
Step-By-Step Landing Page Copywriting - petercooper
http://nathanbarry.com/step-by-step-landing-page-copywriting/
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orangethirty
This is not copywriting, this is landing page design (from the POV of a
designer, and not marketer). I'm also wary of this data, because he does not
include testing. The way you design a landing page is very different from this
one when you incorporate testing from the start.

Edit:

If you want to see a really good landing page, go and visit posthaven's page
(<http://posthaven.com> I think). Its just perfect. You actually feel the need
to pay this people money.

~~~
vitalique
You must be joking. It may convert like hell, I don't know, but - oh my, is
this page... ugly. All the mixed fonts and barely readable colors. They aren't
even consistent in using underlines and colors for links. Total mess if you
ask me. Wouldn't even consider becoming a customer looking at this LP only.

~~~
orangethirty
Who cares if its ugly? Does money in the bank become any less valuable if it
came from an ugly landing page?

~~~
ahoyhere
Not at all. But you don't establish that A) the landing page in the post
doesn't create money, NOR B) that the landing page that "makes you feel" does.

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danso
I appreciate the depth and detail of this, thank you for posting it. However,
I think it would be more effective if broken up into steps by _section/facet_
of the landing page, rather than a giant description of "Round Two".

Of course, when it comes to editorial content, the sections/facets/headlines
aren't entirely orthogonal...changing the content of one headline means you
might rearrange a lot of other content. However, I think this makes it even
more useful to break things down by iteration of each facet: e.g. Hero-
headline v1.0, Hero-headline v2.0, etc., and show (briefly) how that impacts
the other decisions you make down the page.

Of course, this is a lot more work, both in writing and in production, to put
out.

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dowskitest
"Your funnel has a hole in it."

Hopefully it has two ... a big one at the top and a small one at the bottom.

The funnel metaphor has always thrown me off. IRL I don't pour stuff into a
funnel and expect less than 100% of what I've poured in to come out the other
side.

Why has funnel become a synonym for filter?

~~~
1123581321
It's more that without the wide mouth at the top, the narrow pipe at the
bottom would miss a lot of fluid. But yes, it's really more a sieve.

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growt
I don't get the ConvertKit pricing: Preordering 3 months for $93 a month for
$281. 3 times 93 is 279. The other prices are also off by one or two. Maybe I
have OCD, but somehow that really confused me.

~~~
nathanbarry
Oops. I rounded off the change... 25% off of $125 is $93.75 (I wrote $93).
$93.75 * 3 months = $281.25. But you're right, that is confusing.

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Charlesmigli
Very useful post. I put the tl;dr version the author wrote on tldr.io
[http://tldr.io/tldrs/51238dc4b3a7a6ca1000002f/step-by-
step-l...](http://tldr.io/tldrs/51238dc4b3a7a6ca1000002f/step-by-step-landing-
page-copywriting)

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calinet6
Let me be blunt: this is a confused mess.

~~~
bpatrianakos
Care to elaborate? I think that's more of a judgement call than any sort of
fact. I have to assume what you're talking about (which makes me wonder why
this is the top comment) is the screenshots within the post. That could go
either way. For a second I was engrossed by them and almost thought I was
looking at the actual page but it's not so bad that it warrants being called a
confused mess. The images were necessary to get the point across and things
were separated enough so you knew what you were looking at. Nathan has a
unique design style that both his blog and the ConvertKit landing page share
elements of which is why I can see people getting a little confused but in the
end, it's just a blog post, dude. And it's well designed on top of that. Not
everything on the internet is perfectly suited to your tastes, lay off.

~~~
mnicole
> things were separated enough so you knew what you were looking at

Until I noticed the low-res quality of the screenshot I didn't know what it
was. Lossy images in 2013; great first impression.

> Nathan has a unique design style

I'll keep my opinions on that to myself, but when someone writes two books on
design and hawks them on HN, people tend to be more critical of your work. I
think it says something about someone's expertise when at least two of the HN
posts on his products had people confused about design choices and what they
were supposed to do on the page.

> And it's well designed on top of that. Not everything on the internet is
> perfectly suited to your tastes, lay off.

Design isn't someone's aesthetic or someone else's taste, it's the ability to
communicate. This page is confusing a lot of people, so by definition, it is
not well-designed.

HN also advocates raising one's prices to imply value, and I think that's why
this and other posts have had people questioning the price points for the
content. Additionally, I don't think "Good question. Not sure." is good copy
for when I can expect a product I've paid for.

~~~
ahoyhere
> Design isn't someone's aesthetic or someone else's taste, it's the ability
> to communicate. This page is confusing a lot of people, so by definition, it
> is not well-designed.

I don't really have a dog in this race but I am a designer and I am a writer,
and hey, deconstructing sentences is fun.

Starting at the top:

> Design isn't someone's aesthetic or someone else's taste, it's the ability
> to communicate.

This is not an accepted definition. In fact, it's a huge bone of contention.
Exhibit A: the yearly surge of near-infinite "What Is Design!?" "Design Is…"
articles.

