One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was sit while other criticized my work. But after it’s all over and the smokes cleared it is the single thing that has helped me more than anything else.

I’d like to get some insight or how I can make Professionally designed rubber bracelets made to look the way you want. Rubber Bracelets made in your colors and with your message and/or Logo embedded into the rubber bracelet. a better landing page. The rest of the site is crazy and out of control so ignore it, please. I’m looking for insight into what the site visitor sees.

I tried building a page that only had one option for the visitor but as I tried to make it look better I ended up adding lots and lots of places for the visitor to go. I’m working on changing that now.

I want to build a landing page, so for the time I’m only worried about getting this page to convert. However if you want to talk about the SEO aspects I can start making those changes as well.

I’m no writer and the sales copy currently sucks so I’m willing to make changes there as well.

Be tough on me. The tougher the better.

Thanks and I'll give green to everyone that gives me a review.

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Question: How does someone get to this page?
From a search at Google and then clicking on the organic results?
Or, from a search and clicking on an sponsored link/ad?

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Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com
sitting in my basement with my iMac

When I finish the hope is from a search on any of the major search engines for the keyword "rubber bracelets"

Organic.

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“A typical gateway page is small, simple and highly optimized. Its primary goal is to attract visitors searching for relevant key words or phrases, and provide hyperlinks to pages within the website.” Source: Wikipedia

What are the essential elements of a gateway page?

• It is optimized for one term for the search engine spiders. That is, when a person visits a search engine (e.g., Google) and searches for a term, your gateway page will appear high up in the organic results. The example page shown at Eliminate Hemorrhoids - Gastroenterology of the Rockies is targeted for "hemorrhoids longmont". While it is similar to the standard page about hemorrhoids in the Gastroenterology of the Rockies website, this page talks about hemorrhoids. No mention of colon cancer or any other gastro problems. We then added information about their Longmont office. Only Longmont, nothing about offices in Boulder or anywhere else. Focus. This page currently ranks #1 at Google but has ranged from 1 to 10 over the last 1+ year.
• It is readable by humans. After all, this is the first page they will see after clicking on the search results.
• It contains a “call to action”. You spent all this effort to get the visitor to this page and now you want them do something other than just read the words. For Gastro Rockies, the call to action is to make an appointment. Yes, the big red button is ugly. We don't care. It works.

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Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com
sitting in my basement with my iMac

I've got the call to action at the top of the page. Although I might move it all the way to the top.

I'm not sure about the little blue box, might try some other colors or remove it all together.

However I'm planning to break down each of the colors into their own landing page once I get this one set up to look like I want.

That is my plan but I first need to get this page to be all it can be.

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I would change your title to "Rubber bracelets tailor-made to look the way you want. Right now it is too long and it looks stuffed.

You used H2 too many times on the page.

The keyword density for rubber bracelets is 39.5%... seems a little high.

Your keywords look stuffed with the word rubber.

Your alt text seems to be a little extreme with the words "Custom Rubber"

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Just to be sure, you mean landing and not home page? This seems more like a home page at the moment, nothing wrong with that, but some thoughts below are based on not considering this a home page, though some cross over.

Had a random thought as I looked at this (from the "landing page" perspective). All those bracelet images are indeed persuasive, but many a visitor will not bother to scroll. Have you considered making "Step 1: Choose" a cheesy fade-in-fade-out CSS image? You'd probably want it to fade back to "choose" every other image, but it would catch the eye, and like Dave said, "ugly red buttons" are helpful to conversions, especially on a landing page.

The stuffing idea is not badly implemented here, but it does look stuffed. Though I think not to the point it will drive away "normal" visitors. No reason you could not leave all the individual bands below, plus the other text if you want, but agree with the call-to-action concept of flipping what begins with this plus the 1-2-3 steps: "Order you rubber bracelet now by clicking the banner below." with the blue box and everything below it to the point of the flip.

Be sure to fix some of the little errors that make people run, like "no minimun" or "Order you bracelet" - easy fixes that left as they are can hurt your image. Grin, had to fix "you image" myself - missing that "r" is a common typo.

