What do you think of my landing page? It's a page to sell a video course for web developers
Here's the site: https://moderndevtools.com
One thing I'm not sure about: is it even worth doing a "pre-launch" where you can't deliver the goods/services yet? I'm still working on the course, but I figured an early announcement is useful because:
- I can judge initial attention and feedback to understand demand for the course
- Collect email addresses of those who are interested
Apart from that, what do you think of the page itself?
You might benefit from reading this interview with Justin Jackson where he talks about launching his own course for developers. I definitely think it makes sense to start marketing and collecting email addresses before you have anything ready.
As for your landing page, I think it's a great start. My number one tip for you is to focus more on the benefits that you will provide your audience. Specifically your top tagline says:
Telling me a lot about how the course works (video) and what it teaches, but you're not selling me on why I should take it. You want people to read your tag line and say, "This is for me!" or "This is exactly what I want to do!" For example.
To do that, it helps to explicitly identify who your course is for, and what ultimate benefit they will get out of it. Will it help beginners land their first programming job? Will it help junior devs improve their skills and get promoted to senior level? Is it for entrepreneurs who want to build robust websites on their own?
The more time you spend actually talking to individual people at during this phase and trying to convince them to sign up for your course, the more you'll learn about what type of person the course appeals to most and why. You can use that information to continually update and improve your marketing copy.
Fully agreed. The developer in me kept writing things concerning implementation details, rather than the value to the user.
I've changed some text around, e.g. instead of "DevTools as an IDE", I've changed that to "Develop in the Browser". "Node.js" -> "Full Stack Web Dev", "Performance debugging for the modern web" -> "Create lightning fast websites" etc.
I've also added a new headline in the initial viewport which explains what the course will accomplish. At first I thought it would be gimmicky, but it's true, I need to be crystal clear to the user what the course provides to them.
A nice thought, this. Hopefully a pre-launch will collect useful feedback which can influence the design and copy, meaning the pressure to get it perfect from the start is not too high.
I've pushed my changes, feel free to check it out.
This is all excellent advice. Thank you.
Let us know how the pre-launch goes!
Also, I think the most important thing I said in my first comment was to try selling your course to individual people ASAP. Sales should come before marketing, because that interactive one-on-one process of talking to people will teach you about your customers, and you can take those learnings and put them in your mass marketing messages (e.g. your pre-launch). It's much harder to learn from marketing, because it's impersonal, so people will see your email/website/etc at and say "no" without ever telling you why.
If you can, try selling your course to at least a few people per week, either in person or over the phone!
EDIT: I love your updated copy where you say: "This course will take your web development career to the next level 📈 by turning you into a performance expert" 👍
Thanks for the push! When I initially asked for feedback on what people wanted to see in the course (nothing to do with the landing page): https://twitter.com/umaar/status/832600986355191808 - a few people kindly reached out personally. I think they'll be good candidates to try and sell to! This should help encourage rapid feedback.
There is indeed a lot going on in your page, but in a good way. There's a lot of content but there's good visual division between the parts and all of the info looks pertinent. This definitely looks appealing - those 3 testimonials at the top are almost guaranteed to put any visitor's mind at ease that know who Wes, Sara and Paul are.
The only thing that seems a bit lacking is the hero which is kinda boring but that's not really a big deal once someone scrolls 50vh down and starts seeing the content.
Good luck with this! I've signed up for updates for sure.
Thanks Pawel. Really appreciate your insight 👍
Good to know the testimonials are reassuring!
True, the hero section at the top is bland. Will keep an eye out for a suitable background image to place there, maybe a blurred out image of DevTools, or just a simple repeating pattern.
This is looking good, congrats, you've put in a lot of work into this page and it shows.
I subscribed to your newsletter - but I had to go back and look if there's a form, because I didn't see it the first time. Maybe repeating it at the bottom would help? Or a Hellobar?
I heard it's a good idea to give money-back guarantees. People don't really ask for their money back, but it's reassuring to know that they have the possibility. Every long-form sales page has it.
Like others, I also feel that there's too much content. I have an idea on why the screenshots are overwhelming: they are full of text. Next to a headline + paragraph, they make the page look chock-full of stuff. Maybe add a modal/carousel, or maybe replace them with more abstract illustrations? I realize that takes time, and your time is probably better spent elsewhere, like doing 1-on-1 sales like someone mentioned here.
