Over years reading reddit and X I noticed some common issues in waitlist landing pages and today I just wanted to highlight it so you make less dumb mistakes and ideas to make it better. To save few words, I will name waitlist landing page as just landing page. Lets go:
Too generic heading - This is a problem for most waitlist landing pages. Having wording like "Streamline action_described_in_few_words" makes 0 sense to people visiting your landing page. It should be more simple, and more clear explanation. Is your app helps to create invoices automatically? Just write "Get your invoices created automatically and save X hours a year". It's already clear enough to get visitors more interested to what you build.
Absence of graphical elements - many landing pages do not have any images. With generic heading, this makes your landing "yet another generic HTML page" with no value at all. Just add screenshot from your WIP app or even Figma design. Show your users what exactly are you building. Combined with clear explanation, it can already be a huge conversion boost
Generic Design - another problem of many landing pages since most just vibe code it without putting any effort. There are tons of free and paid landing pages on internet. Pick any you like - change color scheme and you have unique landing page. The same thing applies to logos. Don't fucking use emojis as your logo! It's dumb and cheap, showing you don't really care about your product. Try to use icons instead of emojis. Arrows, etc - there are tons of free icon packs, just pick one you like and use it. Most even provide SVG to copy from browser, so no need to install anything.
Platform subdomain - many people not even visiting apps with domain like xxxx.vercel.com or yyyy.netlify.dev. Spend $15 for custom domain. Having custom domain will add more credibility to your app
Social proof - its nice to show # of users who signed up. If you don't have many - ask few friends to sign up and just use their avatars as social proof until you get more waitlist signups.
Features section - its not mandatory, but its nice to have features section where you describe what features will you have on launch. This is another reason for users who really interested in what you build to actually join waitlist
FAQ - Another section which can be useful for some products. Here you can explain some aspects of your app, or how are you different from other similar apps.
Having those bullet points in mind, you can craft a very attractive waitlist landing page. When building your landing page - you need to understand a simple concept - why would anybody sign up if I didnt put enough effort to build good landing page to attract customers. Another thing to keep in mind - you can convert good waitlist landing page into real landing page by adding few more sections, pricing, etc, saving yourself time & money later on launch day.
Few more tips:
Have your users to confirm their email. It will filter out spam emails, bots, but also users who aren't really serious about your app. There's literally 0% chance you can convert them later - I tested that myself, and it does not work at all. You can wrap that confirmation email into something like "Please confirm your email so that I could send you more product updates and eventually invitation when we launch". Don't fool yourself with just # of emails in database, you only care about those who will convert.
Share updates, build excitement. In my recent 2 apps I added release notes widget with big button next to waitlist form where visitors could see the progress. I found a tool called updatify. I tried to post at least once a week, and in few months I had enough updates to call it "build in public". Furthermore, I also was sending emails each month. I simply just put together all my update posts and using same tool was sending emails to users on my waitlist.
Do not delay your launch. Try to make sure you launch no later than 3-4 months after you launched your waitlist page. After that time many users will probably find alternative to your tool or just will not need it at all
Add analytics. Track visits, and try to see what kind of promotion works best for you. If you have visitors but not sign ups - that means something wrong with your landing page, value not clear or it's just buggy. You can spot it long before you launch the app and get some feedbacks.
I hope these tips will help someone to actually build better converting waitlist landing page.
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