

Can your landing page do this? (Convert) - qrlawified
http://unbounce.com/landing-page-examples/built-using-unbounce/beautiful-landing-page-design-examples/

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davejafari
Building a solid landing page seems so easy until you have tried one and
failed to sell. The formula really isn't too difficult, but it does work if
you get yourself out of the way: 1) outline a clear value proposition, 2)
provide a call to action (+ a cost if there aren't multiple pricings), and 3)
build trust. #1 and #2 should always be above the fold and the most visually
prominent. Anything else on the page that doesn't build trust should be
ruthlessly cut if you want to focus on pure conversion.

It's easy to forget that YAGNI also applies to landing pages. Don't waste your
time giving secondary information. They can get to it later. If they don't
convert, they ain't gonna need it.

~~~
daeken
I thought landing pages were super easy, until I messed up. When I put up the
initial landing page for my latest startup ( <http://questcompanions.com/> \--
finally launching next week!), the 'Enlist' button said 'Start' instead. Due
to the non-traditional input box and the text on the button, people would just
click 'Start'. Due to a lack of error handling in the frontend code, the empty
email would go up to my server, go out to Mailchimp, and they'd hand back an
error. All the user would see is "Invalid or duplicate email", then they'd
move away.

When I integrated Mixpanel, I saw why immediately and was able to fix it, but
by that point I'd already wasted an easy $10-20 on Facebook ad clicks leading
to the page. Tiny sum of money, but those were good clicks. Implementing error
handling, better button text, and slightly different text on the input box
caused the conversion rate to go way up, and the rate of people clicking the
button without filling in an email dropped to nearly zero.

Long story short, measure everything and be very, very smart about your
messaging.

~~~
steve8918
I built my first web site/blog a couple of weeks ago, and I've been
experimenting with advertising on Google, Bing, Facebook, etc, and I have to
say it's been a really interesting experience.

Basically the most important thing I've learned is that I have to understand
why my users are coming to my site, and from there tailor my site around that.

I have a very high bounce rate of around 75%, but most of that is due to
smartphone users and the fact my site is pretty hard to use for them. Creating
a simplified page is my #1 goal over the next couple of weeks.

Looking at logs, I also realized that my landing page was hard to use for a
significant percentage of my new visitors. I could see from the logs that they
were getting confused, trying it out a couple of times and bouncing. I was
working on this last week, and tried a couple of GUI changes, but decided that
having unintrusive error boxes would probably help better. Hopefully that will
help those users having trouble.

But from the ones that stick around, I do have a few pretty regular users, and
that leads to what I think is a kind of nice ad clickthru rate. I've paid a
good chunk of all my costs in the first two weeks (of course, my costs are
only around ~$30).

Thanks for the pointer to Mixpanel. I was looking for a better type of
analytics than Google Analytics which doesn't offer me a great deal of
information. The only hesitation I have is whether or not having all this
javascript client-side tracking will cause users to question their privacy. I
guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

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acoyfellow
Unbounce looks great- I've been sitting on the fence about these types of
service for a while now.

What is HN's opinion on using a free version of a Unbounce (or other service)?
(Coming from a student creating a start-up, no savings what so ever right now)

Does it distract from the purpose of the landing page heavily? Does it add
credibility? My quick and unprofessional opinion is that I would rather have
the paid version, but since I have to really value what little money I have,
I'm unsure if paying for a landing page service is wise or not.

~~~
paraschopra
Actually it depends on for what purpose you intend to create that landing
page. If it is for a B2B service, obviously it looks unprofessional. But for
most of the other services, a short blurb in footer isn't too distracting.

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nickler
I'm a huge believer in unbounce, for one simple reason. Once development
barriers diminish all of this process will return once again to the control of
marketers.

I think they see this and are pushing this as a tool for the masses of people
who can't code, but love to sell, and want to do it better.

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nextstep
Has anyone used Manpacks? I'd never heard of it until now, but I'm considering
signing up.

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trjordan
I've used it. It's awesome.

I mean, there's not a whole lot more to it than what you see. You sign in,
pick some clothes, and they ship it to you on a schedule. Saves me a trip to
Costco every 6 months (or from feeling guilty about not going on that trip
that often).

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dazbradbury
Great article, thanks! As we're discussing landing page effectiveness and I've
just put together our landing page, I would love some constructive feedback:

<https://www.openrent.co.uk/home/index>

We're a week or two from launching, hence the slightly masked url. But any
feedback before we put it in front of customers would be greatly appreciated.

I hope this is an appropriate place to ask!

