Landing Page Makeover Clinic #27: HiddenSoy.com

Posted on July 1, 2010 by BlogPostman

This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work. Most days I just don’t know what’s safe to eat or drink, but I’ve always thought that soy was a better, more nutritious choice for my protein needs — didn’t you? More vegan and all that. Well, that’s not the way Dianne Gregg sees it. In fact, she thinks the stuff is downright dangerous to your health and well-being. Ever wonder how much soy is actually lurking in the food we eat, unannounced and unidentified? Dianne has the goods on that info, too, and she wants to share. She’s got a blog, a newsletter, and a book. She wants more subscribers and she wants to sell more books. For the purposes of this makeover, we want to focus on growing her subscriber base. Grow the subscribers and the book sales will follow. The Goal: Increase subscription rate to 100 new subscribers weekly toward the overall goal of converting subscribers into buyers for her book, The Hidden Dangers of Soy . The Problem: Need more traffic, unable to directly track sales from promotional efforts, including social networking, article writing, blogs, etc. The Current Landing Page (homepage): hiddensoy.com Value: $17.95 (a little cheaper at Amazon) & $10.50 e-book Click image for larger view The Maven’s 10-Point Critique #1 — Focus your readers’ attention with a strong establishing headline. Your content doesn’t offer a clear entry point (I’ve highlighted the different areas where you dance all around it) where you connect the dots for the visitor. You need a strong headline to tie it all together, like: “Could All the So-Called “Healthy” Soy You’ve Been Eating Actually Be Making You and Your Family Sick?” (A variant for moms could be: “Could All the So-Called “Healthy” Soy You’ve Been Giving Your Family Actually Be Making Them (and You!) Sick?”) It’s not enough to just present the danger; you need to make it personal. #2 — Focus your content on the single most important thing you want visitors to do. Here’s a heat map I did for your current site. (Courtesy of Feng-Gui.com .) Notice how your newsletter sign-up area doesn’t light-up at all. The main focus is on your book cover and your headshot. If the goal is to increase newsletter sign-ups, then all content — directly and indirectly — needs to support the visitor from first view to action. Your current content is a disorganized hodge-podge with no clear path from A to B. You need to put your book and its ancillaries in a secondary position and push your newsletter forward. Also, does your newsletter have an actual title? I couldn’t tell from your current content. If not, give it one. Add “Dianne Gregg’s” in front of the name, just like you did the website. #3 — Focus your content on building your authority and credibility for the topic. Since you’re focusing on you and your expertise, you want to give your visitors enough info on your experience, background, quality of information you present, etc. Starting with your personal story is fine, but you want to bring in scientific and medical experts as well as fans to support your expertise in this space. You do this in your book section, but there’s no reason why these kudos wouldn’t apply as general testimonials, as well. Use them that way. Get them on the homepage where they’ll do you some good, as well as a separate section on the navigation. (Please note that a poorly written testimonial from a medical professional undercuts its value to you. All testimonials — from experts and just folks — should be written in clean and properly spelled standard English.) I like the audio player. I might consider doing a video intro, as well. #4 — Provide intuitive paths for your visitor to move around the site. If you’re going to use your homepage as your main landing page, you need to have a navigation strategy that organizes your content for your visitor in a common-sense way. Right now, you have ZIPPO navigation which makes moving through the site a tedious, frustrating exercise, even for