I realize the text is not final, but be cautious with the connotations of certain words like "cheap" - for example:

IF YOU WANT TO BE THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS, YOU HAVE TO LOOK LIKE THE BEST. RUBBER BRACELETS CAN BE A CHEAP AN INEXPENSIVE WAY TO MAKE YOURSELF LOOK LIKE THE SUCCESS YOU WANT TO BE.

How about, trying to keep char count about the same...

CUSTOM SILICON OR RUBBER BRACELETS MAKE A COLORFUL AND POWERFUL STATEMENT. BUILD IMMEDIATE AWARENESS AND SOLIDARITY FOR YOUR CAUSE, AFFILIATION, OR BRAND - AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE!

Just typed that, it's surely flawed, but the general idea is there. I would shade harder to "causes" than you do now, since while businesses might consider this, this sort of product seems to be more associated with "statements" than building sales. Identifying with a group of mothers of soldiers, political party endorsements, cancer or AIDS awareness, things like that, seems to be a target as compared to "buy my widgets!" - the simplicity is one of the product's key selling points, which means it will have to symbolically convey a simple concept visually.

Good luck!

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Thanks, I fixed all those problems.

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Yes, landing page.

I've given them two chances to click to make the purchase before getting that far down. My thought is that once they reach that low on the page chances are their not going to purchase anyway.

I'm hoping most people have left to make a purchase by now.

The top of the page now has so much going on that I hate to add more.

I removed most of them but left a couple. I can use it to get the number of keywords like I want.

Made that change.

Trying to find all of them now. I went on and added caps in the four banners while I was fixing those but not sure if I made it look better or worst.

Using the word bothered me a little at the time. I'll go back and remove it from all the text.

Thanks, I made that change.

The text needs a lot of work and I agree, I need to take it in a different direction.

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janeth,

You are really smart.

FOCUS.
Less is more.
Do the Readers' Digest process. Remove 1/3 and then remove 1/3 again.

,dave

__________________
Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com
sitting in my basement with my iMac

I'm hoping that the visit will convert before going past the second call to action. I'm wanting to use the bottom section to link out to long tail pages. Those pages will not have any of the wristbands other than the color they are searching for.

I may also remove the left navigation for those pages as well limiting where they are able to go.

I'll get one set up tomorrow and get your thoughts on it.

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Hard to articulate sometimes, easier to show.

www dot adhive.com/janeth_landing.jpg

Removed left-hand nav - you confirmed this is a landing page only, so I agree that should be gone to avoid leakage; also left-off but implied the "see them all" section. Aim was to get a clear, one-action, above-the-fold look that may help drive conversions.

I'd still break apart (single image right now) the 1-2-3 and have the "1 - Choose" be an animated image of one kind or another to grab those eyeballs!

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Here's what I did.

I took the Rubber bracelets tailor-made to look the way you want page and added a link to a new page called Baby Blue Rubber Bracelets

This would make the Rubber bracelets tailor-made to look the way you want page kind of like the home page and the other pages more like the landing page.

The design needs some work and I'm not sure if the banner looks the best at the top of the Baby Blue Rubber Bracelets page now.

Let me know your thoughts and if I should move all this to a sub domain name as well.

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YES!

My only criticism is that I would add another 50-100 words to improve the attractiveness to the search engines.

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Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com
sitting in my basement with my iMac

I was thinking the same thing as well as I need to change the graphic sizes so they stretch across the whole page. Removing the side bar changes the size of everything.

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Excellent job of condensing the page down to it's vital components Chiron. You've given Janeth something quite valuable in my opinion. I would expect your version of the page to convert several times more than the original.

Regarding Dave's and Janeth's concern about quantity of text for search engine purposes, which is valid if the page is going to be attractive to search engines, I have a suggestion.

Since the landing page optimization effort is often at odds with the search engine optimization effort because of the amount of text required, why not get the best of both worlds with a "more" link at the end of the final sentence of text on Chiron's version.

But instead of being a link to another page, the "more" link should trigger a search engine friendly collapsible panel containing the additional text. That way the search engine sees the content it needs in order to rank the page; the visitor can read more information if they choose, without leaving the landing page with its call-to-action; and most importantly, the landing page retains its effectiveness when viewed initially by all visitors.

FYI, I highly recommend this technique for anyone doing landing page optimization that requires the visitor to enter personal information. The collapsible panel in that instance can be used for a "privacy policy" link adjacent to the personal information form inputs.

