How patio11 redesigned my landing page in front of a live studio audience(planningforaliens.com)
planningforaliens.com
How patio11 redesigned my landing page in front of a live studio audience
http://www.planningforaliens.com/blog/2013/06/02/evolution-of-landing-page/
11 comments
It's so weird for me to hear from people who were at BaconBizConf and thought the teardowns were "brutal" or "punishing."
None of us panelists ever said "This is terrible" or anything of that sort, or insulted anyone/anything, or discouraged any of the volunteers, etc. We said "This doesn't work" "That won't work" "That's weak" etc.… and then gave lots of supportive suggestions to make it better. The worst possible thing anyone said is when Patrick said [paraphrasing] "Please don't take this personally, but if your target market is designers, you need to have more of a… design."
Genuinely asking "Why would I be interested in this?" is not only not brutal, it's not even a criticism.
I guess more people need to experience actual brutal criticism in order to see how our teardown was anything but!
None of us panelists ever said "This is terrible" or anything of that sort, or insulted anyone/anything, or discouraged any of the volunteers, etc. We said "This doesn't work" "That won't work" "That's weak" etc.… and then gave lots of supportive suggestions to make it better. The worst possible thing anyone said is when Patrick said [paraphrasing] "Please don't take this personally, but if your target market is designers, you need to have more of a… design."
Genuinely asking "Why would I be interested in this?" is not only not brutal, it's not even a criticism.
I guess more people need to experience actual brutal criticism in order to see how our teardown was anything but!
I guess I did make this overblown using those terms. And yes, when is Patrick ever 'punishing'? Heh.
Then again, there's something to be said for being willing to be scrutinized by your heroes. Therein lies my admiration for Sean.
Then again, there's something to be said for being willing to be scrutinized by your heroes. Therein lies my admiration for Sean.
This is true.
I have a huge amount of respect for people who:
A. Ask for feedback. B. Publicly! C. Act on the feedback.
That's why Sean is awesome :) He did a GREAT job incorporating our feedback into something that's 10x better than before.
I have a huge amount of respect for people who:
A. Ask for feedback. B. Publicly! C. Act on the feedback.
That's why Sean is awesome :) He did a GREAT job incorporating our feedback into something that's 10x better than before.
Thanks Barry. It was nice to meet you there. It was such a great conference, I learned so much and met so many great, like-minded folks.
This is seriously good stuff. Great write-up and sounds like it was a good conf.
The new is definitely an improvement, but both load fairly slowly - I would try improve this next, or at least allow staged loading so visitors have something to start looking at quickly while the rest loads.
This is surprising. It's just HTML on S3 with cloudflare in front. Maybe Typekit is slowing it down...
Probably a dumb question, what is the benefit from using Cloudflare? If I naively set up a page like this I would have just done S3 directly, right?
cloudfare will cache your content in much much more locations across the globe unlike plain s3. (cloudfront from amazon does the same thing)
It may just be my own setup but to me it seemed slower to load than many other sites I visit.
Loads fine for me even on mobile, but then I get http://i.imgur.com/JpxvAOz.jpg when I try to sign up (iOS, Safari).
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For what it's worth it loads quickly for me (1/3 second). East coast US.
Great work, thanks for sharing. I'd love to have Amy and Patrick critique my site - I reckon I'll head to BaconBizConf when it's next on.
Do you have any stats from your analytics you could share? It would be great to see the business side effect.
Would be interesting to see the current version tested against one without all the "Photoshop bashing" too. I'm not sure if that was a suggestion from the talk or another idea you wanted to try, but I feel it would be far more effective if you condensed the many long bullet points down to "Sick of static Photoshop mockups that don't respond like real websites? Feel like you're doing everything twice?"
(Maybe the bullet points belong in a blog or FAQ section with the title: "why not just use Photoshop?")
TBH I actually like your first landing page copy (other than it missing an above-the-fold "what's in this book" statement) and the second one also feels like a work in progress, so it'd be interesting to see how they both perform.
TBH I actually like your first landing page copy (other than it missing an above-the-fold "what's in this book" statement) and the second one also feels like a work in progress, so it'd be interesting to see how they both perform.
Not yet. I have some posts in the works for web designers so I'll see how they convert compared to the old page. I'm ignoring all stats while this article is on HN. This isn't exactly the target audience for my book.
