Landing page wins and landing page sins

Here’s a list taken from our recent “Honest Seduction for Landing Pages” webinar—a quick run down of  wins & sins I found when randomly surfing some landing pages. You can check out the good, the bad and the ugly yourself—I posted the slides on slideshare, which include screen shots. 

The sins:

• Message mismatch
• Ad, or topic-inspecific pages
• Visual clutter
• Offer complexity
• Fuzzy call to action or next step
• Inappropriate to the context
• Message, offer or call to action too deep or too high in the funnel
• Lowest common denominator page
• Assuming users will wait for pages to load
• Self indulgent use of Flash or video
• Hurdles to convert

The wins:

• Honest representation of the brand
• Message match
• Ad, or topic-specific pages
• Visual clarity
• Simplicity
• Clear call to action
• Appropriate to the context
• Appropriate to user’s place in the funnel
• Reinforce the ad promise—give the gorilla the banana

Comments

[Chris Boldon]

Nice post. "Give the gorilla the bananna" -- I will never again forget to "Reinforce the ad promise"

[Anna Talerico]

Thanks Chris! I have to tip my hat to Seth Godin for that one. We used to work with him many moons ago and whenever we started a new landing page he would say 'Don't forget to give the gorilla the banana'. It stuck! The ad is the promise of the banana. When a user clicks the ad and lands, the page needs to pay it off right away.