The 5 landing page mistakes I see every week

After reviewing hundreds of landing pages across SaaS, services, coaching, and e-commerce — the same five problems keep showing up. Not occasionally. Every week.

The good news: they're all fixable without a redesign. Most of them take an afternoon.

1. The headline says what you do, not what they get

"Project management software for remote teams." Okay. But what does that mean for me? What changes for my team the week after I sign up?

The fix: rewrite your headline as an outcome. Not "what it is" — what the user's life looks like after they use it. "Ship projects on time without a single status meeting" is more honest and more compelling than any product descriptor.

Test: read your headline to someone who's never seen your product. Ask them what they'd tell a friend about it. If they can't paraphrase it back, rewrite.

2. Three CTAs competing for attention

A page with "Get started," "Watch demo," "Learn more," "Book a call," and "Download the guide" — all in primary button styling — has no CTA. It has noise.

Every page should have one primary action. Secondary options can exist but they should be visually subordinate: text links, ghost buttons, small print. The eye should land on one obvious next step within 2 seconds.

If everything is important, nothing is.

3. Social proof is there but it doesn't land

Testimonials from "John D. — CEO" with no photo, no company name, and a quote vague enough to apply to anything. Nobody believes it. Not because they think you fabricated it — because there's nothing specific to latch onto.

Effective social proof has three elements: a real person (photo, full name, company), a specific outcome ("conversion rate went from 2% to 4.8% in 6 weeks"), and relevance to the reader's situation.

If you have logos of companies you've worked with, that's a start. But a single detailed, specific testimonial with a real photo beats ten generic logo strips.

4. Mobile is an afterthought

More than half of landing page visitors arrive on a phone. A page designed for desktop first — with three-column feature grids, hover states that don't work on touch, and CTAs at the very bottom — is functionally broken for the majority of your traffic.

Mobile isn't a stripped-down version of your page. It's the primary experience. Design for the 5-inch screen first, then expand to desktop.

5. The page tries to close a cold visitor

This is the most common and the most damaging: treating a landing page like a sales call closer when it's really the first touch. Most visitors aren't ready to buy. They're evaluating whether your problem framing matches their situation.

The goal for a first visit isn't conversion — it's interest. The CTA should reflect that. "See how it works" works better than "Buy now" for cold traffic. "Watch the 3-minute demo" works better than "Start your free trial" for visitors who don't know what they're signing up for yet.

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Fix one of these this week. Just one. Changing the headline alone has moved conversion rates 30–50% on projects I've worked on. The basics compound.