Landing Pages are the storefront or book cover of your product or service
The primary purpose of a landing page is to maximize conversion rate, or the % of visitors who arrive at your site that complete the acquisition event (i.e. signup for your product)
Remember to do your homework on what a standard conversion rate is for your industry, as it can vary widely. For SaaS apps this hovers around 3%, for TurboTax it's as high as 70%
Unless your product is a consumer software application, you typically don't need to worry about creating a landing page until you're ready to enter stage 2 of development
7 Questions to Ask for Landing Page Success
What is your Call To Action?
The trigger for your acquisition event should be as obvious and omnipresent as possible, without being in the way
This should ideally be placed alongside the part of your landing page that triggers the "Aha!" moment most often
What is this?
A good litmus test for this is: Could I copy a sentence from this page, send it to my mom, and have her be able to understand what the product is?
Is it right for me?
A user needs to see a reflection of their problem in your landing page, to help them evaluate if they are in the right place
Is is legit?
You site should not look unprofessional. The bar isn't that high for this, and you can usually just use a solid design template to check this box
Who else is using it?
People are inherently reluctant to use something that nobody else it. Showing who is using your product and how is a shortcut to the above 2 steps
How much is it?/What is the catch?
If your product costs money, include a pricing page. Most SaaS business's lose customers simply by not including a pricing page
Where can I get help?
Include links to documentation and resources. If they exist, link to forums as well
Include a direct line to a living person who can answer product questions. Many user's will not do anything until they talk to a real person