A landing page can be a great way to validate your business idea with potential users. It’s a chance to get quantitative data on a larger scale, like how many people sign up for a call or download a report. But while it’s an important and very public opportunity to shine, you shouldn’t over-engineer the result—or the process. At MVP Factory we see many companies spending too much time trying to launch the perfect landing page,  while generating too few learnings. 

Unless your product aims to stand out from the market by having a superior user experience (which needs to be demonstrated on the landing page), you can probably speed up the process from the idea to getting the page live. It’s about balance: don’t rush it and waste marketing spend on a page with obvious flaws, but also be realistic and don’t try to aim for the ‘perfect’ page. 

Here are some best practices that we apply at MVP Factory when using landing pages: 

• Content first, design second: We often see people choosing a beautiful template before writing down the storyline of the landing page. This is only natural, but you should always start by noting down what the message and content of your page should be. The design of the template should fit your content, not vice-versa. We typically start by using a simple Google Sheet where we define which content blocks the page will have.
• Quick review with people outside your bubble: It’s fascinating to talk with people who have not heard of your idea. If your idea is to sell “cooking essentials”, this term might be understood very differently by people seeing the landing page for the first time. Especially with B2C business models, we always run  feedback rounds with internal employees or friends to identify major flaws or misunderstandings.
• Template first, custom code later: If you’re trying to validate whether there’s demand for a new product in the market, then you’re probably far away from actually launching the product, so go lean with the landing page and don’t build everything with custom code. We love to use Webflow templates for landing pages for early stage products, and this also makes it easier to collaborate as a team so that you can really nail the copy.
• Don’t skip tracking tools: No matter how soon you want to launch, you shouldn’t launch without tracking tools in place. The obvious choice for a tracking tool is Google Analytics, since it’s free and easy to set up. For more detailed insights you should also have event tracking on each step of your funnel, so you can see when people drop off. We also recommend using Hotjar videos to see users interacting with your page—it will help you understand how far people scroll, which parts they read carefully, and which parts they skip right away. 
• Launch fast, learn fast: We often see companies generating traction with their landing pages but not investigating why users converted. Assuming that people love all the value propositions of your idea is very dangerous; you should always try to find out which problem they hope to solve with the product. We typically launch a simple Hotjar survey where we ask users if they want to join a quick interview, in exchange for an Amazon voucher.

Following these recommendations, your process from concept to implementation should not take more than two weeks. At MVP Factory, we typically choose a landing page at the end of a discovery phase that also includes workshops or user interviews. The first document that outlines the storyline and sections of the page is then created by those who owned the prior research, typically a UX Designer and/or Product Manager. Following this, we involve other relevant stakeholders to challenge the concept—but you should try to keep this group rather small. 

In case your landing page shows poor results, don’t panic. Make sure you keep each version up for at least a week to avoid seasonality effects, and try to speak to 3-5 visitors who didn’t convert. Don’t be afraid of hearing that your value proposition does not make sense (yet)—the beauty of using Webflow is that you can iterate fast and change the focus in no time at all. 

What’s your experience with landing pages? Did the process feel slow and not very collaborative? If this is the case, we’d be happy to consult you.