Landing Page Rescue 🛟
Get clear, practical advice to fix your Landing Page
I was still searching for the right name and way to describe my Landing Page Roast service. Everyone and their mom seem to be offering design roast services, so I need to distinguish.
The term "roast" isn't my favorite. It's easy to say and use and people mostly understand what "roast' means—but I wanted something different.
Finally, "rescue" came to my mind. It fit, made sense, and—most importantly—search results showed "landingpagerescue.com" was available.
Deal sealed 🤙
Life is getting back to normal now, so I'm posting an update. All my plans and work to grow my business and offerings this year were crushed starting April 1st (no joke).
My house has mold... or, it did at that time. The story is long and full of sighs, but needless to say this was a big deal and the beginning of a HUGE undertaking.
Here's the short version:
• House has mold
• Decide not to remediate
• Instead, I tear the house down to the studs
• Rebuild everything with new materials
• Do a lot of work myself, basically working part-time on my business and part-time on my house
• Hire a ton of people
• Pay a whole lotta money
Tomorrow a plumbing crews will be at the house for the finishing touches. And then my family will move back in.
I haven't given up on my goals for the year, but had to take a hiatus for 7 months.
(I copied this North Star outline from someone else, but can't remember who)
🧭 North Star
→ The website should be simple
→ I need to ship the product on my own
→ I need a single service that I provide
→ I need a repeatable process for reviews
→ I need to be able to complete a review in 1-hour
→ It should require minimum support and maintenance after the launch
→ I should make money from it
🔬 The Problem and Hypothesis
- People need an expert to review and advise what should and should not be on their Landing Page.
- Target Audience: Product owners/founders
- Type of Landing Page: SaaS
- Price Point: $250-600
- Expected customer ROI: 10x
🥅 My Goals
- Create a Landing Page to sell my service
- Test customer acquisition channels (Indie Hackers, Twitter, Reddit, Dribbble, Google Ads etc.)
- Ranking on the first page for "????" search queries on Google
- Make $1000 monthly revenue from bookings
🛠 What do I need to build a Landing Page service?
- A process plan for reviews
- Scheduled time in the week
- Process and Library maintenance
- Landing Page on Matter UX website
- Payment gateway
🚧 Product Development
- Operate under the Matter UX umbrella
- A service page on MUX website
- Create page outline and content plan
- Write all content before design
- Design page using templated tools
- Matter UX website tooling needs to be updated
💵 Monetization Methods
- Direct bookings - 25 min video - $250
- Book upgrades (Live discussion, etc)
- Upsell to design service
- Access to a library of LP reviews
- Newsletter tiers
- Sell Playbook access
- Affiliate links
- eBook
🎯 CTAs
- Pay for a review
- Email capture
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Idea is absolutely needed. It is in fact a big missing for IH for me. Well done for initiative.
- I would have loved to see evidence using existing Indies requests for roast, say 5, the before and after. That would be absolutely HOT! versus going for the cash grab.
- Lacking for me is any evidence you can do it well. I found the tools LP not great by any means and so if this is the evidence I would say your offering is an over-promise. A LP for this offering is actually a very easy LP as niche is well defined; existing audience already defined (and hungry). This means your cred has taken a shot already but hey fail, and seek feedback and course correct is what indies is about.
- I would not spend the asking $ unless I see evidence. Standard engagement when your asking people to pay that sort of $ range.
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Fantastic response and you are spot on!
Did you see my other post with the Landing Page Roast design? Or are your comments based on the text in this post? (your comments apply to both)
- Def need to show examples of previous work! I do have a content library of previous work.
- Need to provide more proof about results—could be pulling together my testimonials.
- Need to prove that I (the person offering the service) have the experience and skills to provide valuable insight
Other post:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/roast-my-landing-page-about-my-landing-page-roast-service-3ab7dc9b8cLink to the service page design on Figma:
https://www.figma.com/file/0FC3cKuPedM74P9xmt14kX/Landing-Page-Roast?node-id=1%3A14681&t=8FgxVlwT7JIVJtQq-1👍
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Cool.
- Yes, saw the LP and reply is to that. I replied here as I track the app timeline and so it means the reply is in context here (on product page). If you want explicit critque, happy to, but thinking you didnt as that is the service offering.