the most committed soy-information seeker. Here’s a recommended first pass: HOME PUBLICATIONS Newsletter Book TESTIMONIALS ARTICLES RESOURCES BLOG ABOUT DIANNE CONTACT You have a lot of content on the site that could easily be thrown into these or equivalent buckets. Don’t make your visitors hunt for what they need. #5 — Rethink and reorganize your homepage/website from the ground up. Detecting a theme here? Sites that do a great job of organizing their content through intuitive navigation and clean, supportive design make for a comfortable and pleasant visitor experience. The easier and more pleasant the visit is, the longer the visitor stays on your site and engages with your message. I found this simple WordPress blog template (courtesy of Notepad Theme Demo at IThemes) that provided a reasonably good format as a jumping off point for a possible redesign. Click image for larger view What works well here is that it allows you highlight several different inputs for visitors to interact with, yet still focuses the primary attention on newsletter sign-up and you. #6 — Rework the current banner. Most people, including myself, wouldn’t know a soybean from a chick pea. I don’t think the image of the soybeans underscores the ‘dangerous food’ motif. I’d substitute a new banner that’s clean, clear and forceful about your topic. #7 — Clarify your calls to action. Right now, your call to action focuses on “Send me free stuff.” There’s no connection to the benefits of your topic (I want to stay healthy) or even that I’m getting a monthly newsletter ( Subscribe or Join us now ). Again, connect the dots for your visitor. Remind me of the value of what you offer and how great it is that I’m going to get this important health information every month — free. #8 — Clarify the newsletter specifics. I read your newsletter page several times and wasn’t sure how the newsletter was formatted or what information/regular features came with it. If this was a print publication, you’d talk in terms of number of pages, size, a number of main articles and a few regular features. So using this as a model, how can you translate this kind of detail to a description of your digital newsletter? Give your prospects specifics. Design a cover visual and pop a thumbnail into the newsletter box on the homepage. Make it real. #9 — Clarify the bonuses new subscribers get. You offer a ton of free information for a sign-up (as noted on one of your interior pages), but I’m not sure what format they’re in. Are they individual reports? Articles? Separate emails? Again, be specific. Don’t just list a title and call it done. Add 1-2 sentences of description and detail. Add a value to each bonus offering, as well. Tally them up, restate the value of good health in the face of lies, and make a strong call to action that makes the prospect ‘gotta have it’ — and wrap it all with a big fat call to action button. #10 – Strengthen your SEO title and description (critical). I did a quick search for “soy risks” on Google and you were nowhere to be found. That’s because your pages are missing those super important SEO title and meta descriptions. Here are your current listings: The Hidden Dangers of Soy; Dianne Gregg Here’s another way of going about it: Health Dangers of Soy, Are You At Risk? Get Free Newsletter | Dianne Gregg Do your keyword research . What are the words and phrases people use to find your info? Those are the words and phrases that will form your site glossary for content as well as SEO and make it easier for people to find you. My thanks to Dianne Gregg for her supreme patience and support of Heifer International. Look for my next makeover in about 4 weeks. Want your own Copywriting Maven landing page makeover? Got a landing page that’s more poop than pop? Need to get better results from your online marketing? If you’re interested in a private page makeover, site audit, or other services, please email Roberta directly . About the Author: Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc . Find her @CopywriterMaven on Twitter.

