31–40 of 51 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my mind, a "landing page" is an advertisement. A "home page" is a useful (to readers) page that is the place from which you access the rest of the site.
But how do you "land" on a landing page, if it isn’t the main entry point ("home page") of the site? Edit: Or are landing pages just a specific kind of home page, with particular objectives?
I have no tips, no hacks, no shortcuts. Honestly this is such a big topic, that I am tempted to just share v1 of a guide to landing pages I made. However before I do... So, one thing that would make a real difference to a landing page. An appreciation of the foundational blocks of a landing page, which are: 1. The contextual factors: business, market, your solution, target audience, positioning, tactic, financial. 2.…
I agree that landing pages should be content packed and that some serious thinking should go into them, but this rubric risks overwhelming both the landing page creator and visitor. Often you don't know who the visitor is, for instance, and even if you did, having an answer to "what do you know about me?" might just creep people out. That's one case where "show not tell" is the answer.
At the bottom of that guide is a link, alongside the following copy: When less is more: Empirical study of the relation between consumer behavior and information provision on commercial landing pages. In a nutshell, less information increased conversion rate. Lack of context, but still interesting:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324965555_When_less...
Landing pages are not meant to be done and dusted, they are meant to evolve. Landing pages are not meant for all, so visitors do need to be based on a persona. A persona has to be based on facts, therefore you should know the visitors to a certain degree.
"What do you know about me?"; if too many people are creeped out, then the landing page needs working on. If there is an acceptable conversion rate, and a small percentage are creeped out, then that may or may not be acceptable. You can't win them all, so you win the ones you can and see what can or should be done to attain more.
What is important is that there needs to be understanding and appreciation of the internal dialogue, and you show and/or to tell to whatever degree.
If the landing page creator is overwhelmed, so be it. If the visitor is overwhelmed, then either the visitor was the wrong persona or the landing page needs working on. The guide is not meant for all, it is meant for a specific persona.
Edit: To clarify my last line: If the specific persona is overwhelmed, then yes it will need working on, but based on showing it to them. Some have said it is heavy, and it took a bit of time to get their head round it. That's acceptable. However, there is a v2 that covers a lot more, but it will have to wait.
Cheers, Ace.
When and why did "home page" become "landing page"? (At least I think that the latter refers to what was meant by the former.)
usatoday.com is the home page, usatoday.com/subscribe is a landing page.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does a landing page work if it doesn’t offer a next step? Maybe we’re not aligned on what a “call-to-action” is, but sort of tautologically a landing page should direct me to how I can try out / buy / learn more / etc. If it doesn’t do that, what’s the premise? I see a thing that looks interesting and then it’s my job to go on a hunt to figure out how to get it?
It's not an automatic back-button press for me (I mean, hell, most sites do that these days), but I do find pages that yell at me to BUY IT! first thing to be really gross. Like having a salesman run up to me on the street, pen and contract in hand, yelling BUY BUY BUY! Like, WTF. I don't know you, and I don't even know what you're selling yet, but you're shoving a contract in my face already? "Crass" is too mild a t…
The problem is not having or not having calls to action, it's to figure out which call to action is relevant at what step of the funnel.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does a landing page work if it doesn’t offer a next step? Maybe we’re not aligned on what a “call-to-action” is, but sort of tautologically a landing page should direct me to how I can try out / buy / learn more / etc. If it doesn’t do that, what’s the premise? I see a thing that looks interesting and then it’s my job to go on a hunt to figure out how to get it?
There's nothing wrong with a contact link. Collecting email addresses for the sake of collecting email addresses is a mug's game. (It's the royal road to having your emails end up in a spam folder.) Collecting email addresses of people who are deeply interested in your service or product is golden. Doing the first is the enemy of the last.
Of course you'd rather have good than bad lead qualification/generation. But you still need calls to action to collect those leads somewhere, which was the parent's point.
It tends to be easier to give advice based on concrete elements than abstractly. Other than that, I compiled a list of tips a while back that should help you get a better intuition of what you need beyond the mechanics (sure, you need a headline, but what makes it good?): http://yourlandingpagesucks.com/startup-landing-page-teardow... If I tried to boil it down to the basics, it's mostly about trying to put yourself…
It tends to be easier to give advice based on concrete elements than abstractly. Other than that, I compiled a list of tips a while back that should help you get a better intuition of what you need beyond the mechanics (sure, you need a headline, but what makes it good?): http://yourlandingpagesucks.com/startup-landing-page-teardow... If I tried to boil it down to the basics, it's mostly about trying to put yourself…
the part on headlines is brilliant! thank you. The cookbook looks interesting. How many pages is it?
If I am to put an email into a landing page it has to convince me that it is very definitely more than "an opportunity to collect an email address". Just look at kickstarter campaigns. There's the actual idea, which I'm interested in, or not. And then there's backup of how good the idea actually is, benefits I may not have thought of, and then a ream of validation; the team, how much work they've spent developing the…
I have no tips, no hacks, no shortcuts. Honestly this is such a big topic, that I am tempted to just share v1 of a guide to landing pages I made. However before I do... So, one thing that would make a real difference to a landing page. An appreciation of the foundational blocks of a landing page, which are: 1. The contextual factors: business, market, your solution, target audience, positioning, tactic, financial. 2.…
There’s a huge amount of psychology in landing page design to show credibility, proof points, address common rejections, etc. I found this udemy course helpful but I’m sure there’s other resources out there. https://www.udemy.com/share/101vOq3@44_8ioaD2oSBpElrM5_5UfPj...