Did you know your sales page is the money-maker of your website?? And since your sales page makes such a huge impact, you really want to make sure it's designed to convert. Think about it: these are the pages that are helping your potential customers understand what you're selling and ultimately convincing them to sign up for and purchase your offer. You want to make sure you are grabbing your visitor's attention—and keeping it long enough for them to say "Yes".

But first, I'm Shannon, of Sunday Muse Design — a brand strategy and web design studio for passionate, ambitious, and humble brands. And I'm so excited to be contributing to the Enji blog to chat about the money-maker on your website.

So today, I want to chat about making sure your sales page is designed to convert and be the revenue-generating machine it's meant to be.

Let's dive in.

Write your copy first

I can't talk about designing your sales page without first reminding you that you need to write your copy (all those words on your website) first. (Anyone who is on my email list or follows me on Instagram knows I am fiercely passionate about writing your website copy before you design it.)

Why? Because your message is the whole point of your website. The design makes it pretty. So you've got to have the message before you (or your website designer) can build a beautiful, revenue-generating machine. If you try to design it first, you'll risk having to redesign it later. Or you'll try to fit your design around your copy, which always comes across forced. And dull.

I know writing your copy is daunting. I've been there. If it's in your budget, hire a professional copywriter (GG Copywriting is one of my favorites!). If it's not within your budget, find a resource that will help you.

A few tips as you're writing your website copy:

1. Appeal to your skimmers. Rarely does anyone read every. single. word on your website. They skim. So help out your skimmers—bold or italicize important points, create bulleted or numbered lists, utilize headings and subheadings, etc.
2. Sprinkle in your testimonials. And not just any testimonials—use the ones that show a transformation. Your visitor needs to be able to see what they're going to gain from opting in. Pro Tip: Use 1-2 of the most powerful phrases or sentences from your     testimonials—not the whole paragraph.
3. Don't forget your CTAs. Make sure you are breaking up your copy with engaging and clear calls-to-action. You know—"JOIN THE CHALLENGE" or "ADD TO CART" or "SIGN UP"... you get the idea.

And remember—no matter what, write your sales page copy before you even touch the design.

Use contrasting colors

Contrasting colors make your website and sales page more accessible. They also help support a visual hierarchy, making the sections on your website clear which helps make your copy easier to read.

Pro-tip: You know all those CTAs I mentioned above? Make them buttons. And when you make them buttons, make sure you are using high contrast colors.

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They need to be bright. The text needs to be easy to read. A light blue button with white text is going to be hard to read.

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And nope—those button colors don't have to be on-brand! You can totally have a sales page that includes different colors or colors that are off-shoots from your main brand colors.

Pro-tip: Need a great tool to help check the contrast of your button colors? Or even the text on your website? Here's an easy-to-use color contrast checker from Accessible Web.

Break up your sales page sections

Don't use one flat background color throughout your entire sales page. Break it up with different colors (keeping contrast in mind!). Maybe one section is blue, the next is white, and the next is blue again. You can also use subtle textures or patterns to break up your sections—all of these options help give it more depth and helps keeps it dynamic.

Lose the cheesy, overused icons

I love a good icon. Especially on a sales page design. But I DON'T love the overused, cheesy ones. So what does that leave you with? One of 3 options:

1. Don't use any icons or
2. Hire a graphic designer to create some custom icons for you or
3. Find an entire set of better icons (favorite places: The Noun Project, You Work for Them, Creative Market).

Here are some better icon collections I found:

• Photography Icon Collection
• Online Course Icon Collection
• Interior Design Icon Collection
• Beauty Icon Collection

Incorporate graphics that show what's included

Your potential customer wants to know what he or she is going to actually get when they sign up for your offer. Whether you're creating a sales page for your service, course, membership, or digital product make sure you share what's included. Find some well-designed mockups that you can use to show what's included. Here are some examples of device mockups (aka scene creators):

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And here are some great places to find these mockup templates:

• Creative Market
• Moyo Studio

Another way to show what's included is to design info cards or tables on your sales page. These are the cards and/or tables that show a visual breakdown of everything that's included in the offer. Don't like info cards? Then show what's included in a simple, clean layout using text (with a good visual hierarchy), bullets, subheadings, contrasting colors, etc.

Designing your sales page can be daunting and intimidating. But figuring out how to break up the content, build trust, and show the true value of your offer can be really fun. Keep this post handy when you're launching your next offer.

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