Terrible Landing Page Rant
by DazzlinDonna
Be forewarned: I may have several rant posts coming at you over the next few days. Here’s the first.
Let’s get one thing very, very clear. A good search ranking is wonderful … but for all that is sacred in the geekdom, please don’t ruin a perfectly good ranking with a terrible landing page!
Being the geek that I am, a large proportion of my daily searches are for software, scripts, or applications of one sort or another. Unfortunately, a large percentage of the landing pages that I am directed to from those top 10 rankings are so bad that they immediately lose me as a customer. Some of those products are commercial and some are open-source. But make no mistake about the free ones – their goal is to convert just as much as the commercial ones. Otherwise, why bother having a product, right?
Sure, everyone talks about conversions and landing pages, and getting that right can sometimes require a freaking Ph.D. in marketing and stats, I know that. But it doesn’t take a genius or a degree of any sort to recognize a TERRIBLE landing page. So why do so many product pages look like the example below – in which there’s not one single hint of what the product does, who it is for, or what features or benefits it has. Why do product home pages (yes, the screenshot below is the freaking HOME PAGE), so often have nothing on them but announcements that should be relegated to a sidebar at best? (I’ve blurred much of the text, because I’m not into embarrassing anyone. But this was such a good example, I just had to share).
And now…the visualization of my rant…
Absolutely nothing on this site’s home page tells me anything I would want to know about the product. Needless to say, I did not waste my time trying to find out if the product was right for me or not. I just returned to the SERPs and chose a different result.
Moral of The Story: If your landing page sucks, your top 10 ranking is a waste of space.
That landing page does indeed suck… it looks like it was designed for existing customers only, with no attempt at converting at all. I would wonder if they even know that they have top 10 rankings for something other than their name or the name of their product.
Hi Donna,
Great rant – and I’m in 100% agreement. Rankings are great – traffic is great – but the bottom line is conversions! I think the trend is shifting away from rankings and towards the post-click marketing sphere – as evidenced by the recent attention the matter has been getting here and there.
The more we evangelize the visitor experience POST CLICK – the better off the industry will be as a whole – with results weeding out the good from the bad.
Thanks for your input –
Carrie
I totally agree. There are too much websites with high rankings that can easily tenfold their income by creating better call to actions!
For landing page analysis try http://www.pagealizer.com/ Pagealizer shows how long people stay on your page (actual bounce rate), how far visitors scrolled down the page and where they clicked. Check us out
that F logo in the header looks like the shoemonkey logo
Hi Donna,
I totally agree – landing pages that do not convert are a giant waste of money regardless of how you drive traffic to your site.
Check out my new book from John Wiley Press – Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions http://LandingPageOptimizationBook.com
If someone is looking to have a high-traffic page fixed, they should contact my company http://SiteTuners.com
We will do it on a pure performance basis (no upfront charges of any kind).
Companies or agencies that want to run landing page tests in-house can also license our technology to run much bigger and faster tests.
Warmest Regards,
Tim Ash – President – SiteTuners.com
I totally agree with you Donna..^^…we always need to keep in mind to make our landing pages as catchy as possible..that way, first time visitors to our site will find it informative and interesting…that way you won’t only have a one time traffic but a recurring one..^^
Ahh user experience. So many designers and developers don’t put themselves in the shoes (screen) of the visitor. There are so many variables in converting a user from click to purchase. The key to start with seems a little nutty. You have to put yourself in the thought process of the searcher.
For many people SEO becomes an obsession. Rankings are all. They believe that as long as they rank #1 the sales will follow.
I have seen people that not only do not care about the landingspage of their website, but also not about finding converting keywords.
I agree with Bull Gang Tactical on “You have to put yourself in the thought process of the searcher.” Focus on that at first. Then you are already halfway in the right direction.