's head. You’ve described their ideal future in the solution, but WHY does this matter to them? 

Let’s say they want to hit their business goals. But why? This is where your market research comes in handy. A good trick is to ask someone “why” 5 times. 

Identify their desire, then ask why.

1. Why is it important you hit your business goals?

“I want to have a successful business”

2. Why is having a successful business important? 

“I want my business to create financial freedom”

3. Why do you want financial freedom?

“I want more control over how I spend my time”

4. Why is that important to you?

“I want to take my kids on more vacations”

5. Why do you want to do that? 

“I want them to have amazing memories of their childhood and us together as a family.”

As you can see, what you might put in the solution about hitting their business goals, is the surface level of what they want. 

Supporting their family and creating more financial freedom for special memories is the real meaning behind hitting their goals.

To do this step, you’ll want to do market research calls before launching your offer. Try speaking to 5 people before writing your sales page. If you don’t know how to run these calls or struggle to come up with the right questions, grab this FREE copy of almost 50 of the exact questions I use when interviewing on behalf of my clients.

>>> Click here for FREE access.

Bio

The bio is next but depending on the price point of your offer I sometimes move this toward the bottom of the page. For high ticket offers, or offers above $1000, people want to know early on who they are buying from, why you’re an expert and if they should trust you to help them with their problem or desire.

Use this section to introduce yourself and be your biggest hype woman. Keep it relevant to the offer, authentic, and full of your personality. 

I like to include:

• Name and your title, get fun and creative with this and pull something offer specific to add to your title. My homepage bio title says, Hi, I’m Erin – Offer Matchmaker, Launch Strategist and Copywriter

• Experience

• Accomplishments

• Any connection pieces to your audience (are they moms? Let them know you’re a mom too)

• What’s your mission, why do you believe in what you do?

Finishing up your bio is a seamless place to leave an open-ended statement that leads into… 

Offer

Introducing your offer.

As you can see there’s a lot that goes into the top half of the sales page before you mention anything about your offer. 

The top section of your sales page is the place to connect with your readers' emotions and build up the hype and the desire for exactly what you’re about to offer them. At this point, they should be feeling all the feels and ready to hand over their credit card because of how well you have identified their problems and what they need to solve them.

The offer section is pretty straightforward. 

Name your offer, and add a pre-header like “introducing” or something brand or theme-related that follows from the open-ended statement in your bio. A mockup of what they will receive and a tagline – this is your one-liner of what they receive and why it’s so awesome. Finally, you’ll add a call to action button. 

Social Proof/Testimonials

Social proof is one of the 7 principles of influence and can make a big difference to your conversions. Why is it an empty restaurant just isn’t as good as a popular restaurant… similar menu, similar prices but something is missing. This is social proof in action. You call it atmosphere, but let’s be real, you’re not engaging with the other tables. 

If you are launching a new offer, use testimonials from your other offers about what it’s like to work with you. Case studies and numbers also work well. I put the strongest testimonial here under the offer and then have a dedicated area for them under the bonuses. 

Benefits

From here on you’re going to spill all the juicy offer details. You’ll let the reader know just how you’re going to solve the problem you mentioned and help them get to their ideal future. 

First up we’ve got the benefits section. What are the top 5 benefits or results? Your sentences should be in verb form and future pace what they will walk away with, for example, “Develop a clear prioritization strategy”, or “Form a sisterhood that will last a lifetime”.

If you’re struggling to come up with benefits, skip ahead to your features and write the benefits of each feature.

Features

Features… What’s inside your offer? Before we get into this, something that’s important to note here is you don’t want to share what YOU think is valuable inclusion but to your reader isn’t. As in, if you have 100 hours of videos, you might be proud of how in-depth and comprehensive the learning is, but to someone reading the sales page, 100 hours of videos can sound very overwhelming. So double-check that everything you list here is exciting to your readers. 

Break down the features of your offer one by one. Give each a name, a tagline if the name doesn’t describe what it is, a description of that feature and what’s included. To break up the text, I like to sum up the description with a couple of bullet points of why they should care about this, essentially the benefits of this specific feature.