- Yes, saw the figma (which for me was a scrolling screenshot of the website)... so didnt get the added value of making us go to figma, expand out.. tedious.. Rather than direct experience of site.
Two other points:
1 Engagement approach
Fm the cred thing to do is deliver and teach e.g teach indies to fish versus give them fish.In this space, educational approach is much greater value add - 'seek to educate + delivery product' versus 'deliver product'. I also suggested this same approach to another IH-er . In your case product = LP mastery and the other IH-er, the product = A/B testing library .
(https://www.indiehackers.com/product/glance/introducing-the-ultimate-saas-a-b-test-library-explore-winning-designs-from-top-companies--NRJlqS0o8IN1FPU_0L6?)When we are truelly running a business online, nothing is static. Most pages, include LP are not static. LP design is not a one-off exercise. Running a business we continually evolve and thus change our shop-front (our LP).
2: Branding v LP
The other jigsaw piece that I am not seeing many IH-ers get is the distinction of branding v LP.- Branding = power to craft the branding story first and separate from LP and how one can weave that thru (embed) in every single interaction from citizen, thru to first sale, and ongoing sale thru to champion of your product.
- Branding means first time launch, and Re-branding fixing stale business or launching first time in a stale market space.
- Branding includes tag-line etc..
- The LP is online "shop front" as in the ole brick and mortar days. This simple fact is just missing in many online businesses.
- Crafting a brand is easier than re-branding. The skill to rebrand is a next level UX designer as it combines solid UX experience, and a deep understanding of transformation and what it takes to flip citizens.
ReLondon https://brandethos.co.uk/work/relondon is one the better rebranding I have seen and both the CTA was speaking into a green fatigue and to 1million citizens. BrandEthos s hows the Before and After powerfully too. Easy to share and get how they took the awful London Councils sustainability site ==> rebranded (aka transformed) ==> ReLondon sustainability. Demonstrate your this good and I will naturally be raving about you, like I do with BrandEthos.
FYI: Finding your north star is bit gimmicky fm. Thou I am no fluff, no nonsense style of person. I coach my SMEs to have laser like focus. No waffle.
A north star is nothing more than, calling your self to account. This is the key. Ability to do that and you will be successful online. It requires brutal honesty with self (aka ability to be vulnerable) + self-aware +resilience. To do that, one must be clear where they are heading (the single point of focus). Then use this point of focus (aka the North Star) as the compass for ALL decisions. As the deciding point of in/out of scope to avoid feature bloat etc.. . As the sense-checker to utilise on the way.
When one does not have a laser focus, the CTA is luke warm at best.
Hope it helps.
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I really like your approach. Good luck man and keep the updates going!!!
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Thanks! You word encourage me to continue
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Part of my goal in building out my Landing Page Roast service (and growing my Matter UX business) is to keep the tech as simple as possible when I can. I have a tendency to lean heavily into robust design and dev systems because I'm seeking design perfection, lock-in avoidance, maintainability, and scalability.
And over the past decade, I have learned the hard lessons of over-designing, over-developing, and delaying the launch until everything is pixel-perfect.
Not this time!
Attempting to be flexible where I can and detailed where it counts.
In order to begin building a library of content, I started simply by using Notion. Added Landing Page Reviews as I completed them, added Landing Page Examples from various sources, and began a "Landing Page Playbook" of sorts (needs work).
From there, I decided to upgrade a step from sharing a link to my actual Notion board and connection to Potion.so on the free tier for a simple Notion+Potion powered website.
Here's what I have so far:
🚀 Landing Page Reviews
🦉 Landing Page Examples
🕹️ Landing Page Playbook
This works thus far, is easy to maintain, and I can grow it as I go along.
Index page 👉 https://matter-ux.addpotion.com/
I've spent more time than I should to consider the tooling for my own Landing Page website. I'm a designer and front-end developer, so I have high expectations and history using a multitude of design tools and development tools.