~~~
chris_wot
I though that the blue stripes were buttons... Silly I know, but you did ask
for feedback!

~~~
pbhjpbhj
IMO the blue header bg is completely wrong - they do look like buttons, not
only that they look like the current sites buttons. The whole impression is
clean and technical; is this what you're after for selling people a place to
call home (albeit rental).

It's personal taste but the text-align:center on that first heading screws
with me too.

Also, on usability, when arriving at the site I'm thinking you'll not have
anything in my area ... which is presumably the big problem with such sites,
seeding them. So, perhaps you'd consider putting your strap line inside the
header and having an optionally displayed "we have 234 rentals near you" or
something; sniff IP and show it went it's over a threshold.

~~~
dazbradbury
Thanks for the feedback.

The headers are meant to look highlighted, rather than like buttons, I really
need to think about this. Personally, I thought they looked good, but if it's
causing usability issues, then they need updating.

You're right, we have the classic chicken and egg problem, but we're focusing
on landlords for now. Love the idea about pre-searching for users. Wouldn't
want it to impact page load times though, so perhaps it could be a client side
call once the page has loaded. The one issue is that people may not search for
properties in their current location - but it's a starting point.

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wheaties
Maybe it's just me but thanks for linking some of those. One of them is a
service I've been looking for. I think some of those sites just got some free
advertising :p

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oli_gardner
Awesome to see this discussion going on - and thanks to qrlawified for
submitting the post to kick this off.

For anyone interested in trying out Unbounce, I wanna give you a coupon code
(somewhat sheepishly as this isn't the usual forum). But if you do wanna check
us out, use "hn503" to get 50% off for 3 months.

If you flame me I'll either kiss you or hug you... #JustSayin

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chris_wot
I can't believe that Crikey.com.au have forgotten to add their privacy
statement. In Australia, that is a _huge_ no-no. Even a link to it would have
been good - they can't just state that they won't share the information
gathered.

~~~
chunkyslink
Can you explain why its a big no-no? I'm new to Australia. Thanks.

~~~
chris_wot
Sure. Privacy is something that is covered via 10 National Privacy Principles.
Principle 5 covers "Openness"
[http://www.privacy.gov.au/materials/types/infosheets/view/65...](http://www.privacy.gov.au/materials/types/infosheets/view/6583#npp5)

Basically, it states "an organisation must set out in a document clearly
expressed policies on its management of personal information. The organisation
must make the document available to anyone who asks for it".

In general, the best way is for a link to the site's privacy guidelines.
Crikey has one at <http://www.crikey.com.au/about/privacy/> \- they could
easily have published a short link to it on the site shown in the article. I'd
say this was an oversight on their part, but from my POV quite a big one!

~~~
biot
If the document were printed on sheepskin and available to view in their
office from 9am to 5pm, wouldn't that be making the document available to
anyone who asks? Or is there specific legislation around a website having it
published online and linked to from every page?

~~~
chris_wot
I don't think the privacy commissioner would take too kindly to this. That
would be an accessibility issue. You'll notice though that on that page there
isn't actually anywhere you can find the privacy policy.

I don't believe there's any legislation to force people into providing their
privacy policy online. Though I would say the effort taken to get people to
come into the office to view the privacy policy on the sheepskin would be
prohibitively expensive. :-)

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AnthonyJoseph
Would also love some constructive feedback: picdazzler.com

Note: still waiting for the before/afters and copy to get here, disregard that
please.

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chris_wot
Can you move the .com closer to the PicDazzler text? I'd suggest putting the
email address into a link - but an online form might be neat also. I'd also
add a note very close to the email address that you won't use the email for
evil purposes.

Or See some before and afters - you really need to change that text colour.
It's almost black on black... sign up or sign in is out of alignment and
bleeding over the rectangular box with curved corners. Seems to be an issue
with the div with id=main and class=grid_12.

Just my 2c :-)

~~~
AnthonyJoseph
Thanks! I probably posted that prematurely, as those things are all on the
list of "shit to fix".

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ardillamorris
Great resource and like the pros and cons although with stats would've been
better.

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diminish
very good collection and summary for landing page optimization. i hope another
version of this had conversion rate comparison, though i am not sure how you
could do this..

