Landing page best practices

[aidan6969]

Hi,

My job is to market a few management and leadership books by Jim Clemmer.

They've sold well through the traditional offline outlets like bookstores and such, but I'm now trying to open the floodgates to internet sales.

I've been told about the effectiveness of landing pages and affiliate marketing, so my plan is to take a stab at both.

My first landing page is Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success

I haven't added any metatags or even submitted it to google as it will eventually live at growingthedistance.com.

My first question is, how can I make this page better as a landing page? Second, what should I change to make it an effective affiliate page?

Thanks,
Aidan

[keyon]

Creating an effective landing page is a huge subject - which can't really be addressed by looking at a landing page out of context. Landing pages should be part of your overall marketing campaign - and created only after a careful analysis of all the different components in your strategy - starting with who exactly will be landing on this page and from where those people are coming from. At the very least, the message on a landing page should be a logical continuation of the messsage visitors saw just before they clicked.

On another note, I'm getting a sense from your page that perhaps you're trying to appeal to too many different potential customers - everyone from students to CEOs. I tend to agree with others who believe that if you try to appeal to everyone you'll end up appealling to no one. The way to avoid this pitful is to create separate campaigns for your different targeted audiences. You really can't appeal to everyone on just one webpage. It makes the product look tacky.

[aidan6969]

Thanks Keyon,

I already have a full shopping cart on my main site jimclemmer.com, so this landing page is being optimized for SEM.

I've eliminated the "Makes a great gift" bullets and increased the size of the font.

What about the flash header? Does that help or hurt the pitch?

Aidan

[chowell]

1. Clean up the appearance. The page looks unfinished and a little rough around the edges.
2. Include a call-to-action element above the fold. Don't make the visitor have to scroll down.
3. Your "No thanks, let me order" link is totally confusing and disruptive in the conversion process. Is the objective to get the sign-up or an order? Make these separate and clear. For instance, you could add a "Buy Now" button just below the Growing The Distance book image (clean that up too btw).
4. Testimonials, etc. are great, but who are you? I don't trust your site w/out any contact information.

These should help provide a better landing page.

[keyon]

I guess I'm a little confused about the flash banner - the headlines talk about workshops, training, consultation - but your product is a book, right? There's a little bit of a disconnect between the two.

If it is a book you are selling, I would at least show a photo of the book on the page - just to clear up any confusion. And then in the banner I would make it understood that the book helps you to do this or that...

Also...I find it difficult to read the testimonials - especially in the flash banner. Although I think testimonials have their place - it's not the first thing I would pitch to a prospective customer. Better to offer a free sample of your product - and let people decide for themselves what is so great about your book. At the very least offer us a table of contents....

[jordy3738]

I'd get the opt in email at the top of the fold. That's usually what my eye is drawn to first on good sales pages. I think it's because I know it is usually something that's free.

Once you have someones email address you can continue to market your product to them.

[sharonjackson]

chowell was correct about the "no thanks take me to your leader" link....make that below the submit button, not part of the form.

I don't care for the header much, it is hard to read and the banners appear to flip at different intervals, backgrounds very busy.

For the rest of your page, I would want to make the text a little smaller and give me WHITE SPACE. I normally don't bother reading big blocks of text if there is no resting space for my eyes.

Good luck!

[ronlee67]

I reviewed your page by first backing up to the home page. It looks fine. When people click the link to "Growing the Distance......." they expect to read about the book. I would get rid of the flash altogether. It's hugely distracting and does nothing to sell the book.When you have bulleted text that wraps, it's a good idea to add an additional blank line between the bulleted items (in most web authoring software simply use [control] + [enter], then press enter again without [control] to start the next bullet..that way you won't lose the format associated with the bullets.)

The bulleted lines beside the graphic gtdpg_star_left.gif looks far too crowded and putting blank separator lines as described will help enormously.

I agree with everyone else's comments so far....especially about the header. If you are selling a book, promote the book. If your selling a set services then promote the services. But all that stuff about retreats, practical resources, consulting & training and keynote presentations just gives me a headache.

Actually, the link that is currently live from the home page looks pretty good if you get rid of the flash header.