My Landing Pages Used to Be Garbage. Here’s How I Fixed Them

I used to think building a great landing page was a dark art. I’d read all the advice, cram in every feature, and try to write taglines so clever they’d make a poet weep. Then I’d launch, check my analytics, and watch my bounce rate hover around 99%.

For years, I saw my pages—and the pages of countless other founders—fail in the exact same way. We were screaming about our product, and no one was listening.

Then I realized something: we were all doing it wrong.

The Problem with "Landing Page Optimization"

Most advice about landing pages reads like a user manual for a battleship. "Conversion rate optimization," "A/B testing frameworks," "psychological triggers." It's no wonder our pages sound like they were written by a particularly unhelpful chatbot.

The real issue isn't that your visitors hate your product—it's that they can smell a sales pitch from a mile away. And when your "user-centric" page is just a checklist of best practices you found in a marketing guide, people can tell.

What Actually Works: Three Ideas That Don't Suck

1. Talk Like a Human (Not a "Brand Voice")

Instead of crafting poetic taglines, just say what your thing does. The simple, boring, human stuff.

My old headlines were a mess of jargon: “Synergize your workflow with a next-generation productivity paradigm.” It meant nothing. Visitors were confused. They left.

The best pages I see now are brutally simple:

A payment company: "Payments infrastructure for the internet."
A team chat tool: "Make work life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive."
A project tool: "The connected workspace where better, faster work happens."

These work because they’re real. You can’t fake clarity. You either say what you do, or you hide behind buzzwords.

The key: Your visitor has one question: "What is this?" Answer it in the simplest way possible.

2. Respect Their Time (By Being Scannable)

Imagine your visitor has 17 tabs open, their kid is yelling in the background, and they have three minutes before their next meeting. They aren't going to read your essay.

Your page has to be designed for someone who is rushed and distracted. That means making it incredibly easy to scan.

The pages that work do this naturally:

Big, obvious headlines that act like signposts.
Short paragraphs. One or two sentences. That’s it.
Bold text on key phrases so scanners can get the main idea.
Simple bullet points (like these!) to break up text.

People don’t read websites, they scan them. If your page is a solid wall of text, you’re essentially invisible.

The key: Assume no one will read your page word-for-word. Make sure they can understand the core message in five seconds just by scanning.

3. Share the "After," Not the "How"

Founders are proud of what they’ve built. It’s natural to want to show off all the features, integrations, and technical wizardry. But here’s the thing: your visitor doesn’t care.

They don’t care about your "AI-powered analytics." They care that they can finally get a report without spending all Friday afternoon exporting spreadsheets.

Instead of a list of features, paint a picture of the destination.

Feature: "Our tool has robust integrations."
What it means for them: "Stop wasting hours on manual data entry."
The "After" picture: "Free up your afternoon to focus on work that actually matters."

The key: Your product is just a tool. Sell the feeling of having the job done.

The Real Secret to a Good Landing Page

Every guide is different, but here’s what actually matters:

Your page is a conversation, not a sculpture. You don’t perfect it once and then display it forever. You launch it, and then you start listening. The goal isn't to get it right on day one; it's to get better on day two.

Watch people use it. Forget complex analytics for a minute. Use a tool that lets you watch session recordings. You’ll see where people get stuck, what they try to click, and when they give up. Watching five people struggle with your sign-up form will teach you more than any dashboard.

Start above the fold. Most people won't scroll. That first screen is your entire sales pitch for half your visitors. Make it count. It needs a clear headline, a short description of the "after," and one—and only one—obvious button to click.

Accept that your first idea is probably wrong. Your favorite headline? The one you think is so clever? It's probably confusing people. Be ready to kill your darlings. That’s not failure—it’s tuition for learning what your customers actually want.

What This Actually Looks Like

Here’s a real example from my own experience:

I launched a page with a fancy, animated video of the product. It looked great. But session recordings showed people were just sitting there, waiting for it to end, and then leaving.

I replaced it with a simple, 5-second GIF showing the one "magic moment" of the product in action—the one thing that made people go "aha!"

Result: Sign-ups went up 30%. Not because I ran some complex multivariate test, but because I stopped trying to make a commercial and just showed them how to solve their problem.

Getting Started (Without the Frameworks)

Pick one page. Your homepage or your most important landing page.
Spend a day just watching. Install a session recording tool (many have free plans) and watch 10 visitors use your page. Take notes on what surprises you.
Find one point of friction. Just one thing that seems to consistently confuse people.
Make one small change. Don't rebuild the whole thing. Just change that one headline, or that one button, to see if it helps.
Be patient and consistent. Do this every week.

That's it. No "growth hacking." No "conversion frameworks." Just watching, listening, and trying to be a little more helpful each time.

The Bottom Line

A landing page works when it doesn't feel like a sales pitch. When you’re genuinely trying to answer a visitor’s question clearly and quickly, they’ll want to learn more. When you’re just there to shout your features at them, they can tell.

The best landing page doesn't feel like marketing at all. It feels like a clear, helpful conversation with someone who understands your problem.

And that's not a tactic you can copy—it's just being human.