Thank you for sharing this. I've been working and listening hard and anything that clears up conversion tactics (especially when just handed to me) is gold.
Cheers.
Cheers.
I haven't read the article yet, but clicking on the before/after links got me to say: "Aha, it's a book!" in the first second after opening the 2nd link.
So even if it's only this (which I'm sure it's not), huge improvement in the clarity of the message.
Do you have data on the conversion rates before/after redesigning the landing page?
So even if it's only this (which I'm sure it's not), huge improvement in the clarity of the message.
Do you have data on the conversion rates before/after redesigning the landing page?
I only have before data right now, and not a lot. I'll be sure to post data for the new landing page, just as soon as I get some.
All looks very sensible, but I'd be interested to see a split-test. You never know what will or won't convert...
The funny thing is I agree, but I don't think I'll do it. The old version is just so bad I feel like I'd be throwing away money. I'm not internet famous so traffic is hard for me to come by. Can I justify a split test?
So the question becomes do I trust the experts? I do. Therefore this landing page is my new baseline -- I'll split test from here.
So the question becomes do I trust the experts? I do. Therefore this landing page is my new baseline -- I'll split test from here.
Given that it's a lead gen page, you could get some solid split-test data off $100 or so of spend on the advertising platform of your choice. However, I don't know if that's something you could afford. If it is, I'd definitely recommend it, but I can certainly see why you'd be inclined to trust the experts.
FWIW, looking over the "after" page myself, I'd agree that it's a much more solid longish-form sales page. You'll probably be fine using that as your baseline!
FWIW, looking over the "after" page myself, I'd agree that it's a much more solid longish-form sales page. You'll probably be fine using that as your baseline!
Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction: http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction This should be required reading for every developer.
While the redesign looks better, I'm somewhat turned off because it follows the same design strategies as used by low-quality info products:
* Cheesy book shot. At least it's not a fake "book generator" box. If this will be delivered as a PDF, why not use the Acrobat logo below a thumbnail preview of the actual cover/first page? To me, seeing real content lends credibility.
* Thin column of text with bullet points.
* Periodic bolded keywords.
* The only things it's missing are a "P.S." section and a breakdown of the cost savings over the alternatives.
I have no doubt that the reason these things are standard is that they work. However, for me the site has the same look and feel I've seen in many low-quality info product kind of sites. As a result, I'm immediately more skeptical than I otherwise would be.
While the redesign looks better, I'm somewhat turned off because it follows the same design strategies as used by low-quality info products:
* Cheesy book shot. At least it's not a fake "book generator" box. If this will be delivered as a PDF, why not use the Acrobat logo below a thumbnail preview of the actual cover/first page? To me, seeing real content lends credibility.
* Thin column of text with bullet points.
* Periodic bolded keywords.
* The only things it's missing are a "P.S." section and a breakdown of the cost savings over the alternatives.
I have no doubt that the reason these things are standard is that they work. However, for me the site has the same look and feel I've seen in many low-quality info product kind of sites. As a result, I'm immediately more skeptical than I otherwise would be.
well, then I guess you won't be a customer. Guess what.. this doesn't matter, the loss is probably all yours (if the actual content is something you can benefit from).
Don't forget, this book is being written to get profit and recognition (I think ;) and loosing a couple of "this looks too cheap for me" dudes is an OK price to pay to significantly increase the readership. And I'm pretty sure patio11 and brennan know quite a bit about this.
So, so long as "it works" I think he's going in the right direction.
Don't forget, this book is being written to get profit and recognition (I think ;) and loosing a couple of "this looks too cheap for me" dudes is an OK price to pay to significantly increase the readership. And I'm pretty sure patio11 and brennan know quite a bit about this.
So, so long as "it works" I think he's going in the right direction.
> well, then I guess you won't be a customer. Guess what.. this
> doesn't matter, the loss is probably all yours
> ... is an OK price to pay to significantly increase the readership
> And I'm pretty sure patio11 and brennan know quite a bit about this.
Well, My book will not be low-quality. And it will be evident after I've written some high-quality sample content and guest blog posts. So the landing page is just the final step in the funnel.
That said I don't mean for it to look low-quality. That could just be a side-effect of my lack of design skills. :-)
That said I don't mean for it to look low-quality. That could just be a side-effect of my lack of design skills. :-)
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Pat Pohler had a teardown too. He should share his lessons learned as well... {Pat Signal}