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TL;DR (Quick Summary)
- A sales page is not a description of your course. It is a story that walks a visitor to a decision, and those are two different pages built from two different sets of words.
- Everyone who arrives sees your hero section. Only 40 percent scroll past it. The top of the page has to do more work than the rest of it combined.
- Nobody buys the curriculum. Twelve video lessons reads as twelve evenings they do not have. Attach the payoff to every feature or leave the feature out.
- Testimonials belong above the price, not below it, and a written quote signed "Marissa A." convinces no one. A headshot is the minimum, video testimonials are gold if you can get them.
- Your "about me" section goes near the bottom. They need to know they are in the right place before they care who you are.
- Set your theme settings before you build a single page, or you will rebuild every section you have already styled.
Your course is finished. The videos are edited, the workbook is done, the curriculum is loaded in. So you open the product page, and you start typing out what is inside the course.
That is the moment it goes wrong, and it goes wrong on almost every page I look at.
A course sales page is not a description of your course. It is a story that leads a visitor to a purchase. I could show you a hundred Thinkific pages that are really just a list of features, and I am not going to name any of them, because the people who built them were never designers or marketers or copywriters. Nobody should expect you to be. But it is worth knowing what the page is actually for before you write another line of it.
In this week's video I walk through the whole job, start to finish. Watch it above, or keep reading for the parts that change the most.
Everyone sees the top. Only 40 percent scroll.
One hundred percent of the people who land on your page see your hero section. Forty percent of them scroll.
That number should change how you write. The top screen is not an introduction to the page, it is most of the page, for most of the people. It needs a headline about the outcome they want, a subheadline, a button, a visual, and a testimonial if you have one that earns the space.
A headline formula that works: the outcome they want, in a specific timeframe, without the thing they dread.
The most common thing I see up there instead is the name of the course. Nobody cares what your course is called. They care what happens to them after it.
Nobody is buying your curriculum
Twelve video lessons is not a benefit. To a tired person on a phone at 11pm, twelve video lessons is twelve evenings they do not have.
Features are fine, but every one of them has to arrive with its payoff attached. Twelve video lessons so that you can do the specific thing you came here unable to do. The feature is the proof, the payoff is the reason.
The same goes for the whole middle of the page. Paint the problem back to them better than they could say it themselves. Show them what life looks like on the other side. Then, and only then, introduce the offer, say why it is different from the other ten they have looked at, and lay out what they will be able to do at the end that they cannot do now.
Where the testimonials go, and which ones count
Testimonials go above the price. You can sprinkle them through the page and you should, but if you do nothing else, get them above the investment section. Somebody deciding whether to spend money needs the proof before the number, not after it.
And a written quote signed "Marissa A." does nothing. Everyone knows you could have typed it yourself. A headshot is the minimum bar for a testimonial to count as evidence. Video is the real thing.
Under the price goes the guarantee. That is you taking the risk off them and putting it on yourself. Without it you lose a meaningful number of people who liked everything they read and still are not sure enough to click.
The section everyone puts far too early
Your "about me" goes near the bottom.
The instinct is to lead with it, and it is the wrong instinct. Before anyone cares who you are, they need to know they are in the right place and that this is the right solution. Once they believe that, they want to know who is teaching it. Not before.
When you get there, you need a photo, ideally a video, and the before-and-after version of you. The version who had their exact problem, and what changed.
Three ways to build it, and what each one really costs
Once you know what the page has to do, there are three ways to build it on Thinkific.
Landing page templates. The page is already built and already structured, and it gets matched to your brand with your words and images. You need to know nothing about design. Best if you would rather be earning than designing.
Super Powerups. A set of far better sections you install onto your Thinkific site. You are the designer here, so you need page structure, UX, colour theory, typography and copywriting. If you have those and a good eye, it is an excellent option, and we still use it on client sites.
Thinkific's default sections. Nothing to install, nothing extra to pay. You still need page structure, UX, colour theory and copywriting, and you can only go as far as the sections you are given, which is not very far. Best if the funds are not there for the other two.
Notice what that comparison is actually about. It is not which one looks nicest. It is how many disciplines you have to go and learn before your page converts.
Fix your theme settings before you build anything
Before your first page, open theme settings and set your site colours, your desktop and mobile typography, and your favicon. All of it is site wide. Set it afterwards and you will be reworking sections you have already styled.
Two small things from the build that save real time. Scale your logo down, because a large logo eats the most valuable space on the page and nobody cares about it except you. And hide the "Get Started" button that Thinkific puts on product pages. We have tested that one a lot and it does not help you.
Then test the page the way a buyer meets it. Open it in an incognito window, click every button, and follow each one all the way to the checkout to confirm it lands on the right course at the right price.
Where to start
If you have a page live right now, do not rebuild it today. Open it and check two things: is your best testimonial above your price, and does your headline say the outcome or the name of your course? Those two are the cheapest changes on the page and the two most likely to be wrong.
The full walkthrough, including the theme setup and all three build routes, is in the video above.
If you would rather hand the whole thing over, our Thinkific landing page templates are built, branded and installed for you.
And if you want the resources from this series as they come out, they are all inside the community.