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Landing Page Makeover Clinic #27: HiddenSoy.com

How Cornerstone Content Gets You Traffic and Subscribers

Posted on May 11, 2010 by

Blogs are great resources. They let you publish high-quality content quickly, efficiently, and inexpensively. The problem is, the default functionality of blogging software makes it easy to show what’s new — but hard to show off the depth of what you’ve done over time. Blogging excels at presenting new content, but fails at aggregating old content in a way that works for people and search engines. So what can you do? How can you help both people and search engines find your content efficiently? Create some solid cornerstone content. If you’ve read Brian Clark’s new SEO copywriting report , you know how important this type of content is to attracting links and ranking for the terms that are central to your site. If you haven’t read Brian’s report, you should to get the full picture. But for now, it’s enough to know that a page hosting cornerstone content helps readers by pulling all of your content about a specific topic together in one place. In other words, each cornerstone page is a home for related content. If you want an example before I continue, check out Landing Pages or Copywriting 101 in the “resources” sidebar to the left of this post. Cornerstone pages let you highlight your most important archived content. They also help you attract links, get subscribers, and increase traffic. Keep reading to find out how. Cornerstone pages are great targets for link-building campaigns Remember, links matter first and foremost with search rankings. But complete, in-depth content on the topics you want people to find you for is important, too. When you group similar content into a home on a single page, you’ll have a keyword dense page which will rank in search engines when you build links to it. Sticking with the Copyblogger examples, do you think they chose phrases like “landing pages” and “SEO copywriting” by accident? Absolutely not. These are two popular keyword phrases that the Copyblogger crew wanted to rank well for in Google. And sure enough, they do. I know what you’re thinking. Copyblogger is a large site. They don’t need to focus on building links to each page, because they will gain links naturally over time. (Never mind the fact that, like every blog, Copyblogger started with no links and just one subscriber — which in this case was Brian.) That’s why cornerstone pages are even more important for new bloggers. These resource-rich pages are perfect for you to link when you do guest posts on other blogs. They’ll help you rank for specific keyword phrases and help you find new readers. 2. Cornerstone pages help you get subscribers People listen to authority figures. Brian also wrote a complete report on authority : why you want it, what it will do for you, and how to get it. People also tend to bookmark, share, and reference authoritative content. Cornerstone content is authoritative because it demonstrates your knowledge around a specific topic. And if it’s genuinely useful, people won’t hesitate to go further with your content, such as subscribing to your blog or signing up for an email newsletter. Does this strategy really work? Yes. How do you think Copyblogger became one of the top blogs? Scroll through the left sidebar and you’ll see all of the Copyblogger resources. Most of these are cornerstone pages, grouping several pieces of valuable content with a call to action to subscribe to the blog. 3. Cornerstone pages are shareable Since each piece of cornerstone content helps people address a specific need, they often remember it. For example, any time someone asks me how to write a great blog headline, there’s one resource that comes to mind . . . the Headline Writing series here on Copyblogger. Even though I first read it almost three years ago, I still refer back to it every time I need some inspiration. Whenever anyone asks me how to write a headline, I send them to this resource because of how helpful and complete it is. I don’t have to send them to five different sites, just one simple URL that’s easy to share. How do you create cornerstone content? There are two ways. One, you can start from scratch and write a blog series with the main goal of turning it into cornerstone content. This is a great way to kick off a blog, or to give your blog a boost. But if you’ve been blogging for a while, there’s a faster way to benefit from this strategy . . . without doing extensive content development. Let me explain. You probably have blog categories, right? Take a look through some of your more important categories. What if you hand-picked some of those category-specific articles and grouped them onto a cornerstone page? It would be easy, right? Now what would make this content effective? First, you’d want to do some basic keyword research to make sure you’re targeting a keyword phrase that makes sense. Then you’ll want to write a snappy, informative introduction that builds desire for your content, using smart SEO copywriting to make it search engine-friendly. And finally, you fill out the page with links to content you already have on your site. It’s that simple. Now get to work. If you focus, you can get your first cornerstone page posted in 30 minutes. And of course, the next time you write a guest post, make sure you link to your new cornerstone content page using the appropriate keywords as anchor text (Brian’s new report gives an example of this). How about you? Using any terrific cornerstone content on your own blog? Let us know where to find it in the comments. About the Author: Derek recently launched the blog Social Triggers . Check it out to learn how to use human psychology to get traffic, sales, and subscribers. Also, don’t miss out on his cornerstone content page, Online Sales 101 .

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How Cornerstone Content Gets You Traffic and Subscribers

