The Guide That Is Really a Sales Page

The shape of it

A page titled how to choose a supplier, or what to look for when buying one of these.

It lists the criteria: experience, insurance, local knowledge, a particular certification, willingness to provide references.

Each criterion happens to describe the business publishing it, and one or two are unusual enough that only they meet them.

By the fourth point the reader has worked out what the page is, and the value of everything before it retroactively drops.

Why it fails at both jobs

It is a worse guide than a guide and a worse sales page than a sales page.

As a guide it cannot be trusted, since the reader now knows the criteria were selected rather than assembled.

As a sales page it is slow and indirect, arriving at the pitch after a thousand words the reader did not want.

Somebody ready to buy would have preferred the sales page. Somebody researching would have preferred the guide.

The combined version serves neither, which is why these pages tend to have traffic and no results.

The tells a reader picks up

• Criteria that match you exactly.
• No criterion you would fail.
• A warning describing your competitors.
• No named alternatives.
• A conclusion that was inevitable.

The second is the clearest. A genuine guide includes at least one thing the writer is not strong on, because real criteria do not all point one way.

Writing an honest guide

Which is possible and is a legitimate way to sell.

Include criteria you do not meet, and say so plainly: we do not do this, if that matters most to you then look for somebody who does.

Include the case where the reader should not buy at all, which is the single most credible thing a guide can contain.

Name what a competitor does better, in general terms if not by name.

Then say, at the end and clearly separated, that you do this work and here is how to get in touch.

That structure lets the guide be a guide throughout and the pitch be a pitch at the end, and readers accept it because the honesty was earned before the ask.

A worked example

A business had a page titled what to look for when choosing an installer, listing seven criteria, all of which they met.

It had steady traffic and had never produced an enquiry.

They rewrote it with the same seven criteria plus two more: whether the installer offers out-of-hours emergency cover, which they do not, and whether they carry stock for a particular older system, which they also do not.

Both were stated plainly, with a note about what to do if either mattered.

They added a section on when not to replace at all, and moved their own pitch to a short block at the end.

Enquiries began arriving, and several referenced the honesty about what the business did not do.

Naming what you do not do

The mechanism that makes the rest believable, and it is uncomfortable.

A reader has no way to verify most of what a business claims, so they look for evidence of a business willing to say something against its own interest.

One such statement calibrates everything else on the page, because a business that would admit that would presumably admit other things.

The cost is losing the customers for whom the missing thing was essential, and those customers were never going to be satisfied anyway.

The gain is credibility with everybody else, which is a considerably larger group.

This is the same effect as a listing with a few critical reviews outperforming one with nothing but five stars.

Label the page correctly

A simpler fix that works where the honest guide is too much to write.

If the page is about why to choose you, title it that way and write it as such.

Why choose us is an honest title for a partial page, and a reader who clicks it knows what they are getting and is not disappointed.

The failure is a title promising neutrality attached to content that is not neutral.

Two separate pages, one guide and one pitch, each labelled honestly, outperforms one page trying to be both.

They also serve different readers arriving at different stages, which the combined page cannot do.

Where the line sits

Since every guide written by a business has some interest behind it.

Selecting a topic you are good at is fine, since nobody expects a business to write about subjects at random.

Mentioning that you offer the thing being discussed is fine, once, where it is relevant.

Shaping the criteria so that only you qualify is not, and neither is warning against practices that describe your competitors without saying so.

The test is whether somebody who followed your guide might reasonably end up choosing a competitor. If not, it is a sales page.

The counter-case

Sales pages are entirely legitimate.

A page arguing that you are the right choice, clearly labelled, is a normal and necessary part of a site, and there is no obligation to be even-handed on it.

Some guides also genuinely conclude in your favour, where you happen to be strong on the things that matter, and that is not dishonest provided the criteria came first.

And a very small business may not have the material for both a guide and a pitch, in which case one honest sales page is better than a compromised guide.

Decide which the page is, title it accordingly, and if it is a guide, include something that costs you.

What to do

1. Decide which the page is.
2. Title it accordingly.
3. In a guide, include a criterion you fail.
4. Include when not to buy at all.
5. Keep the pitch to the end, clearly separated.
6. Ask whether a reader could reasonably choose somebody else.
7. Split it into two pages if it will not resolve.

Step six is the test that settles it, since a guide whose conclusion was never in doubt is a sales page wearing a guide's title.

Being direct about difficult subjects is covered in the page that answers the awkward question.

Frequently asked questions

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