It happened again this morning. I clicked on a link in an email, and suddenly loud music was playing through my speakers. What? Huh? Argh!
Actually, to be more accurate, my reaction was something more like this:
What. Just. Happened.
But after closing the offending site, and pondering on why oh why oh why people think it’s a good idea to make a website that takes over your computer when you just wanted to see the schedule for the Brooklyn Flea Market, it got me thinking about web sites more. Specifically, what makes a good landing page?
Of course there are as many answers to that question as there are web sites on the interwebs. Even the definition of “good” can be different – one person might just want to increase the average time visitors spend reading his blog, while another business might want the highest possible number of shoes sold. But it all comes down to a couple of basic principles:
Make It Easy
Let’s all be honest with ourselves here: we’re lazy. Not you specifically – I’m sure you’re an energetic go-getter who wakes up at 5:30 every morning to take the dog on a five mile run before fixing yourself a full breakfast while reading the Times. I mean “people” as in, ya know, people. The kinds of people you probably want to spend more time on your site, or to buy your shoes. Those people are trawling the internet with the attention spans of your average pre-schooler, looking for a snippet of information every second, and wanting it presented directly in front of them with little or no guesswork. They don’t want to read about the history of your company or your vision for the future of environmental shoe manufacturing, no matter how fascinating it probably is. They want to see how many sandals you have, what colors they come in, and how much they cost. Zappos is a great example of this principal in action – search for “eco friendly shoes,” and their top result is a page full of just that. Eco-friendly shoes.
Who's a good landing page? You're a good landing page!!
Make It Easier
No seriously. These people are LAZY. You give them everything they want, right in front of them. They don’t even have to scroll down the screen! But when they add your magnificent animal-friendly, earth-sensitive slippers to their cart, let’s say you ask them to sign in first, and confirm via a code sent to their email. Oh sure, some people will go through that. Hell, I did just yesterday. But you know what a lot of people will do? That’s right. They’ll move on. Here’s the key: keep as few clicks between your people and what you want them to do. Want them to keep reading? Present them with a collection of related articles (*ahem* see the bottom of this post for just such a collection…). Want them to spend money? Make it easy for them to go from clicking on “add to basket” to entering their Visa and hitting “confirm”. Then ask them if they’ll pretty please give you their undying devotion and create a login, complete with email confirmation. To be fair, the average person probably still won’t do it, but at least you got their money first!
Easiness Is Anything But
Let’s say you’ve got a brilliant site. It’s perfectly streamlined, tailored to get your customers in-and-out in under ten seconds flat. That’s great. No really, I’m super happy for you. I hope you’re raking in the big bucks and can take early retirement in Cancun.
Now throw everything out and start over again.
Okay, not really. You can keep your hard-won site with its picture-perfect conversion rate, I’m just saying don’t become complacent. Sitting on your laurels means that in a year and a half you’ll be talking to someone like me, wondering out loud why sales are down 20% year over year. And while I promise that I’ll be sweet and supportive and make you tea, after you’re gone I’ll break out the whiskey. That’s because you haven’t done anything after you “perfected” your site. Times change. People change. What worked last year may not work this year. In order to really keep ahead of the curve you need to keep testing, all the time, even small things that seem inconsequential to you. I’ve worked with clients who just changed the background color of their site and saw conversions jump by 50%. No other changes. Just the background color. Did I mention they brought in 50% more conversions? There’s no way to predict that kind of result unless you’re testing. In a year or so they might want to revisit that same test too, trying out the exact same landing pages. Maybe by then new associations with colors will have sprouted up, and people will way prefer another color entirely. And if that happens they’ll be able to make that switch, and watch their conversions jump up again. And again, and again.
Hopefully by now you’re seeing the beauty in this system. Treating your customers like idiots is never a great idea, but treating them like fickle, easily-distracted teenagers might not hurt.
Just don’t take it too far.
do NOT put this on your landing page