Landing Page Makeover Clinic #25: LeTrip.org

Posted on April 26, 2010 by BlogPostman

This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work. Jill Mitchell wants to increase awareness and sales of her one-of-a-kind French vintage objects that she sells on Etsy and Ebay. She also wants more visiblity and sales for her buying tours of Provence. She doesn’t actively market her site, although she does enjoy a responsive newsletter following. She doesn’t have a handle on her site metrics — traffic, blog readership, click-through rate from blog to Etsy/Ebay. Jill is flying blind. Let’s see how we can get these sales sailing. The Goal: Sell French tours and vintage gifts. The Problem: Not making enough sales. The Current Landing Page (homepage): http://www.letrip.org Value: $39 — average gift sale The Maven’s 10-Point Critique Click image for larger view #1 — Make sure all your main links work. I usually save the tech tweaks and tuning for the #7-#10 slots and frontload the marketing suggestions, but in this case, I have to start here. When I was putting this makeover together, I got an error message when I clicked the blog link. You need to keep an eye on any issues like this and fix them pronto. When I did manage to get to your blog and clicked “Home,” thinking I’m going back to the main homepage, I don’t. I don’t go anywhere. You’ll want to clarify what HOME means on your blog. Add a “Go to Main Page” so your visitors don’t feel trapped. Trapped people lose the mood to buy. Make your main logo clickable to www.letrip.org #2 — Be upfront, be clear as to the purpose of your site and what visitors can expect to find there. If you want to sell your tours and vintage gifts, you need to be obvious. Say it (and show it) clearly and up front. I had to spend more than a few minutes reading your homepage and clicking around to figure out that you offer specialty buying tours of Provence with the emphasis on vintage and antiques. So let’s start there. You need to get the main idea: “LeTrip — Unique Buying Tours of Vintage Provence” or some variation into your headline. Your tagline can be a little more fun but still clear: “Let an American take you vintage shopping in Provence.” You might also want to work in “Always a Guest, Never A Tourist” and any other descriptors that make sense for you and will be attractive and intriguing to your visitors. #3 — Push your value proposition forward. Way forward. I’m sure the competition for French tourism is intense, even in a recession. So you need to be clear (oops, she said it again) about what makes your tours so gosh darn magnifique as compared to other niche tours of Provence. What can you say about your tours that no one else can? I noticed that your main site talks about wine tours, so you may want to broaden your approach to “Passionate Buying Tours of Provence: Great Wine — Vintage Gifts — Antiques” or whatever works best to capture what is special and unique about Le Trip. #4 — Get your gift store info and links on the homepage. Why segregate your gift businesses strictly to the blog, when you should be promoting them in all the spaces and places your visitors are looking? I’d add an easy-to-see separate button to your current navigation bar with “Unique Vintage Gifts from Provence” and send folks to a separate page where you can highlight your gift items and direct them to your Etsy and Ebay stores. #5 — Organize your navigation for visitor expectations. Make it easy for them to find what they need. Why are your visitors there? They love Provence, want to visit Provence, wish they could see Provence. (And if they can’t, they’d like to purchase a little piece of Provence.) Your navigation needs to reflect the information-seeking needs of your visitors, so I would make the following change: Home — LeTrip Difference — LeTrip Tours — Upcoming Events — Brava! Meet Jill — Read Jill’s Blog — Contact Jill Add a search box and a sitemap, too. #6 — Put your key messaging into the strongest part of your homepage. Sidebars are for sweeteners. Your best homepage real estate is being used for a long, sweetly worded ramble about Provence. Move that content to Le Trip Difference and start promoting your upcoming tours — the ones that pay you cash Euros — there instead! Give your visitors a tasty intro that will draw them deeper into the site for the rest of the information and reservation details. Save your sidebars for secondary sweeteners. Add a rotation of testimonials here, or feature a “gift idea of the month.” #7 — Organize your site for selling and telling. Use your blog to illuminate Jill’s personal style and take. Following info links about tours, I’m sometimes directed to your blog and sometimes not — what’s up with that? I was confused and confounded. I have to imagine your average visitor would be, too. So I’m strongly suggesting that you do a complete revamp of your internal site structure to make sure you keep visitors moving along a consistent, intuitive track on your main site . A leads to B leads to C. (This, after fixing any link issues that might still remain, could be the most important recommendation of the entire Makeover.) Use your blog to express your thoughts, your personality, your take on all things Provence. Your blog is where your clients and prospects get to know more about the person behind LeTrip. The more they know you, the better they’ll feel about taking a tour with you or buying from your stores. #8 — Add those essential credibility boosters! Strengthen your About Jill page with more facts. How long have you been in business? How many tours/people have you given since opening your doors? Are you a member of any travel/tourism associations? Your prospects want to know who they’re doing business with. Also, provide a physical address in France. A P.O. Box is fine, but if you’re promoting your ex-pat lifestyle and business, I’d like to know you’re actually in Provence and not Passaic, New Jersey. #9 — Lay the basic SEO groundwork to boost organic search engine rankings You mentioned in your notes to me that you don’t understand SEO or how it works. There’s a ton of good info out there, but for now here’s what you need to do: Identify the words, terms, and phrases people might use to find your kind of services and products, and make sure you’re using that language in all your content. Make sure each one of your site pages has its own ‘meta’ title that front-loads the keyphrases before your company name. A homepage title might read like this: Vintage Buying Tours of Provence, France :: LeTrip.org . Your other pages would follow the same syntax. Make sure your blog uses best practices for SEO, as well. Check out Copyblogger’s own Scribe SEO for great assistance in this area, as well as our free resources on SEO Copywriting . Don’t stop there, of course. Good SEO makes all the difference, and these few points will give you a good start. #10 — Use social media to connect and grow your tour and gift businesses. You have a tremendous opportunity to widen your prospect universe with social media. So add Facebook and Twitter to your marketing mix. Add the buttons, ask folks to connect with you, and start connecting with others who love Provence and all things vintage. My thanks to Jill Mitchell for her patience and support of Heifer International. Look for my next makeover in approximately 3 to 4 weeks. Want your own Copywriting Maven landing page makeover? Got a landing page that’s more poop than pop? Need to get better results from your online marketing? If you’re interested in a private page makeover, site audit, or other services, please email Roberta directly .) About the Author: Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc . Find her @CopywriterMaven on Twitter.

