28 Nov 2007

MarketingSherpa's Landing Page Handbook is AWESOME

MarketingSherpa, a research firm specializing in "what works in marketing", recently launched the 2nd edition of the "Landing Page Handbook: How to Raise Conversions – Data & Design Guidelines" on the 5th of November.



I was quite excited to receive a hard copy of the handbook as it has been three years since they published their first edition of the handbook. The first edition, which was launched in fall of 2004 became a best-seller and literally changed the way online marketers and web designers looked at the impact of landing pages in the success of online campaigns.

For your information, “Landing pages” refer to the pages on your site that visitors land on when they click on a banner ad, link ad, email link or search engine result.

It took me sometime to go through all 273 pages of the book and I have one word to describe it – “AWESOME”.

There are dozens of real case studies along with graphics and statistics. I didn’t count but according to their site, the new edition has a total of 114 sample landing pages. The new edition also has some information about blogs. The information only covers 5 pages but I still found it quite useful – especially the part about email subscription sign-ups. That is something I never even considered.

One feature I especially found interesting was their "eyetracking heatmap" in colour, that shows the high attention zone on a web page.

This book is absolutely invaluable for marketers, web designers, web consultant and SEO practitioners alike.

What do I wish they had included in the handbook?

- More info on blogs
- An index page that would make it easier to search for certain key words.

Other than that, the book was really an eye opener. There are so many small things that is quite obvious but you never thought about. I wish I had come across this book before as I realized the mistakes I had made in the past as a freelance web designer. The book points out simple yet common mistakes we make like not taking into consideration the impact of screen resolution and different browsers – something I learnt through trial and error.

To learn more about the handbook or to purchase a copy, go to: http://www.SherpaStore.com/LandingPageHandbook.html

Thanks Jeanne for sending me a copy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The orginal price of this book is $497 ... But I have a ebook.. and I would only sell it for $200 ...

contact me mgeconcillo at gmail dot com