Web Design

As promised, here is a review for Marketing Sherpa’s Landing Page Handbook Second Edition. I read the entire pdf in about a day, a hard copy is still on its way in the mail. I think that it was released earlier this month, Shawn Collins made a blog post about it and somehow I missed it.

The reviews are trickling in, but I hope this one will be comprehensive enough for my audience. If you have any questions, just ask them in the comments of this post.

For beginners — why landing pages matter a lot

Landing page optimization is the quickest way to increase your web site’s revenues. A visitor arrives at your web site and based on countless variables decides to either buy something or not. A few changes and tests can double or even triple your earnings. This is a heck of a lot easier than doubling the number of targeted visitors arriving at your site. Surprisingly, many web business owners still do not take landing pages seriously.

A landing page isn’t just about making a sale. It is the foundation to all goal driven web sites, be it signing up for an e-mail newsletter, joining a forum, subscribing to an RSS feed, or arriving at a parked domain and clicking ads. Like it or not, your web site is just a bunch of landing pages.

If you are hesitant to spend the money there are lots of free articles and case studies that you can read online. I’d recommend reading this blog post first, which highlights the two simple rules I follow biblically myself.

The best part: ideas

This guide has lots content. Everything is laid out as straightforward guidelines and explanations with extensive charts and data to back it up. Just like with Marketing Sherpa’s case studies you will see images of pre and post-optimized landing pages along with the exact conversion rates for both. (If you want to see some cited case studies used in the guide, check out the links in this post from Jonathan Mendez at Optimize & Prophesize.)

Should their suggestions be memorized and followed exactly? Of course not. What you should do is read the handbook, make note of the new ideas you see, and then test them out. You may very well find that what they wrote doesn’t work for your particular site.

One of the parts I was really impressed with was a radio advertising case studio. I have never done anything with radio, but when I do, I will know exactly where to start. Again, I can run my own tests, but this information gives me a great starting point rather than attempting a blind entry all on my own.

Just as with radio, The Landing Page Handbook is not just about what is on your landing page. The chapters cover how the landing page relates and correlates with your traffic sources — banner, email, search, TV, radio. For me thats a plus, however for others it might be considered filler.

Downsides? While they do mention Google’s quality score, you won’t learn much about it. Given how complex and rapidly changing their walls of “deception” are, its probably better Marketing Sherpa avoids the topic. Additionally, if you are a smaller affiliate marketer, much of this information will not be helpful either since you can not control external landing pages (but thats not to say you will walk away empty handed.)

Final Thoughts

The Landing Page Handbook is just that, a handbook. It is not an end-all source or the holy grail to building landing pages. Anyone from a beginner to experienced web developer/marketer will learn new stuff from reading it. All but the most veteran of experts should be able to grab at least an idea or two from the book.

Just starting out, have no product or traffic? Then it might be best to avoid it and come back later when you do.

If you want to see a detailed table of contents or buy your copy (immediate pdf download with a hard copy following in the mail) check out The Landing Page Handbook’s own landing page. (not an affiliate link, by the way.)

Most of what you have read about web design is wrong. The majority of mainstream designers are too obsessed with their own artistic vision or how w3c compliant their competitor’s code is to understand what parts of design really do matter.

Yes, when you are building landing pages or entire web sites — design does matter. The question is, what is helping you and what is hurting?

Make visitors eyes lock on whats important. Forget making your sites look “professional” or visually appealing. If you fail to direct the visitors attention in the correct place, you are going to kill your conversion rates — be it affiliate links or Adsense PPC ads.

How do you do this? By making appropriate use of color, contrast, and distance (see the links below for more info, more posts here are coming soon.) Every single design element on your site matters. Each element has an interaction and influence with the rest. The biggest mistake of design is placing user interest on something that doesn’t really matter. Ugliness, thats at the bottom of the list.

The less “noise” you have surrounding your point of action, the better. Your visitors have come to each page on your site for a reason. (If you don’t know why, your keyword referal data is going to give you a precise answer.) The more exact your page can deliver that reason in its entirety, the less design matters, good, bad, ugly, pretty.

So what is the reason that ugly sites work? Its because they don’t have all of that distracting artistic noise. A web site is not a painting, it is not a work of art — it is a machine. It absolutely must be functional. Yes, Lamborghinis and Ferraris are damn good looking cars, but the outward the design helps the machine functions, its not there to get in the way.

You can have a beautiful site that is designed well, if you understand the core principles of design.

So when people make fun of Myspace or Plentyoffish for looking like crap, understand that its not a random occurance — its because they delivered exactly what the visitors came for, without the noise. Google’s front page follows this same principle — Yahoo’s, absolutely not.

If you’ve been working for weeks or months on your logo and layout, forget it. Thats not what is going to make you the money. Its time to focus on what is.