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Landing Page Makeover Clinic #25: LeTrip.org

Landing Page Makeover Clinic #23: BabyNapsWell.com

Posted on March 18, 2010 by BlogPostman

This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work. Nicole Johnson wants to get babies and their moms some much-needed rest. She’s packed napping plans, schedules, and strategies into her $37 ebook/consultation package. She’s tried different pricing, Google Adwords, different offers, freemiums, and more to pop conversion, but her results still ping between a snoozy 0.5 to 3%. She has good traffic, but needs more help getting those tired, sleepy moms to buy. Let’s see if we can’t help Nicole give her sales a much-needed wakey-wakey. The Goal : Increase conversion (currently below 4%). The Problem : Nearly 3,000 visitors monthly, who show an interest in the free information but don’t ultimately translate to sales. Content Marketing Strategies : Various. Nicole’s free Baby Nap Guide is one piece she uses to get users into her email funnel The Current Landing Page : www.babynapswell.com (home page) Value : $24.95 to $37 Click image for larger view The Maven’s 10-Point Critique #1 – Your first screen has to answer the question — Why do moms want their babies to nap? Because they’re exhausted! They want a relaxed, rested child and a chance for themselves to rest and recharge for a few hours. They’re desperate for RELIEF and they want it now. What’s the deep, realized benefit to your ebook? Your ebook helps break the vicious no nap/irregular nap cycle, makes mom feel more competent and secure as a parent, and makes it easier to enjoy her baby. So here’s the problem — you’ve got 2-3 seconds from the first screen to get your reader involved in your message. Perhaps they’ve already reviewed the free nap info, perhaps not. In either case, you don’t present them with a rich, emotionally resonant headline. You’ve basically repeated the banner head as if it was a headline. It’s not. At first glance, I also have no idea you’re selling anything at all. It isn’t clear to me. So be clear. Develop and test your headlines that speak directly to the mom’s emotional environment — Too tired to enjoy your baby? Dread the nap-time power struggles day after day? In just XX days, you CAN turn your pint-sized nap-fighter into a sweet-smiling, nap-lover. All you need are the right strategies and tools . . . and so forth. #2 — Get personal. Get emotional. Talk to your readers, Mom-to-Mom, in a letter format. Dear Cranky Mom, A few years ago, I was just like you. I was a new mom with a new baby that no matter what I did wouldn’t nap or when she did, it was short and fitful. When this kind of stuff goes on too long, even the most confident mom in the world begins to think she stinks at this mom thing. I was sure I was doing something wrong but I didn’t know what to do instead. Your current copy is factual, but a little bloodless. It doesn’t speak to the heart and the desperation that I know I felt when my kids were little and wouldn’t sleep. If ever there was a problem/solution fraught with anxiety and a deep need for help, this is it. Make sure your copy reaches the frazzled mom with solace and hope that she will, once again, get a chance of closing her own eyes for an hour or two in the afternoon. Get personal with video . I think this could be very effective for you, especially if done professionally. (I don’t think a simple chat to the webcam would support your value or credibility.) Imagine how wonderful it would feel to “Tired Mom” to have someone talk right to her and tell her that relief is in sight. #3 — Make the case why napping issues need a $37 solution. There are a ton of books, sites, products, and even support groups devoted to sleeping issues. I wondered why I needed a special book about napping as opposed to a broader sleep solution. That’s probably the biggest challenge you have to overcome. You’ll want to make sure your copy continues to underscore how the daytime napping problems are different and need a different set of strategies to solve them. #4 — Show and tell the product you’re selling. Put your first call to action in the first screen. If you want people to know you’re selling a book, you gotta show them the book and YOU’VE GOT TO SHOW THEM THE TITLE. I didn’t even realize your ebook was called “Mastering Naps and Schedules” until I saw it mentioned in a testimonial at the end of the second screen. Your cover is very appealing so I’d definitely give it above-the-fold prominence, perhaps working it into the banner art. You also need to give your prospects the opportunity to order at several points in the copy, starting with the first screen. You want one button, text link or other call-to-action (CTA) device per screen scroll. (Right now, it takes me 3 screens to locate the order buttons.) Click image for larger view I prepared a heatmap so you can see what people look at and what they look at first. Too much attention to elements that don’t promote your message means lost sales opportunities for you. (Free heatmap courtesy of the technology at Feng-GUI.com.) #5 — Tell me precisely what I will get and learn from your ebook. Give your readers a bulleted list or two of goodies, and be specific. 