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/

by SMrF • 13 years ago

80 31 13 years ago

planningforaliens.com

zrail• 13 years ago

This is very useful information for my own project, thanks. BaconBizConf sounds like a really fun conference too.

SMrF8• 13 years ago

Awesome. I'm glad it helped. BaconBizConf was awesome, I highly recommend it for bootstrappers.

SeanDav2• 13 years ago

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.

SMrF8• 13 years ago

This is surprising. It's just HTML on S3 with cloudflare in front. Maybe Typekit is slowing it down...

SeanDav2• 13 years ago

It may just be my own setup but to me it seemed slower to load than many other sites I visit.

tocomment2• 13 years ago

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?

beznogim• 13 years ago

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).

citizens• 13 years ago

For what it's worth it loads quickly for me (1/3 second). East coast US.

tocomment2• 13 years ago

Looks good but I wasn't sure what was being "launched". Is it software or the book?

SMrF8• 13 years ago

Just a book. Software soon. I wanted to start with something small that I could do relatively quickly, so I'm writing a book. Then I will convert readers of my book into customers for my software.

napoleoncomplex• 13 years ago

Do you have any stats from your analytics you could share? It would be great to see the business side effect.

SMrF8• 13 years ago

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.

notahacker• 13 years ago

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.

thetrumanshow2• 13 years ago

Sean Fioritto was the first person I met at BaconBizConf while waiting outside the doors on morning #1. Confident, smart, and altogether friendly guy. I was impressed the level of demonstrated grit he showed when he volunteered his site for a teardown. He was over there just scratching notes away while they punished him. We could all use that kind of grit. More of us would launch great products if we did.

Pat Pohler had a teardown too. He should share his lessons learned as well... {Pat Signal}

SMrF8• 13 years ago

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.

ahoyhere2• 13 years ago

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!

thetrumanshow2• 13 years ago

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.

mbesto• 13 years ago

This is seriously good stuff. Great write-up and sounds like it was a good conf.

simonswords82• 13 years ago

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.

thenomad2• 13 years ago

All looks very sensible, but I'd be interested to see a split-test. You never know what will or won't convert...

SMrF8• 13 years ago

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.

thenomad2• 13 years ago

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!

oneye• 13 years ago

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.

cocoflunchy• 13 years ago

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?

SMrF8• 13 years ago

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.

biot2• 13 years ago

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.

Vitaly• 13 years ago

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.

biot2• 13 years ago

  > well, then I guess you won't be a customer. Guess what.. this
  > doesn't matter, the loss is probably all yours

Was this meant to be snarky, or am I misreading it? I completely agree, and it seems like you're arguing against a position I never took.

  > ... is an OK price to pay to significantly increase the readership

As you no doubt noticed, I said these design decisions were likely made because they work. You are agreeing with my statement.

  > And I'm pretty sure patio11 and brennan know quite a bit about this.

Did I claim otherwise? I shared the reasons why I had somewhat of a negative initial impression of the site. My impressions have nothing to do with the experience or credentials of those who were involved with the redesign.

SMrF8• 13 years ago

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. :-)

How patio11 redesigned my landing page in front of a live studio audience

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