6 ms·

I mean no disrespect, but I am horrified by your first case. If I don't know what a product does and the basics of how it works in the first 15 seconds, I move

I mean no disrespect, but I am horrified by your first case. If I don't know what a product does and the basics of how it works in the first 15 seconds, I move on. I never give personal info in order to proceed into the web site. Not ever!

raiyu 8y ago
I would agree. Some of the examples for me are exactly what I dislike about many landing pages. They do a very poor job of explaining what it is the company does and you could put 10 companies under the same tag line and it would be just as true.
AznHisoka 8y ago
I totally agree. What a generic, worthless tagline: “Make your website better”. Better how?
- ozim 8y ago
  But it helps you to know it is not "Make your sales org better". It helps if you search for something that makes your website better, you know you are in right place and you can read more. If not you move to next page in 0.5 second instead of reading some irrelevant technical details of how.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    "Irrelevant technical details" is exactly the "how" in the "how". I need to know some of it to evaluate whether I'm really "in the right place". I'm not going to trust the smiley faces on stock photos - that's how charlatans work.
    - iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
      It’s likely you’re not exactly the target audience.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        Yeah sure, the target audience of charlatans are extremely gullible people. That doesn't mean everything is OK.
    - ozim 8y ago
      So are you buying services after reading first page? I am more like discarding stuff after reading first page and getting into details when I have more time, then after I get through details I buy.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  I also agree. There needs to be a unique and specific selling proposition. For example in real estate: "your home sold in 120 days or I'll buy it". That give me a reason and beneficial out come to contact them. Generic "make it better" without any specific stats, features, or a guarantee etc is a wasted opportunity. There are a lot of ways to do it but it generally needs to be enticing and specific.
supersrdjan 8y ago
Good observation. The reason that CrazyEgg can get by with such a headline is that they count on their audience (marketers) already being familiar with the tool. If you look at older versions of their website through the web archive you'll see that they used to have more informative headlines, such as "Get Immediate Insight Into Your Visitor's Behavior"[1] followed by actual descriptions of what the product does. When creating their landing pages, people often model pages of well-established companies, missing the fact that their audience's awareness level is totally different. It's a common mistake. You end up with a website as pretty as the one from your favorite startup, but with horrific bounce and conversion rates. I call it the cargo cult[2] approach to marketing --- [1]: http://web.archive.org/web/20110225071634/https://www.crazyegg.com http://web.archive.org/web/20110225071634/https://www.crazye... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
- cpburns2009 8y ago
  CrazyEgg is a real product? I thought it was a mock-up with the vaguest description possible. I clearly do not understand this article.
- deltron3030 8y ago
  Good point!
- CM30 8y ago
  Not just landing pages either. Lots of eCommerce sites take inspiration from Amazon and the likes, despite Amazon obviously having far more audience awareness and the ability to get away with what would otherwise be questionable UI designs. Jakob Nielson says something similar about Amazon here: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/amazon-no-e-commerce-role-model/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/amazon-no-e-commerce-role-m...
pedrocortes 8y ago
You do have a point but it depends on the case. This would be a stupid idea in most cases but I mentioned CrazyEgg get's most of their traffic through content marketing. This means their landing page is an article and when people see that headline the audience is already warm, it's totally different.

raiyu 8y ago

I would agree. Some of the examples for me are exactly what I dislike about many landing pages. They do a very poor job of explaining what it is the company does and you could put 10 companies under the same tag line and it would be just as true.

AznHisoka 8y ago

I totally agree. What a generic, worthless tagline: “Make your website better”. Better how?

ozim 8y ago
But it helps you to know it is not "Make your sales org better". It helps if you search for something that makes your website better, you know you are in right place and you can read more. If not you move to next page in 0.5 second instead of reading some irrelevant technical details of how.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  "Irrelevant technical details" is exactly the "how" in the "how". I need to know some of it to evaluate whether I'm really "in the right place". I'm not going to trust the smiley faces on stock photos - that's how charlatans work.
  - iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
    It’s likely you’re not exactly the target audience.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Yeah sure, the target audience of charlatans are extremely gullible people. That doesn't mean everything is OK.
  - ozim 8y ago
    So are you buying services after reading first page? I am more like discarding stuff after reading first page and getting into details when I have more time, then after I get through details I buy.
paulie_a 8y ago
I also agree. There needs to be a unique and specific selling proposition. For example in real estate: "your home sold in 120 days or I'll buy it". That give me a reason and beneficial out come to contact them. Generic "make it better" without any specific stats, features, or a guarantee etc is a wasted opportunity. There are a lot of ways to do it but it generally needs to be enticing and specific.

supersrdjan 8y ago

Good observation. The reason that CrazyEgg can get by with such a headline is that they count on their audience (marketers) already being familiar with the tool. If you look at older versions of their website through the web archive you'll see that they used to have more informative headlines, such as "Get Immediate Insight Into Your Visitor's Behavior"[1] followed by actual descriptions of what the product does. When creating their landing pages, people often model pages of well-established companies, missing the fact that their audience's awareness level is totally different. It's a common mistake. You end up with a website as pretty as the one from your favorite startup, but with horrific bounce and conversion rates. I call it the cargo cult[2] approach to marketing --- [1]: http://web.archive.org/web/20110225071634/https://www.crazyegg.com http://web.archive.org/web/20110225071634/https://www.crazye... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

cpburns2009 8y ago
CrazyEgg is a real product? I thought it was a mock-up with the vaguest description possible. I clearly do not understand this article.
deltron3030 8y ago
Good point!
CM30 8y ago
Not just landing pages either. Lots of eCommerce sites take inspiration from Amazon and the likes, despite Amazon obviously having far more audience awareness and the ability to get away with what would otherwise be questionable UI designs. Jakob Nielson says something similar about Amazon here: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/amazon-no-e-commerce-role-model/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/amazon-no-e-commerce-role-m...

pedrocortes 8y ago

You do have a point but it depends on the case. This would be a stupid idea in most cases but I mentioned CrazyEgg get's most of their traffic through content marketing. This means their landing page is an article and when people see that headline the audience is already warm, it's totally different.