28 proven strategies that will . . . 3 easy-to-use tools that make . . . 12 ways to get well-meaning grandma off your back . . . Etcetera. Nothing strengthens copy more than specificity. You already do some of this. Do more. Also, take the feature and expand it into its core benefit. For example, “How to get LONGER naps” becomes “10 ways to get longer naps from your baby and more couch-time for you.” #6 — Emphasize that your system works for nearly all babies and parents. Everyone, including me, thinks their baby and parenting situation is unique. That’s why you’ll want to make sure your copy reinforces that your system works for nearly all young children — preemies, internationally adopted toddlers, twins, and also that it works for all sorts of moms and dads. Use your testimonials as a way of underscoring this. Think about personas representing your customer types. Who is this ebook really for? Write out 3-5 ’stories,’ each representing a key member of your core parenting market, and make sure your copy delivers the message, “Yes, this ebook is perfect for someone like me,” for each one of them. #7 — Establish and reinforce your expertise on the subject. Add a headshot. Who are you and why are you qualified? That’s another one of the big challenges your copy needs to address. Unless I missed it, I don’t see anything about you. If you want me to spend $XX, I want to know enough about you to think I’m spending my money wisely. You don’t have to have an alphabet soup of degrees following your name, but you do need to reveal something of yourself and background within the context of your offering. #8 — Edit, edit and edit some more. Click image for larger view Your moms are tired. Their eyes are glazing over looking at dense, forbidding text in super long paragraphs. Think shorter, 2-5 line paragraphs. Use lots of subheads and bulleted lists to hook the eye and make scanning and scrolling less like a chore. People only need the science/other background about napping to support your ebook’s information. Don’t give more background than is necessary to help folks make a decision to purchase. #9 — Test a 2-column format. Load your sidebar with testimonials. Get the bulk of your “Mom-and-Baby-Tested” testimonials here. Again, edit these judiciously. You want each of these to amplify and illustrate your ebook’s core strengths. I’d also get some pediatricians, pediatric nurse practitioners, daycare center directors, home daycare moms, etc. to weigh-in with their big thumbs-up. Run these short, punchy kudos adjacent to your main copy. #10 — Simplify the offer. Click image for larger view You need to differentiate your offers more emphatically with titling– “The Deluxe Complete BabyNapsWell System with Personal Consultation” and the “Standard BabyNapsWell System” — and with better design. I might box these and play them side by side. Perhaps add your headshot into the Deluxe box as a reminder of the relief AND personal attention your prospect is about to purchase. BONUS: I’d think about giving your ebook a new title. This is a huge topic for so many parents living in the fog of “my baby never sleeps.” “Mastering Naps and Schedules” lacks the emotional juice of “No More Naptime Tears: Get Your Baby to Love Naptime So You Can Love Yours” — or something like that. You want a title that clearly, perhaps cleverly gets the point across fast. You want your title to spell RELIEF IS AT HAND. My thanks to Nicole Johnson for her patience and support of Heifer International. Look for my next makeover in approximately 3 to 4 weeks. Want to get a future Copywriting Maven landing page makeover? Got a landing page that’s more poop than pop? Willing to share with Copyblogger readers? Prepared to put a little of your own “skin in the game” for a Maven Makeover? Then follow your click to Maven’s Landing Page Makeover page for all the details. I’m booked for gratis “Heifer” critiques until 05/15/10.) If you’re interested in a private critique/makeover, site audit, or other services, please email me directly .) About the Author: Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc . Find her @CopywriterMaven on Twitter.