But let's pretend it _is_ a canonical definition and then talk about _what
that would mean_ :

> it's the ability to communicate.

How do people communicate? They can only communicate if they hold things in
common. Example: a language. What else? Belief systems. Culture. Background.

Are aesthetics personal? Can different people hold different aesthetics? Can a
mismatch between their aesthetics, like a mismatch in language or belief,
cause a communication rift?

Yes, yes it can. Ergo…

> Design isn't someone's aesthetic or someone else's taste,

… is wrong.

If you don't think it's not, you've never tried to design something modern and
sleek for lawyers… or tried to persuade somebody who loves floral wallpaper to
side with Adolf Loos.

"Things that look better, work better," research has shown… but did they test
it on people outside the culture that created the object tested? What is
"better," exactly?

This is why knowing your audience's taste (beliefs about aesthetic) is
critical to communicating effectively and, ergo, why aesthetics are a huge
part of design.

> This page is confusing a lot of people, so by definition, it is not well-
> designed.

Let's take the two assumptions here:

1\. This page confuses a lot of people 2\. That means it's not well-designed

Even if you accept 1 as true, that does not lead to 2 as neatly as you suppose
it does. What if it confuses people who are not his audience in the first
place? What if it confuses people who aren't really interested in conversion
rates, but simply interested because Nathan Barry is becoming an HN darling?
Casual surfers, you might call them.

If casual surfers are the only ones confused, then does that mean the page is
not well-designed?

What if what you consider "awkwardness" in the design actually _attracts_
other people who _are_ in the author's target audience, while _repelling_
people who are the internet equivalent of windowshoppers?

Is that not the definition of well-designed?

Finally, I think what you meant to say is "This page confuses a handful of
people who are commenting on HN" which is not the same as "a lot of people."

~~~
MJR
_I don't really have a dog in this race_ This isn't very honest considering
that you are the one giving Nathan the advice in the article. And he is
creating ConvertKit while part of your 30x500 launch class, Correct?

From the article: "As you’ll see, I had a huge amount of help from Amy Hoy.
Throughout the process she gave great advice on copywriting that I’d like to
share here."

~~~
ky3
Amy: I don't really have a dog in this race.

MJR: This isn't very honest considering that you are the one giving Nathan the
advice in the article. And he is creating ConvertKit while part of your 30x500
launch class, Correct?

Nathan is /not/ and has never taken 30x500. (I'm alumnus from way way back,
and alumni get to attend all succeeding classes, so you have to take my word
for it.)

So in that sense, Amy doesn't have a dog in the race, which she would were she
partnering with Nathan on the product. She may have a tiny mouse, however. ;)

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davidcristello
so this is somewhere between aweber and hubspot? Whats the unique selling prop
about this project? I agree- I scan this thing and it confuses the hell out of
me

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davidcristello
The discount pricing isnt clear enough

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twodayslate
It was interesting to see his process and see what changed/stayed the same
from beginning to end

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throwawayG9
What is discipline called? Online marketing? I'm interested. This article was
excellent.

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thoughtcriminal
You have got to be kidding me. Excuse my French but this is an epic ripoff. A
quick Google search and a free Evernote account and in a half hour you can get
a monster swipe file filled with choice copywriting tutorials and examples.

There is real gold out there for free, and if you absolutely must spend your
money frivolously, there are copywriting books on the Kindle for under $5 that
will give you everything you need and more.

~~~
bpatrianakos
Let's be clear here - this is a rip off _for you_. I understand where you're
coming from as someone who has seen people try to sell info-products on things
I'm an expert in and know I could get for free however it's easy to forget the
kind of mindset someone who would buy this has. In fact, I'd say many of us
used to be the ideal customer for this type of product but as we've grown
these formerly complex ideas are now almost just common sense to us.

This just isn't for you but I can see it having tremendous value. I work as a
sole developer in a marketing department where I need to be an expert in web
development _and_ marketing. I have a lot of experience with landing pages (I
usually create like 3 a day at least) but I'm still interested in the product
and here's why:

The valuable thing about this is that it's a product that's been thoughtfully
organized and crafted by someone with a good reputation that I trust and who
has proven to most of us I think that he's definitely credible on the subject.
I could find the free stuff if I wanted to but having it all organized,
curated, and formatted for me plus the actual product he'll be launching saves
me tons of time and effort. I could spend the equivalent of $300 worth of my
time to get the information myself or I can send Nathan my $300, save that
time, and become an even more effective marketer faster, which then gives me
time to not only make back what I spent but turn a profit too.

Edit: Grammar.

~~~
thoughtcriminal
Yes, there will be those at a particular time of need that would buy a single
apple for 100 dollars because of extreme scarcity.

In this case however, there is already an abundance of _superior_ quality ripe
fruit in the orchard waiting to be plucked. And it's free.

~~~
chc
I find your reaction odd. Like, I'm sure Nathan would be willing to refund the
money you didn't actually spend to read this article that you found to be such
a ripoff that it's equivalent to a $100 apple.

~~~
nathanbarry
Of course! All my blog posts come with a full money back guarantee for all the
money you didn't spend...

