Optimizing your membership sales page for search

Your sales page is the most important page on your site, and on many membership sites it's also one of the least visible in search. It's often a stylish page built for people who already know you: a big headline, a video, a few images with words baked into them, a price and a button. Visitors who arrive from your email list convert nicely. Strangers searching for exactly what you offer never see it.

A sales page will never bring in as much search traffic as your helpful articles, and it shouldn't try to. But it can rank for the searches that matter most: the ones where someone is actively looking for a membership, course or community like yours. Those visitors are few, but they're close to a decision. Here's how to make the page findable without turning it into an awkward keyword exercise.

Choose the searches a sales page can win

A sales page suits commercial searches, made by people comparing options and getting ready to buy. They tend to look like this:

• Your topic plus a format: “online sign language classes,” “sign language course online.”
• Your topic plus an audience: “sign language for parents of deaf children.”
• Your topic plus a model: “sign language membership,” “sign language learning community.”
• Your own name, and your name plus words like price, reviews or login.

A sales page won't win informational searches such as “how to sign thank you.” Those need a helpful article, which can then link to the sales page. If you're unsure what kind of page a phrase wants, search it and look at what ranks; search intent: give searchers what they came for explains how to read the results. Narrow phrases with a clear audience are usually more realistic targets than broad ones, as covered in long-tail keywords for niche membership sites.

Pick one main phrase and two or three close variations. That's plenty for one page.

Decide which page is the sales page

Many membership sites accidentally have several pages competing for the same searches: the home page, a join page and a pricing page that all describe the membership in similar words. Search engines then have to guess which to show, and they often pick the weakest.

Choose one page as the main destination for your commercial phrase. If the site sells a single membership, that's often the home page. If the home page has to introduce a wider business, it's a dedicated membership page. Give the other pages different jobs: the pricing page compares plans, the join page handles checkout. Link them to each other clearly.

Give the sales page one permanent address. Rebuilding it at a new address for every launch or promotion throws away whatever search history and links the old page earned.

Put the words on the page, as text

Search engines understand a sales page mainly through its text, and sales pages often have surprisingly little of it:

• Headlines inside images. Put important words in real text and real headings.
• Everything in a video. Keep the video, but add a written summary of what it covers.
• Vague copy. “Transform your life” says nothing about sign language. Describe what members actually learn and get, in the words your buyers use.
• Content kept out of sight. List what's inside: learning paths, lesson titles, sample resources. A free sample lesson helps searchers and search engines see what you offer.

An FAQ near the price, built from the questions buyers really ask, adds useful and relevant text at the same time; FAQ sections that help your pages in search shows how to write one.

A worked example: a sign language membership

Hana runs an online membership teaching sign language to hearing parents of deaf children. Her home page doubles as her sales page. Before:

• Title: Welcome to Hands Together
• Main heading: Your journey starts here
• Opening: a two-minute video with no text beneath it, then a price box

After:

• Title: Online Sign Language Classes for Parents of Deaf Children – Hands Together
• Main heading: Learn to sign with your child, at home, at your own pace
• Opening: two sentences on who the membership is for and what they'll be able to do after three months, followed by the video and a short written summary of it

Below that she lists the six learning paths with their lesson titles, adds a free sample lesson on everyday signs for mealtimes, writes out three member stories as text with first names and permission, and adds eight FAQs. Her description now reads: “Short daily video lessons and live practice sessions that help hearing parents learn to sign with their deaf children. Start with a free sample lesson.”

Nothing on the page reads as if it were written for a robot. It simply says clearly, in words, what it offers and to whom.

Support the sales page from the rest of your site

A sales page rarely earns many links on its own; people link to useful articles, not pitches. So the rest of your site has to lend it strength:

1. Link to the sales page from every relevant public article, using descriptive words such as “our online sign language classes for families” rather than “join now.”
2. Keep it in your main navigation.
3. Write articles around the informational questions buyers ask before joining, and link each to the sales page at a natural point.
4. When partners, podcasts or directories mention you, ask them to link to the page that explains the membership best.

Keep it fast and readable on a phone

Sales pages are often the heaviest pages on a site, with background videos, animations, tracking scripts and embedded widgets. Each one slows the page, especially on phones. Test the page on a mobile connection, compress large images and remove scripts you no longer use. A page that loads quickly and reads well on a small screen serves searchers and buyers alike.

Your sales page SEO checklist

1. Choose one main commercial phrase and two or three variations for your sales page.
2. Confirm that only one page is meant to rank for it, and give the others distinct jobs.
3. Rewrite the title and main heading to include the phrase naturally, plus who it's for.
4. Replace text in images with real text, and summarize any video in writing.
5. Show what's inside: paths, lessons, resources and a free sample.
6. Add an FAQ built from real buyer questions.
7. Link to the page from your most relevant public articles with descriptive wording.
8. Test the page's speed and readability on a phone.