makeovers Landing Page Makeover Clinic #23: BabyNapsWell.com

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Landing Page Makeover Clinic #23: BabyNapsWell.com

Landing Page Makeovers 2007-2009: Where Are They Now?

Posted on February 4, 2010 by

makeovers Landing Page Makeovers 2007 2009: Where Are They Now?

This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work.

It occurred to me late last year, as I was readying yet another Landing Page Makeover, that the end of one year and the beginning of the next was a good time to do a “Where are they now?” post. So first things first, I went back and contacted all makeover participants from the very beginning of the series.

Of the more than 20 contacted, I learned that one is no longer in business, MagicPumpkinArt.com (Makeover #14) and two are in the midst of developing new products or revising their focus: TheLast10lbs.com (Makeover #4) and 4PsofPodcasting.com (Makeover #9).

The rest? Well, most did not respond to our request for follow-up details. (This is me sad ) But of those who did, I think you’ll find their answers interesting and their results encouraging. Here are the questions I posed:

Did you implement all/some/few or none of the recommendations made about your website?
If yes, did you see any tangible results — increased traffic, sign ups, conversions, sales? Were the results the same, better or worse after making the changes? Which changes produced the biggest results and why?
If no, what were the primary reasons? Was it a matter of time or cost to implement? Something else? Did you simply disagree with the recommendations? (Be honest, I can take it.)
Is there anything I could have done differently in preparing the makeover to be more useful to you, your business or your website?

And here are the responses I received (lightly edited for length):

From Carrie Kitze, EMKPress.com (Landing Page Makeover #6)

Click image for larger view

We were poised to do a redesign when Roberta took a look at our site. Her suggestions were on point and helped us streamline and reorganize the site.

We moved to a three column format and made more things clickable.
Each product now has its own page and our resources are more organized for different types of readers to find. (It’s also just cleaner looking.)
Our articles have been linked to by a variety of blogs/forums and when we note that an article has become popular to download, we cross sell products based on the demographics that are hitting that part of the site.

Results:

We have seen a 50% increase in traffic to the site. Now more organized and informational, the site has given us more credibility in a cluttered landscape. We’ve seen an increase in article linking by adoption agencies and professionals, as well.

I would have liked to implement more recommendations but time and budget (mostly time since we are a small office) precluded us from doing more. Just re-reading her suggestions gives me additional ideas on tightening things up in the next few months as we add some additional resources.

Roberta’s suggestions were spot-on and many were easy to implement with measurable results.

From Kristen Galles, BookClubClassics.com (Marketing Plan Makeover #2 )

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I implemented every single suggestion. Her review sparked comments that led to a great discussion about the focus of my website, too.

Initially, when I first created BookClubClassics, I was most interested in selling customized book club discussion guides. However, after Roberta’s review, I realized that this would be a very time-consuming and inefficient way to make money. The guides required hours to create, and the availability of free discussion questions from publishers made my guides a “tough sell.” So, I stopped creating the guides and focused on increasing my readership instead.

Now I have time to create discussion questions (instead of full discussion guides) for those clubs who want guides with more substantial questions. These questions actually sell better than the full guides did!

In addition to Roberta’s general recommendations, her specific detail-oriented suggestions regarding the lay-out and presentation of my website were invaluable as well.

Results:

Each month my readership continues to increase, as do my affiliate earnings.