For some of the more in-depth offers, you may need to add a section about how it works. You want the reader to leave this section not only knowing what they are getting but without any doubt in their mind of what will happen once they sign up.

Bonuses

If you have any bonuses, they come next. These can be written like your features, just make it clear they are bonuses and not part of the core offer. 

Stack

Now it’s time to invite your reader to take action. Add a mockup of what they receive and list out all the features and bonuses so they can see clearly how much value you are providing. 

If it’s an instant checkout, list the price or for some application-based offers, you may not have the price just yet. This is entirely up to you. 

Are there pricing tiers, payment plans, discounts, or savings if they pay in full? 

This is where all the money stuff goes.

Some people also like to include a value of each of the offer’s features, but I tend to lean against this unless someone is particularly adamant about including it. Buyers are getting smarter and when you list the core modules of your offer to be valued at $5000, I personally even as a marketer wonder where they pulled that number from. 

However, if you are selling a bundle where each item has been sold individually and you’re offering it at a great discount then absolutely go ahead and share the individual item’s values.

Guarantee

Guarantee comes next. If you’ve been in my world for any amount of time, you’ll know I’m kind of obsessed with offering a guarantee. They add an extra layer of risk reversal and can hugely increase conversions.

If you are selling high-ticket, adding a guarantee adds so much risk reversal. People will ask for refunds regardless of whether you have a guarantee or not, so why not control how people can ask for one? Ok, this episode was meant to be a brief mention of what goes in each section, so I don’t want to go too deep into guarantees. 

FAQs

The FAQ section, yes answers questions people have about your offer, but it does so much more when used correctly. This section is where you’re going to bust any objections people have about purchasing. What worries does your audience have about your offer or making a purchase?

Stack

This is the second and final place to invite the reader to take action and can be copied and pasted from the Stack above. I like to change up the headline though.

Close

The close is your final argument for getting someone to purchase. You don’t want to introduce anything new here, just a final reminder to take action. Russell Brunson in his book Expert Secrets has a great list of 16 closes that I often reference. 

One of my favorites is the “two choices”. Where you let them know they can continue as they are or if they are ready for change, the logical solution is to work with you. That’s massively oversimplified, but I’m sure you get the point. 

I also like to call out the people who got to the bottom, it feels really personal and if someone has read to the bottom, you know they are serious about your offer. Great job!

—

And they’re the 16 sections of a high-converting sales page! I hope this has been super helpful to you and that you loved part one of the Simplify Your Copy series. I’ll see you next time!

Podcast Show Notes

01. Sections of a Sales Page

For the full show notes and access to resources mentioned in this episode visit INSERT URL

In today's episode, we’re talking about the 16 sections of a high-converting sales page. So many people as me, “how long should a sales page be” and that’s a hard question to answer, because depending on price point and other factors this can change drastically. 

Instead, I determine how long a page is, not by word count, but by asking “have I answered everything that people need to know to make an informed decision?” To do that, I complete each of the 16 sections you’ll learn about in this episode. 

This is part one of the Simplify Your Copy series where we’re uncomplicating the copy process and diving into only what you need to know as a non-copywriter. Tune in now!

Topics discussed:

• The question you should be asking instead of how long should my sales page be.

• The 16 sections to include on your sales page.

• Understanding how to structure your sales page in a way that makes sense and converts buyers.

• The easiest place to start your sales page (and hint, it’s not the headline).

• Uncomplicate what goes into each section of a high-converting sales page.

• My take on whether to add individual feature values.

Links/Resources Mentioned:

Market Research Guide: https://erinmorris.co/voc-pdf

Thank you for listening to this episode of Copy to Freedom: The Podcast. Subscribe for more lighthearted, inspirational, and actionable chats about business, marketing, and reclaiming your freedom.

Connect with Erin:

Website: https://erinmorris.co/

Instagram: @erinmorris.co

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