

Ask HN: Do you actually click “Get Started” on landing pages? - syllogism

I&#x27;ve been thinking about landing pages lately, and something occurred to me about my own behaviour.<p>When I&#x27;m on a typical product landing page, I instinctively avoid clicking any obvious call to action item, especially something like &quot;Get Started&quot;.<p>Does anyone else do this? Do you often get to a landing page and feel like you can&#x27;t figure out what to do next, because the idea of clicking &quot;get started&quot; honestly doesn&#x27;t occur to you?
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gus_massa
Direct quote from patio11: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/12/01/inaugural-
kalzumeus-podc...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/12/01/inaugural-kalzumeus-
podcast-japan-startups-ab-testing-and-more/)

> _People make fun of me. I’ve been saying this stuff about A /B testing and
> whatnot for years. I make buttons bigger and it almost always works better.
> One of the English as a second language folks in one of my forums was
> talking one day and he’s like, “I know Patrick loves his big, orange,
> pancake buttons.” Big, orange, pancake button is my keyword for this now
> because big, orange, pancake buttons really effing work. Go ahead._

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jeffmould
To answer your question, for me it really depends on the site and the
product/service. I usually will dig around on the site to make sure it is what
I am looking for and then click a get started button if I like what I see. As
someone else pointed out if the individual viewing the page is your target
audience and they are hesitant to click a "get started" button, the page
and/or site failed in conveying the value of the product/service.

There is a lot of psychology that goes into the wording of buttons, and while
you may tell yourself "oh that would never work for me", the truth is that
subconsciously it probably does work and you just don't realize it sometimes.

I have always found these two articles informative (actually the whole
CopyHackers site is a pretty good resource in general):

[http://copyhackers.com/2012/11/how-to-find-and-eliminate-
fri...](http://copyhackers.com/2012/11/how-to-find-and-eliminate-friction-
words-in-your-web-copy/)

[http://copyhackers.com/optimize-your-business-online-
trainin...](http://copyhackers.com/optimize-your-business-online-
training/calls-to-action/)

~~~
syllogism
Actually that copyhackers site raises another good example, of where I start
to suspect I must be just weird.

When that little nag element popped up in the bottom corner, I couldn't read
the rest of the article. I stopped reading to try to remove it, but I
couldn't. It was then really distracting, so I gave up just closed the tab.

Copyhackers _must_ be A/B testing their site to death...So the percentage of
people who have a similar reaction must be pretty small.

~~~
jeffmould
It's interesting you bring that up. I hate those newsletter signup popups that
appear on sites. With that said, I can attest that they do actually work and
surprisingly really well. My first experience with them I figured people would
signup and then unsubscribe fairly quickly. However, the complete opposite
ended up happening. We got tons of signup, people stuck around, and shared our
content more than ever before. Needless to say, as much as I personally hate
them, I will use them on future projects.

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gk1
I wrote about the common "Sign Up" buttons you see in the top-right corner of
nearly every SaaS site: [http://www.gkogan.co/blog/stop-asking-me-to-sign-
up/](http://www.gkogan.co/blog/stop-asking-me-to-sign-up/)

Every time I test a more prominent and specific button, it wins in terms of
clicks or signups. So an indirect answer to your question is: "It usually
works."

Does it win in terms of better customers? Not always. Which is why it's
important to measure beyond just clicks.

> Does anyone else do this? Do you often get to a landing page and feel like
> you can't figure out what to do next, because the idea of clicking "get
> started" honestly doesn't occur to you?

If you're the target audience and you're hesitant to click "Get Started," then
the landing page failed.

This is why I do usability tests in which I watch participants interact with a
page and tell me what confuses them. You won't know those things from
quantitative metrics.

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edoceo
Does it matter what you think about the buttons? No. It matters what your
target audience thinks. A/B test FTW.

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jakejake
I almost always want to see a prominent video or screenshots first (or for
developer libs/services an examples page). So I'll look for that link before
clicking any big buttons.

When I see "Get started" I usually think "sign up" so it's not going to be the
first thing I click.

~~~
syllogism
This sounds right to me — I feel like you have to sell me before you try to
convert me.

But everyone puts the conversion button first...so maybe my intuition about
what works for me is wrong. Or maybe I'm just weird.

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cdvonstinkpot
I always want to learn more about whatever it is first, before I dive in. So
I'll look at FAQ's, or something to that extent first. I get offended by those
which assume I'll sign on before learning what exactly I'm signing up for.

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multiplex
Yes, all the time. I feel like as soon as I press the button, I'll turn into a
prospective customer from a bystander and a nasty salesperson will start
talking to me about all the awesome things about the product. So I recline.

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AmroAdel
Actually, I think that having "Get Started" in any application/Website means
that this app/website doesn't have a User friendly interface and failed in
explaining its value.

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lcswi
Get Started is so nondescript. I usually avoid it.

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contingencies
[ ALL OTHER AVENUES ARE EXHUASTED ]

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MichaelCrawford
I don't click them but many people do. This is easily demonstrated through A/B
testing.

Dave Johnson, President of Working Software told me the reason that so many
advertisements say "BUY NOW! DON'T DELAY" is "because it works".

    
    
      "Ask my mother why she likes advertising." -- Karen Salzman
    
       "Why do you like advertising?" -- Me
    
       "It tells me what to buy."
    

I swear I'm not making this up.

For me, just about the most effective call to action I've ever seen is a
developer blog linked from here at HN. At the end of each article it said
"Read This Next" then linked another technical article.

I read every article on that guy's site.

I find it helpful that someone notes the "Reading Time" at the top of each of
his developer blogs; I plan to add that.

~~~
syllogism
Out of interest, was it this:
[http://prog21.dadgum.com/](http://prog21.dadgum.com/) ?

Because if so, I had a very similar experience. I also find material that has
a lot of interesting in-text self-links will suck me in, ala TV Tropes,
Wikipedia, etc.