From Daniel Horning, Marketing Director, HireAHelper.com (Landing Page Makeover #5)

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We implemented most of Roberta’s suggestions. Specifically:

We added more content to our customer review system and added a link to “HireAHelper Protects You. Find out How.” with details about the customer’s transaction and our 100% refund policy.
We added a list of customer reviews to the homepage, landing pages and trust elements. Our BBB logo is now in the top right hand corner of all our pages.
Although Roberta felt that the term, “Day Labor” carries a bit of a negative connotation, we decided to keep it. However, we added more language using “General Help” and “Handyman” and that has helped.
We applied the five-line max paragraph rule and white space recommendation to many of our pages. We also fixed misspellings and have a content review system in place in our office. Our logo is now clickable back to the homepage across the whole site.

Recommendations not implemented:

We considered a new tagline but decided to stick with “Get Local Help. Cheap.” Adding anything to it would have diluted the importance of our 2 main points — local and cheap.
We decided not to include specifics about our customer counts. However, we may revisit this suggestion to continue to boost and support customer confidence in the site, as well as add possible package plans.

Results:

Our customers gained a clearer understanding of our service offerings, especially once they saw the customer reviews posted on the homepage/landing pages.
It’s hard to track the impact that paragraph line counts and white space have on customers directly, but we definitely saw huge growth in the months after the recommendations both in an increase in visitors and an increase in how long they stayed on the site.
We also saw an increase in the conversion rate to just above 6% the first month of 2008 and averaged around 4% throughout the rest of the year.
The suggestions provided are still useful in our planning and development today.

From Nancy Owen Myers, Lunchsense.com (Landing Page Makeover #19)

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Roberta said:

Simplify the homepage!

I did rework the home page. It launches soon.

Choose one primary image that’s representative of everything else.

I used a whole family!

Choose one strong statement.

I went with — “It’s a big world! Better pack a lunch.” This and the whole family image convey that everyone can use this lunchbox.

Rework the navigation and rethink the color scheme.

I did a bunch of things simultaneously when this makeover went up — planned, scheduled, and undertook photography, started to work on new packaging, and reworked the website navigation, too.

Recommendations not implemented:

Test offers — free shipping, discounting, bundling.

I struggle with this as I’m philosophically opposed to “Buy this and get MORE! — but what if I don’t NEED more? That said, I do offer occasional percentage discounts and I can offer free shipping and such offers as appropriate. But I can’t run my biz on that.

Results:

Overall, though, I think the recommendations were generally very good, and if nothing else I’m happier with my site.
I often go in and tweak stuff in the website, and make sure I go through my site page by page every so often to make sure it all hangs together. Roberta’s makeover really helped me make that a priority.

(Roberta’s note — I’ll revisit with Nancy once her redesigned store is live.)

Roberta’s takeaways (and yours)

You don’t have to make large, wholesale changes all at once, but do try and pick the elements that have the most potential for big impact, like testing headlines, adding additional calls to action, and editing content for better readability.
Even small changes can make a difference — try testing text in your call to action links and buttons. You’d be amazed at the difference you’ll see between Buy Now, Join Now, or Find Out More Now.
Push your value proposition forward while embracing your market reality. If there’s a lot of competition for your products/services, find what’s unique about yours — what only you can say — and get it out there. Be opening to reframing your goals as you learn more.

And lastly — Marketing is a process. Always be testing.

I do want to thank all the previous Maven Makeover participants who shared their findings with me (and those that didn’t, we know who you are.)

These brave souls subjected themselves to Roberta’s special brand of “tough marketing love” in a hugely popular public venue — and even paid for the privilege with a donation to Heifer International.

There’s a lot more to come in 2010 . . . so please stay tuned.

Additional note: As I was writing this post, news came in about the devastating earthquake in Haiti. If you’re a fan of my Maven Makeover series and have learned a little something along the way, please “pay it forward” and make a generous donation today to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Here’s your chance to be the Copywriting Maven’s next landing page makeover!

Got a landing page that’s more poop than pop? Willing to share with Copyblogger readers? Prepared to put a little of your own “skin in the game” for a Maven Makeover? Then click on Maven’s Landing Page Makeover page for all the details.

I’m booked for gratis “Heifer” critiques until 4/1/10. If you’re interested in a private critique/makeover or other services, please email me directly.

About the Author: Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc. Find her @CopywriterMaven on Twitter.