Stop. Don't redesign yet.
Your landing page isn't converting. You've watched the analytics. Traffic comes in, people visit, and almost all of them leave without doing the thing you want them to do. The instinct is to burn it down and start over. New design, new copy, new layout. Spend a few thousand dollars and a few weeks, and hope the new version works better.
Before you do that, run these seven checks. In our experience analyzing hundreds of landing pages, the conversion problem is almost never "the whole page is wrong." It's one or two specific things that are broken, and fixing those things costs a fraction of what a full redesign would.
A bad headline on an otherwise decent page will tank your conversion rate just as effectively as a completely broken site. But fixing a headline takes an afternoon. A redesign takes a month.
Check 1: The 5-second headline test
What to look for: Show your page to someone who has never seen it before. After five seconds, take it away. Ask them: what does this company sell? If they can't answer, your headline has failed.
What bad looks like: "Welcome to the Future of Finance." "Empowering Teams to Do More." "Your Partner in Growth." These headlines say nothing. They could apply to thousands of different companies selling thousands of different things.
What good looks like: "Invoice tracking for freelancers who hate spreadsheets." "Get your tax refund in 48 hours instead of 6 weeks." "The CRM that actually fits on your phone screen." Specific. Clear. The visitor knows exactly what you sell and who it's for.
One specific fix: Rewrite your headline using this formula: [What you do] + [for whom] + [key differentiator or outcome]. "AI-powered email replies for support teams drowning in tickets." Test it with three people who don't know your product. If all three can tell you what you sell, you're on track.
Check 2: CTA visibility and copy
What to look for: Open your page on your phone. Without scrolling, can you see a button that tells you what to do next? Is the button text specific, or does it say something vague like "Get Started" or "Learn More"?
What bad looks like: No button visible above the fold. A button that blends into the background. Button text that could mean anything. Two or three competing buttons that create confusion about which one to click.
What good looks like: One primary button, visually distinct from everything else on the page, visible without scrolling, with text that describes the specific action and its benefit. "Start Your Free Trial" is better than "Get Started." "See Plans and Pricing" is better than "Learn More."
One specific fix: Make your primary CTA the only element on the page that uses its specific color. If your button is blue, nothing else should be blue. This creates automatic visual priority. Then rewrite the button text to answer the question: "What will happen when I click this?"
Check 3: Social proof presence and placement
What to look for: Does your page include any evidence that other people have used and benefited from your product or service? Testimonials, client logos, review scores, case study snippets, usage numbers?
What bad looks like: No social proof anywhere on the page. Social proof buried at the very bottom. A single generic testimonial like "Great product!" with no name or company. Logos so small they're barely visible.
What good looks like: Client logos near the top of the page. Specific testimonials placed near the CTA, featuring real names and companies and describing a concrete result. "We reduced our response time from 4 hours to 20 minutes" is persuasive. "Really love this tool!" is not.
One specific fix: Add a single specific testimonial directly above or below your primary CTA. The testimonial should mention a measurable result. If you don't have one yet, ask your three happiest customers for a quote and offer to write a draft for them to approve.
Check 4: Value proposition completeness
What to look for: Can a visitor quickly understand four things: what your product is, who it's for, why it's different from alternatives, and what outcome they can expect from using it?
What bad looks like: The page describes features without connecting them to outcomes. "Real-time analytics dashboard" tells visitors what they get but not why they should care. The page never mentions who the ideal customer is. There's no mention of what makes you different from competitors.
What good looks like: A clear progression from problem to solution to proof to action. "You're spending 10 hours a week on manual reporting. Our dashboard cuts that to 30 minutes. Here's how Agency X did it. Start your free trial." Every piece of the value proposition is present and connected.
One specific fix: Write out the answers to these four questions and check whether each answer appears on your page: (1) What do we sell? (2) Who is it for? (3) What makes us different? (4) What specific outcome can the customer expect? If any answer is missing from the page, add it.
Check 5: Objection handling and risk reversal
What to look for: Does your page address the most common reasons someone would hesitate to take action? Price concerns, time commitment, complexity, trust, switching costs?
What bad looks like: No guarantee mentioned. No FAQ on the page. No mention of what happens if the customer isn't satisfied. No pricing transparency. The visitor has to work to figure out what the commitment looks like.
What good looks like: A clear guarantee near the CTA. A short FAQ section addressing the top three to five objections. Pricing visible or at least contextual ("Starting at $29/month"). A "no commitment" or "cancel anytime" reassurance if applicable.
One specific fix: Identify the single biggest objection your prospects have. Maybe it's price, maybe it's implementation time, maybe it's whether it integrates with their existing tools. Add a direct answer to that objection within visible range of your primary CTA. Even a single line like "No credit card required. Cancel anytime." can measurably improve conversion rates.
Check 6: Mobile experience
What to look for: Open your page on your phone. Is the headline readable? Can you see a CTA without scrolling? Does the page load quickly? Are touch targets big enough to tap comfortably?
What bad looks like: Text so small you have to pinch to zoom. A hero image that takes up the entire screen with no visible text. Buttons that are too small or too close together. Important content pushed far down the page by elements that are oversized on mobile. A page that takes more than three seconds to load on a mobile connection.
What good looks like: Headline is immediately readable. CTA is visible within the first screen. Text is at least 16px. Buttons are at least 44px tall. The page loads in under 2.5 seconds. The mobile version prioritizes the same content hierarchy as desktop.
One specific fix: Open your page on your phone right now. If you have to scroll more than one full screen to reach your first CTA, move it up. Mobile visitors have even less patience than desktop visitors, and a CTA that sits three screens down might as well not exist.
Check 7: Page speed
What to look for: Run your URL through Google PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev). Check your Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) score. If it's above 2.5 seconds, your page is loading too slowly and you're losing visitors before they even see your content.
What bad looks like: LCP above 4 seconds. Large uncompressed images. Render-blocking JavaScript. No lazy loading on below-the-fold images. A hero video that loads 10MB of data before the headline renders.
What good looks like: LCP under 2.5 seconds. Images properly compressed and served in modern formats (WebP or AVIF). Critical CSS inlined. JavaScript deferred. Fonts preloaded or system fonts used.
One specific fix: If your hero section uses a large image, compress it. Run it through a tool like Squoosh and reduce the file size by 50 to 80 percent. Convert it to WebP format. This single change often drops LCP by one to two full seconds, which directly reduces bounce rate.
The redesign trap
Most landing pages don't need a redesign. They need a diagnosis. The problem is usually concentrated in one or two of the seven areas above. Fixing a vague headline, making a CTA more prominent, or adding social proof near the action point can improve conversion rates by 20 to 50 percent without touching the rest of the page.
A redesign costs thousands of dollars and takes weeks. These seven checks take an afternoon. Start here.
At TeardownHQ, these seven checks are part of our analysis methodology. Every teardown evaluates all seven areas across a 1000-point scoring system with 22 weighted subcriteria that pinpoint exactly where your page is losing visitors and what to fix in what order.
Want a professional to run a structured analysis across all seven areas and more? Get a teardown and receive your detailed report within 24 hours.