Landing Page Makeover Clinic #21: The-100-Best.com

Landing Page Makeover Clinic #21: The-100-Best.com

Reader Comments (39)

  1. Three suggestions:

    1. Use WordPress
    2. Buy Thesis Theme
    3. Take a sword to that 37-word title:

    Will the upcoming blockbuster book 100 Best Business Ideas To Make You Rich include YOUR idea?

  2. Love this post! I can’t tell you how much I have picked up from this. I will be launching a new book early 2010, and will take this information to heart. Thanks!

  3. Catching up with copyblogger after a long time. This is one series I really appreciate on copyblogger. Nice mix of non-trivial theory and interesting case studies.

    I started making a trail of all your landing page series posts. Other readers may enjoy following it to get the whole experience…

    Copyblogger Landing Pages Trail:
    http://bit.ly/6B7kxz (Trail Map: http://bit.ly/8Jlg0K)

    Venkat

    p.s. Full disclosure, I am the product manager of trailmeme.com, where I created this trails. Actually I started making this trail because I was reviewing the material in preparation for redesigning our own (frankly awful) landing page…

  4. Sonia, the short form landing page will convert better for two reasons.

    Due to over use by affiliate marketers the long form screams scam, not the message you want to send with your layout.

    The long form buries your conversion action. Unless your sell was written by Stephenie Meyer’s for a teenage demo the majority of readers won’t stick around long enough to even see it.

    You should always be testing and tweaking your offer. If you are running long copy build a version that is short, run different headline, test your calls to action, test test test.

  5. @Jake – When you’re looking to sell a $998 anything, you need to make a strong case. The long-form sales letter when done well – and this one wasn’t – can do an excellent job. I’ve seen plenty of short-form affiliate landing pages that also scream ‘scam’ because of copy and design. The key, as you’ve rightly pointed out, is to 1/never stop testing your assumptions, and 2/create tests built on actual results. Thanks for your sharing your expertise!

  6. @Venkat – what an interesting way of collating and sharing posts! Thank you for making one of the series. (If you’d like a personal assist on your landing pages, I’m just an email away.)

  7. Nathan, me too, I’ve always loved them, and I’m super glad Roberta continues to share them with us.

  8. Sonia:

    I plan to be much more regular next year, as I take on more of a marketing role at work. Right now, I read every copyblogger post EXCEPT list posts (“10 tips…”) and the “What X can teach you about…” format. You guys have been doing a lot of those lately :-(.

    Wish you guys would do more single-high-concept posts, with some drill down. But maybe those posts aren’t as popular overall.

    BTW, there is a Trailmeme plugin for wordpress, which would allow you to host trails natively on your site (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordtrails/) but if you are interested in that, I recommend you wait a few days… just about to release a new version.

    Roberta: will make a note to look you up if the design guys on my team aren’t able to pull it off unassisted.

    Venkat

  9. Pretty excellent article.Landing pages either make are break you. By focusing a lot on your landing page you can increase your conversion precentage a lot.

  10. @Shane … since I never went undercover with an online male persona, it’s hard to say. Though I’m kinda liking Roberta Bikerbabe – but that would be for a different kind of blog. 😉

  11. Hey Roberta, just wanted to let you know that I’ll still love you even if you come out of the closet as Bob. Hopefully not but you never know round here….

    Brilliant crit as usual but I want to contribute 2 small points anyway.

    1. I agree with all you say except for the possible use of italics. I hate seeing these used on the web – they look tack and scream amateur so I say avoid at all costs.
    2. I’ve never seen a good long landing page. I hate scrolling down and would prefer to get my info in smaller bites. Would be interested to see a good long one!

    I’m lying low over Xmas with 3 kids on holiday until February. I’ll be spending more time surfing in the ocean with them that surfing the Net so if I don’t get a chance again just want to say happy hols to all the Copyblogger team and see you next year:)

  12. In the 4th grade Halloween Best Costume competition, a kid name, Joe, and I tied for first place. We both cross-dressed. I was a hobo. He was a French maid. That’s the closest I ever got to ‘Bob.”

    To your other points, I think you can do just about anything as a light accent. But a sea of italics is bloody awful, no doubt about it. AWAI does a pretty good job of the long-form letter format. Clean layout and just enough going on to keep you scrolling through. Still everything should be tested.

    And a very happy holiday to you, too!

  13. Laughing at Halloween. This year I went as a woman but sadly probably looked like a transvestite….

    Is that the American writer’s website? Looking now, thanks. When I worked in an East End London pub they had regular fancy dress nights and I always went as a man complete with penciled on mustache to avoid being leered at. It works:)

  14. Yes, see awaionline.com … they are an aggressive marketing company but are aligned with some copywriter superstars. (Transparency alert – I teach online copywriting classes for them.) There’s a lot you can learn from their programs as well as the constant stream of promotion you’ll receive.

  15. Hehe, I was wondering if you wrote the copy for it. I think it’s quite okay to recommend something you’ve done though:) Looks like an interesting organisation. Right I really am off now! Thanks RR.

  16. I agree with @roberta the price tag demands further study of the offer and this means, more hard-hitting copy-unless-and this is a BIG unless- you were to put
    a sandwhich page up front to get the email address–

    Discover How YOUR Big Ideas Could Generate Gobs
    Of Credibility For You In Your Market-Details Inside

    And then, reveal this info in the sales letter
    and in follow-up emails.

    Thoughts. Don’t be deceitful with this though-make sure you answer what you’ve promised in the landing page.

  17. Jake, I hope you don’t give your clients “one size fits all” advice like that. Dangerous, especially among those of us who *do* test various copy lengths, based on context, not conjecture.

    Tell me, how do your short-copy pages convert better with higher-priced products that require you to overcome multiple anticipated objections? Or do you not know, because that’s not what you do?

    The only thing that screams “scam” is me-too marketers who mimic copy and design approaches from incongruent markets. In other words, most online marketing wannabes.

  18. Great articles as always. Personally I think the page currently looks very much like a scam with claims that appear too bold and cheap graphics.

    Jake’s point about long copy versus short copy is interesting as I’ve just started a split test to compare a very short copy against long one. This is not a direct landing page though but rather further down the sales process on a “price” link.

    My current assumption is that by the time people want to look at my prices they’re already quite interested, so having a long sales page overcoming objections is not necessary. Therefore I’m testing it against a much shorter page that has a split page with a much more direct message and the action form on the right-hand-side so it’s on the first fold as recommended here. I’m also trying to take in account the viewers frame of mind when they click on “prices”.

  19. We’ve said it before but it bears repeating; remember that you may not be your customer. In particular, we tend to assume that the reader has already absorbed our sales message from warm-up material, when in fact they may have many questions that remain unanswered.

    Dave Navarro has some very good examples of sales pages that capture attention and answer buyer questions fully without looking hypey or sleazy.

  20. Gabe – thank you!
    Sonia – ‘You are not necessarily your customer’ has to be one of the most difficult concepts for clients/business folks to grasp. If you’re not the market for your products/services, make sure you find folks who are and learn from them.

  21. Great point about only linking to the call to action link.
    Landing pages are all too often put together with little thought. Will be interested to see how they do after they implement your suggestions.

  22. Thanks for sharing. Really great ideas. I am going to work on landing page for an International Event. This ideas and tips will help me to make it effective in terms of Interactivity.

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