Checklist

Landing page checklist: 12 things that kill conversions

Updated October 21, 2026About a ten-minute read

A landing page has one job: get the right person to take the next step. Most of them fail in the first screen, for boring reasons. These twelve checks are what Burnt Toast looks for before the jokes. Each answer is the short version. The paragraph under it is what to actually inspect.

Run the list on a page you are about to send traffic to. Fix the misses before you buy the clicks. The order is the order a visitor hits them.

1. Does the hero say what you sell in one glance?

If a stranger cannot name the product and the outcome after five seconds, the hero is a mood board. Lead with the thing you sell and the result it produces, in the first screen, in plain words.

“Elevate your mornings” can be yogurt, a mattress, or a kettle. The headline, the subhead, and the image should agree on one object. If the photo is a forest and the product is a camping kettle, the forest is winning and the sale is losing. Put the product, the job it does, and who it is for above the fold. Decorative lines can stay, after the sentence that matters.

2. Could a competitor paste your headline onto their page?

If the headline still works after you swap in a rival’s name, it is not specific enough to convert. Name the category, the constraint, or the person, so the line fails the swap test.

“The camping kettle that boils in a breeze” cannot move to a mattress brand without sounding absurd. That is the point. Specificity filters: the right visitor feels seen, and the wrong one leaves before wasting a click. Words like seamless, elevate, unlock, and empower are how a page hides that it has not decided what it is.

3. Is it obvious who this page is for?

A landing page that speaks to everyone is a homepage in disguise. Say who it is for, and who it is not for, in the first screen or the line directly under it.

“For weekend campers tired of stoves that die in the wind” does more work than “for everyone who loves the outdoors.” Qualification is not rude. It saves the wrong visitor a bad purchase and tells the right one they can stop shopping. If you sell to two audiences, this URL should pick one. The other audience gets a different page.

4. Does the button ask for a decision, or a delay?

“Learn more,” “Submit,” and “Click here” postpone the sale. The primary button should name the thing the visitor gets, in their language, and there should be one of them.

“Get the kettle” is a decision. “Learn more” is a hallway. On a long page, repeat that same button and keep the label identical so it does not look like a second offer. Secondary actions — docs, log in, a blog — belong in the footer or a quiet text link, not beside the main button in the same weight.

5. Can a visitor see the price before they commit?

A hidden price does not feel exclusive. It feels like a stall. Put the price, the unit (per seat, per month, or one-time), and what is included next to the button that asks for the money or the email.

If the price depends on scope, show the range or the starting price and the one factor that moves it. “Starting at $128, ships in two days” beats a button that dumps people into a call to discover a number you already know. A surprise total at checkout is how a qualified visitor leaves after you already paid to acquire them.

7. Does the page become usable before patience runs out?

A hero that waits on a giant image, a carousel, or a pile of third-party scripts is a conversion problem, not a polish problem. The first screen should show the text and the button without waiting on decoration.

You do not need a lab score to see the usual causes: a full-bleed video that autoplays, uncompressed photography, a chat widget, six analytics tags, and a font that blocks the headline. Ship the headline and the button in HTML. Defer anything that is not required to understand the offer. If the page is slow on a phone over a mediocre connection, that is the experience you are selling against.

8. Can someone read the offer and tap the button on a phone?

Most landing-page traffic is a thumb on a small screen. The headline has to fit without shrinking into a caption, the button has to be easy to hit, and the price cannot hide under a sticky bar.

Check a real phone, not only a narrowed desktop window. Watch for text over a photo with weak contrast, a button pushed below a tall image so the offer is off-screen, form fields that zoom because the type is under 16px, and tap targets crowded together. Horizontal scroll is a defect. If the desktop page needs a paragraph and the phone shows three words and a picture, rewrite the phone version on purpose.

9. Does the form ask only for what the next step requires?

Every extra field is a reason to quit. Ask for the minimum that lets you do the thing you promised, and say what happens after they send it.

A demo or a checkout that wants company size, budget, a phone number, and “how did you hear about us” before it has delivered anything is collecting data it has not earned. A name, a work email, and the URL or the question is often enough. If you need more, ask after they have said yes. Label fields in plain language, show errors next to the field, and do not wipe the form when one field fails.

10. Does the page have one job?

A landing page is a single argument that ends in one action. Links to the blog, the careers page, and three other products are exits you are paying to advertise.

If this URL came from an ad or a launch email, keep the header to the brand and the action, or make other links visually quiet. Equal offers — “Start free,” “Book a demo,” “Read the guide,” “See pricing” — split the click. Pick the action that matches the traffic. Pricing can be a section on the page. It does not need to be a second button in the hero.

11. Is the next step after the click spelled out?

People hesitate when they cannot tell what they are walking into. Say whether the click buys the thing, books a short call, or shows a result on the next screen, and say how soon.

“Get the kettle — ships in two days” and “Paste a URL — the score shows on the next page, usually within a minute” are both clearer than “Get started.” If there is a wait, a login, or a salesperson, say so before the click. The visitors who leave because of that were going to leave after it. You just would have spent the click first.

12. Does the page answer the obvious objection before the footer?

Every offer has one doubt that stops the click: the price, the setup time, whether it fits their stack, the return policy, or the catch. Name that doubt in a sentence and answer it next to the button, not in a FAQ ten screens down.

A short FAQ is useful after the answer, not instead of it. Three or four real questions, written the way a skeptical buyer asks them, beat a list of softballs. If the honest answer is “this takes a weekend to install” or “this is a poor fit for agencies,” write that. The visitors you scare off were the refunds.