
How patio11 redesigned my landing page in front of a live studio audience - SMrF
http://www.planningforaliens.com/blog/2013/06/02/evolution-of-landing-page/
======
thetrumanshow
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}

~~~
ahoyhere
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!

~~~
thetrumanshow
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.

~~~
ahoyhere
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.

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

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SeanDav
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.

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

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tocomment
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?

~~~
general_failure
cloudfare will cache your content in much much more locations across the globe
unlike plain s3. (cloudfront from amazon does the same thing)

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

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

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simonswords82
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.

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

~~~
notahacker
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.

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

~~~
SMrF
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.

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oneye
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.

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cocoflunchy
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?

~~~
SMrF
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.

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

~~~
SMrF
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.

~~~
thenomad
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!

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biot
Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction:
[http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction](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
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.

~~~
biot

      > 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.