I also looked at the content, under "WHAT YOU WILL LEARN" and I saw too much advanced stuff:
These sound like they are off-topic, although they might not be. But they are in line with the general feeling of too much information.
Your first FAQ question needs more focus:
This may be too broad. I get that everyone can benefit, but in real-life, I don't see all designers and devops guys getting much value out of this.
I know this is the hardest question to answer. But a senior devops guy has very different expectations than a mid-level node.js developer. Are you sure you can cater to both? The answer may be "yes". After all, devtools are super-useful at any level. But as a senior dev, I'm a bit worried than this course might not be for me. So too can a junior feel overwhelmed, and ask himself: do I really want to learn to build a browser extension?
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I also read about your copy edits so far, here in the thread. You are definitely on the right track, and making real progress. Goes to show that this forum is awesome!
Best of luck!
Hey vladfratila, this is such good advice. Really appreciate it. I've tried to take some actions based on what you've said.
(Thanks for noticing the effort I put into it! Ironically, I might have spent so much time on it that it ended up overwhelming the user with content!)
Newsletter - The 'signup for udates' already exists on the page twice. I figured getting a users email address is not easy, so I wanted to earn the users trust before I ask for it, hence it being lower down in the page. Maybe I should just put it higher?
money-back guarantees - Done. Hopefully it won't get abused. I added a deadline of one month from purchase though.
too much content - Enough people have said this now that I took some action. Thanks. I've removed redundant text throughout the page making it slightly shorter. Testimonials, which were very text heavy, are now truncated to a few lines with a 'read more' link.
Yourself & @RyanB mentioned the screenshots, to combat this, I've tried to go for a quick win:
I was about to add a carousel but I guess not everyone is a fan (http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/), however I agree with you that it'd still be an improvement from overwhelming the user with loads of screenshots.
too much advanced stuff - Initially I was going to focus the course at advanced users only, but now I want to make it accessible to both beginner and advanced users. For now, I've scrapped the extension development/devtools source code stuff.
Your first FAQ question needs more focus - Have stopped trying to "catch-all". It now reads "Front-end web developers - from beginner to advanced." You're right, a designer wouldn't benefit from most lessons and simply putting it there can end up turning other disciplines away.
If you care to double check, that'd be very kind! Even a quick skim through to let me know if the page feels any lighter. You've already been a big help, thanks!
Side note: All your feedback was extremely specific, this made life a lot easier. Thanks again!
Better! Thanks!
Good thinking with limiting the money-back guarantee. I don't think it matters for the user - but it covers you.
There is A LOT going on on your landing page. If it's overwhelming for someone who has been developing for a decade, it's going to be extremely overwhelming for potential customers who are looking to learn the basics.
I would recommend getting rid of the dev tool screen shots [https://ibb.co/mUpMRF] and adding fun, inviting icons. Something modern, colorful, and conveys the idea you're trying to get across.
Something more like these: https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1342934/citycons_morning_news_newspaper_icon#size=128
They're free with attribution.
I agree with part of this, there is a lot going on. I've given your suggestion of screenshot removal a lot of thought (thank you 👍), but I'm not convinvced. DevTools is an extremely visual tool, and I would like to take advantage of that. I also believe some folks will appreciate seeing screenshots and think to themselves "I never figured out how this feature works". The nice thing with DevTools screenshots is web folk can hopefully relate to them.
May I ask, what about the screenshots you are not a fan of? I would guess, in isolation they're ok, but combined with other on-screen elements, it becomes too overwhelming?
I'm thinking of this for a compromise: place sections which aren't critical to the user below the purchase section. That way, for those who are eager to read all the little details, they can.
I do think you're right though, for someone looking to learn just the basics, the page might be too heavy, but I feel it's safer to have too much, rather than not enough.
Yeah, I totally agree that it's just about finding the right compromise between the two. I'm not saying trash the screenshots all together, just maybe use them once the consumer dives deeper.
When there are so many screenshots together, it can get overwhelming ; it takes time to focus and figure out what's going on in each one. Maybe instead, have a simple icon with an expand or info icon next to it that will then show the feature in a modal with the screenshot and some more in depth details.
Definitely get some more opinions, but just my 2 cents 😊
This is wonderful advice. Thank you. Going to think about your modal idea. Alternatively, I might be able to improve things just by having less screenshots, right now there's 11!
Below in this thread, @vladfratila confirmed what you said. Screenshots are a bit too much. For now, I've removed about half of them and made them smaller so the user doesn't feel they have to read the text within the screenshot.