Process
March 15, 2026 · 8 min read
Landing pages that do the work.
What changes when a landing page has to convert against three other tabs the visitor has open. The five questions I ask before the wireframe.
Every landing page is a fight for the next three seconds. The visitor came from somewhere with a question; if the page does not answer it before they tab away, the rest of the design is decoration. The five questions below are the ones I have to answer before the wireframe is allowed to start.
1. What does the visitor already know?
A page for a returning customer is a different page than one for a stranger from a paid ad. The first question is which one I am building. The answer changes the headline, the screenshot, and whether the price goes above or below the fold.
2. What is the one thing it has to do?
Pages can do many things badly or one thing well. Pick the one. Everything on the page is allowed to support it; nothing on the page is allowed to compete with it. This is the question that actually decides the layout.
The other three questions.
- What is the one objection the visitor will have, and where on the page do I answer it?
- What is the smallest amount of social proof that earns the next scroll?
- What does the visitor have to do next, and is that affordance the loudest thing on the page?
If three of the five answers are unclear, the wireframe is not yet allowed to start. The page that ships when you wireframe before answering is the page that gets a redesign in six months.
If your page is doing two things, your page is failing at one of them.
Working on something like this?