What landing page development actually covers
Design decides what the page says and how it looks. Development decides whether it loads, converts, records the conversion and keeps working after you edit it six weeks later. Those are different problems and the second one is where most projects quietly fail.
| Deliverable | What you receive |
|---|---|
| Responsive build | The approved design implemented across desktop, tablet and mobile, matched to the breakpoints agreed at design stage rather than reflowed and hoped for |
| Performance pass | Images converted to AVIF or WebP and correctly sized per breakpoint, fonts subset and preloaded, render blocking scripts deferred, hero element preloaded |
| Tracking layer | GA4 and Google Tag Manager configured, conversion events named and fired, ad platform pixels installed, server side conversion sending where the platform supports it |
| Form and CRM wiring | Form submits to your CRM with field mapping verified, plus a fallback email notification so a broken integration never silently swallows a lead |
| Accessibility pass | Semantic headings, labelled form fields, visible focus states, colour contrast checked against WCAG 2.1 AA, keyboard navigation tested end to end |
| Cross browser QA | Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge on desktop, plus real device checks on iOS Safari and Android Chrome |
| Editing handover | A walkthrough of how to change copy and images without breaking layout, recorded so your next marketer can watch it too |
Platforms we build on and when each one is the right call
The correct platform is decided by who has to edit the page after launch and by what the page needs to do, not by what a developer prefers. Here is how we actually choose.
| Platform | Choose it when | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Unbounce | You are running paid campaigns, need many page variants quickly and want your media buyer editing pages without a developer | Ongoing subscription, limited control over the markup, harder to hit top tier Core Web Vitals scores |
| GoHighLevel | Your funnel, CRM, calendar and follow up automation already live in GHL and you want one system rather than four integrations | Performance ceiling is lower than a coded build, design flexibility is constrained by the builder |
| WordPress | Your main site is WordPress and the landing page needs to inherit brand assets, share a domain and be editable by an existing team | Plugin bloat is the standard failure mode. Requires discipline about what gets installed |
| Webflow | You want visual editing with clean output, strong animation control and a designer who can maintain it without touching code | Subscription cost and complex logic or gated content usually needs a third party service |
| Shopify | The conversion is a product purchase and the page must use live product data, real inventory and native checkout | Theme constraints. Section based work is fine, full custom layouts cost more effort |
| React or Next.js | The page needs product level interactivity, a calculator, live data or performance that a builder cannot reach | Marketing cannot edit copy without a deploy unless you add a headless CMS, which adds setup time |
If you are not sure which applies, the honest default for most B2B and SaaS teams is this: use the platform your main site already runs on unless the page needs speed or interactivity that platform cannot deliver. Consolidation beats optimisation at this scale.
The performance budget we build to
Most agencies talk about fast pages without publishing a number, which makes the claim unfalsifiable. Ours is a budget, agreed before the build, checked before handover.
| Metric | Target | Why it is set there |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint | Under 2.5s | Google's documented "good" threshold, measured at the 75th percentile of real users |
| Interaction to Next Paint | Under 200ms | The responsiveness metric that replaced First Input Delay in March 2024 and the one most sites fail |
| Cumulative Layout Shift | Under 0.1 | Every image, embed and font reserves its space, so nothing jumps under a thumb mid tap |
| Total page weight | Under 1.2MB | Above this, mid range Android devices on mobile networks start losing visitors before the hero renders |
| Third party scripts | Counted and justified | Every tag is a tax on interactivity. Each one has to earn its place in writing |
Builders like Unbounce and GoHighLevel have a lower performance ceiling than a coded build. We tell you the realistic budget for the platform you have chosen before the project starts rather than after. If the number matters more than the editing convenience, we will say so and recommend the coded route. Deeper work on this sits under our landing page speed and SEO work.
Tracking, because an untracked page is an expensive guess
A landing page that cannot prove what it did is indistinguishable from one that did nothing. Development is where measurement is either built in or lost forever and retrofitting tracking after a campaign has run does not recover the data you missed.
- Event naming taken seriously. Conversions are named consistently across GA4, the ad platforms and your CRM so the numbers in three dashboards can actually be reconciled.
- Form step tracking. On multistep forms each step fires its own event, so you can see exactly which question is losing people rather than only that the form was abandoned.
- Server side conversion sending. Meta Conversions API and Google Enhanced Conversions where the platform supports it, which recovers a meaningful share of conversions lost to browser tracking restrictions and ad blockers.
- Attribution parameters preserved. UTM values, click identifiers and referrer data carried through the form into the CRM record, so sales can see which campaign produced the deal months later.
- A tested thank you state. The conversion event fires once, on a real submission, not on page load and not twice. We verify it with live test submissions before handover.
Forms that qualify instead of forms that collect
The form is the highest leverage component on the page and usually the least considered. Three decisions matter more than the rest.
Field count versus lead quality. Fewer fields raise submission rate and lower lead quality. That tradeoff is a business decision, not a design one. If your sales team is under capacity, cut fields. If they are drowning in unqualified calls, add a qualifying question. We ask you which problem you have before we build.
Multistep is not always better. Splitting a form across steps reliably lifts completion when there are more than five fields, because the first step feels trivial and commitment builds. Below five fields it usually adds friction for no gain. We build multistep where the field count justifies it.
Spam handling without punishing humans. Honeypot fields and timing checks stop most automated submissions invisibly. Visible challenges get added only if real spam volume appears, because every challenge costs you real conversions too.
How the build runs
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Day 1: Kickoff | Platform confirmed, access collected, tracking plan written and signed off. Nothing gets built before we know what the page must record. |
| Days 2 to 4: Build | Sections built to the approved design, desktop first then mobile, with performance decisions made during the build rather than patched afterwards. |
| Day 5: Integration | Forms, CRM, analytics and pixels connected and verified with live test submissions that land in your actual systems. |
| Day 6: QA | Cross browser, real device, accessibility and performance checks against the agreed budget. Findings fixed, not logged. |
| Day 7: Launch | Deployed to your domain, DNS and redirects handled, tracking confirmed firing in production and the editing walkthrough recorded. |
Design and build together take 14 days. Build only, from a design you already own, takes 7. The compression comes from removing handoffs rather than from cutting steps: one developer owns the page from kickoff to launch.
What we build landing pages for
- Paid search and paid social campaigns where message match with the ad determines both conversion rate and Quality Score
- Demo and trial signup pages, the highest intent page in most SaaS funnels and the one most often left as a default template
- Gated content: reports, ebooks, webinars, calculators and assessment tools
- Product and feature launches that need a focused page rather than another homepage section
- Event and webinar registration with calendar integration and automated reminders
- Rebuilds of a page that already receives traffic but converts below what the traffic justifies
If you need the design too
Most clients arrive without an approved design. In that case the build follows our landing page design services, which include conversion research, wireframing, copy and the Figma file. If you already have a design and a page that underperforms, the faster route is usually to measure before rebuilding, which is what our A/B testing programme is for.
Designing for a specific US market? See landing page design in New York City, Austin, Seattle or Tampa, then return here when you are ready to build.