Hope this helps.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

Hi Janeth,

One thing about the graphics sizes to keep in mind. As I understand the science of landing page optimization, it's important to focus the visitor's eye. This usually means creating a visual path on the page for the visitor's eye to follow until it arrives at the call-to-action.

So, I'm not sure which graphics you're referring to about stretching them across the page, but if it's your call-to-action graphics ("1 Choose"), I think they're pretty good exactly the way they are. The eye is naturally drawn to them in the center of the page. And even though the bulk of the text is below the call-to-action, it's not a problem in this case because the page height is short enough that the call-to-action will be visible still even if the visitor is reading the text underneath.

In my opinion, if they were stretched wider across the page they'd lose that focus and the natural eye path would become more scattered.

Anyway, you may have been referring to other graphics, but I just wanted to offer that observation just in case.

Cheers

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

Thanks,

I'll set that up now. That is a great idea.

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That was the one I was referring to. I'll leave it at the current size.

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You're welcome Janeth. I'm looking forward to seeing your finished page once you've received everyone's input and made all the changes.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

I've made them.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks

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Hi Janeth,

That's definitely an improvement from the original. Much less likely to cause instantaneous bounces.

But I think it's still a step backward from what Chiron had illustrated.

If you compare the two, you'll see there's a lot more whitespace in his, which draws the reader's full attention to the 1-2-3 action buttons.

Whereas on your version, those buttons are tucked over to the side and sandwiched between two other blocks of graphics with stronger colors. So, I think the impetus is lost.

Also, in Chiron's version, the colored boxes across the top are greatly simplified. The eye can capture them and their meaning in just a glance. At this stage in the buyer's experience they're not interested in the fineprint, it's enough to just know that there's "no minimum" and they can "create online" and that you offer "free shipping." When they want the detail, they'll look for it.

But your version muddies their clarity by adding lots of text and invitations to click here, which weakens the proposition. It gives the impression that those selling propositions are less clear than in Chiron's version, which can create skepticism of the offer.

Finally, the graphics themselves are competing for attention in your version, whereas in Chiron's version they're complementing and supporting one another, which is what they should do.

I'd be really interested to see a split test result of conversions for your version compared to Chiron's. I'm almost certain that Chiron's would outperform.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

What do you think about this one?

geeksonsteroids.com: it's a little sneaky as the text would be under it.

The buttons on Chiron's came from a site we built a little over a year ago and I was wanting something a little different.

Let me play around a little more and see what I can come up with.

Thanks,

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Hi Janeth,

I'd be surprised if you got a positive response from businesses with that one. It looks and feels like site aimed at teenagers and I doubt many business people would stick around long enough to scroll down to your text.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

It's an affiliate account and the click threw rate is pretty impressive.

The idea is not to read text but rather for you to click over to the affiliate site and make the purchase.

I've got this one as well.
Silicone bracelets the best place for silicone bracelets, silicone wristbands, custom designed silicone wristbands, bracelets with a message and 24 hour bracelets

But I'm trying to get something that looks more like a site but can convert as well as those.

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Hi again Janeth,

I can see how these might be effective at encouraging particular user groups to click through. But I still think the message is scattered and unclear. For instance, this last one gives me the first impression that it's a cell phone service.

By the way, there's a glaring typo in the top-center of the page. It says "Wrisbands".

The fact that you want something that looks more like a regular site, but still converts, is why I still prefer Chiron's version.

You may want to look at some of the landing page optimzation research being done by marketingexperiments.com. They've got plenty of freely viewable research about what works and what doesn't.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

I'll fix that as well as take a look at the link.

What if I say.

Here's what I've got

Here's what it will do for you

and

Here's what you need to do

Just point blank no B.S

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Hi Janeth,

That's the right path. Do have a look at that research. It's a real eye opener and it's helped me to increase conversions for several clients by 100s of percent.

I'm going to paraphrase from some of the marketingexperiments.com research now, just to give you a taste:

Landing Page Optimization basics:

Clarity trumps persuasion - be clear about what you're offering, rather than persuasive. You'll get better results.

Visitors typically arrive at a page with 3 questions in their mind.

1. Where am I?
2. What can I get (do) here?
3. Why should I participate?

It's important to answer those questions in sequence. Answering them out of sequence will not likely have the desired effect.