Selling and executing on services provided should be my main effort, not design and dev tooling. So, here are my needs:
- Easy to maintain and create new content
- No lock-in to a platform
- Flexibility to implement any design or code
THE FEATURES SHOPPING LIST:
• Easy-to-use page builder tools
• Has reusable/custom components ability
• Ideally has CMS and collection capabilities
• Ready to use components, elements, and sections
• Connects to Figma designs?
• Easy to embed/use third-party scripts of widgets
• Free tier is ideal
• Host code wherever I want
• Deploys lightweight code
• Static site generation is preferred (pure HTML would be preferred over a React-based site)
• Some sort of workflow for editing, storing, and deploying site code (Tool > Github > Hosting)
TOOLS TO CONSIDER:
• Webflow. Tried Webflow, it could be a good choice.
• Framer. Tried Framer, I like the tooling. May create better "lightweight" code than Webflow.
• Other page builders. Tried several other simple site builder tools, but are usually lacking in features.
• WordPress. Have used WP a lot in the past with Elementor. But really don't want a bulky site with a database, PHP, and the rest.
• Just write the code. My fallback is to write the code myself. I could do this using Next.js or something else for static site generation, but this would be the slowest method to publish content. And I could run into dev issues that are beyond my skills.
Please advise if you have a recommendation. Or tell me to ship it because that is all that matters.
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If you can code Versoly is the one. We have a lot of indie hackers who tried Webflow and "hated it" their words.
Versoly allows you to build sites fast but you don't have to waste hours learning a platform as it has vs code built-in.
Even exports to Tailwind so you can use it in Nextjs.
Several days ago I posted in the Landing Page Feedback group that I would redesign someone's Landing Page for free.
Community members submitted a dozen Landing Pages and after inspecting each I landed on MonsterWriter as the one to work the magic on.
@WolfOliver's submission of MonsterWriter was selected because it is in a good position for a redesign without requiring too much copywriting or product positioning. After all, this began as a redesign experiment... (note the began)
- The MonsterWriter website had most of the "required" content for a successful Landing Page.
- MonsterWriter has several hundred existing users.
- A visual design overhaul could take the website from 3-star to 5-star
Check out the current state of the MonsterWriter website to see what we are starting with.
Over the next several days, I worked on multiple aspects of the Landing Page:
- Expanding the content and sections on the Landing Page
- Redesigning the landing page UI
- Writing/generating text copy with the help of ChatGPT
- Trying to record a decent pitch video (probably the biggest fail, ha)
Here are the results of the effort:
📽 Watch the post-design YouTube video walkthrough
🎨 View the Figma File of the new design
📝 Read the generated ChatGPT text copy
This is a look back at how I started the validation process.
My first step before building anything new, including my own landing page, was to validate my idea right here on Indie Hackers.
I spent some time in the Landing Page Feedback group replying to requests for feedback. After providing feedback to a dozen posts and receiving good responses I decided to try something new.
Instead of hopping into other people's posts, I would create my own.
This was my first post: Submit: I will redesign 1 landing page LIVE for free
While this was a good start and received a number of replies, I realized later I was unsure what service I was advertising. My initial plan was to provide a review service, but my post was a design service.
Part of my reasoning was I thought I needed to provide something BIGGER than a simple review to generate interest. Either way, there were enough replies to consider and provide feedback.
After reviewing each submission, I provided a text review to each person and selected the 1 project that would receive the landing page redesign—MonsterWriter.
While thinking about 2023 and the year ahead, I knew I needed to diversify my business (Matter UX). I typically have one or two large long-term clients and several smaller clients. Following that model has worked well.
However, my thinking came to a small, quick, and valuable service. What specialty service or product could I provide that people needed, had an explicit process, easy to repeat, and requires less than a day to execute.
Ideas:
- Quick turnaround design concepts
- SEO audit
- Onboarding audit
- Landing page audit
- Design consulting call
- Checkout flow audit
- 1-hour logo design
- Newsletter
- Slide Deck Design
Requirements:
- Fast turn around 2-8 hours
- Low-cost commitment to customers
- High ROI for customers
- Decent monthly revenue stream
I landed on the Landing Page Audit idea. I've seen a number of people providing this type of service, some with better outcomes than others. So, there is some validation that this type of service is needed and wanted. I'm not here to reinvent the wheel or create a brand-new product or concept.
Now for research and strategy...
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