Avoid clutter and focus the visitor's eye on the action you want them to take.

Minimize links in the core navigation - don't make it easy for them to leave your finely-honed landing page without taking the action you want.

There's plenty more where that came from. And believe me, this stuff works.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

I looked through some of it and have been reading and studying on conversion for the last couple years.

But have never thought about just being point blank here it is type of page before.

I can build back what I loose with the search engines with incoming links.

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Hi Janeth,

Just so I'm clear, the page doesn't have to be sparse or austere.

You can be clear and to the point, but you can still graphically enhance, you can add supporting text, you can add testimonials. You just need to do it all while keeping a holistic view to the total effect of the page - where will the visitor's eye travel? Is the purpose of the page immediately apparent? Is the call-to-action instantly recognizable?

And split testing is the only way to know for sure what works and what doesn't for your target market.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

Let me know what you think now.

Please.

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Hi Janeth,

It's looking good. But I think you could do a better job of bringing your call-to-action up the page. Right now it's too far down and if I don't feel like scrolling, I'm not going to see it.

I like that you've condensed the button text and if you make them smaller (vertically) they'll help to shorten the height of the page.

You could shorten the bullet points so they can be understood at a glance. For example, "Imagine your business being the business that everyone is talking about." could be shortened to "Get people talking about your business."

I also think you could eliminate the 3rd section of text "Here's what you need to do" since that's effectively the point of the call-to-action graphic right below it anyway.

Hope this helps. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm always being critical. I'm just trying to help and be honest.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

Thanks and the site is getting better and better and it's due to criticism so keep it coming.

I'll get on these changes now.

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I liked it so much that I moved it to the main page. The changes have been made and are at Silicone bracelets the best place for silicone bracelets, silicone wristbands, custom designed silicone wristbands, bracelets with a message and 24 hour bracelets

Let me know what you think.

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Good job, Janeth.

It's definitely a lot better in terms of the organization and visual focus.

You might want to request some feedback from people about the cartoon people you've selected, but changing graphics is relatively simple. At this point you've got a pretty well functioning landing page and the rest is cosmetic (although important cosmetics).

So, way to go. Keep us posted if you do any split testing of this vs. your previous pages.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

Do you not like the cartoon people?

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Cartoons can be good, depends on the audience.

This particular landing page in question, the new one posted most recently, who precisely is the target?

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LOL. I'm not prejudiced against cartoon people in general. Some of my best friends are cartoonish.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

Its sad to say but I would really have to look into that.

How sad is that?

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The more you post the more it seems like you don't like these cartoon people?

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I hate the "Rice Krispies" characters.
Back up the design.

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Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com
sitting in my basement with my iMac

OK, what should I put there?

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Janeth, why not add some rollover action to that bottom banner. I would also consider add rollover action to the top image especially the first call to action that is "create a bracelet".

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KBK Marketing | Search Marketing Blog | Cheap Web Hosting

Okies, sorry for the delay Janeth:

Had to slap this together more than I'd like, animation sucks among other issues, but the general idea is there:

http://www.adhive.com/janeth/

...previous thought was:

http://www.adhive.com/janeth_landing.jpg

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Thanks, I didn't think about that but will take care of that now.

Thanks,

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Let me play with it a little more.

Thanks.

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Correct. Just about everything on landing page should be around that.

Not only play, look at the marketing concept Chiron provides. He is a real professional.
Pay attention to the "You approach" he provides. Your version emphasizes: "Here's What I've Got" which is very wrong.
Instead of "I", "Our company provides", etc... it should be "you", "you get", "you benefit", etc.

Also, get rid of "All you have to do is place the order", which sounds terrible.

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Impossible? You just underestimate the time.

Thanks.

I've made the changes here Silicone bracelets the best place for silicone bracelets, silicone wristbands, custom designed silicone wristbands, bracelets with a message and 24 hour bracelets

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I've killed off the little people and added a mouse over affect.

The changes are being done on the main page.

Silicone bracelets the best place for silicone bracelets, silicone wristbands, custom designed silicone wristbands, bracelets with a message and 24 hour bracelets

Sorry for repeating the link but want to make sure everyone is on the same page.

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I needed a good chuckle to get the day going, this was perfect!

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