Healthwealthhappinessfreedom: Landing Page Makeover Clinic #27: HiddenSoy.com

Landing Page Makeover Clinic #27:
HiddenSoy.com

by Roberta Rosenberg

This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work.

Most days I just don’t know what’s safe to eat or drink, but I’ve always thought that soy was a better, more nutritious choice for my protein needs — didn’t you? More vegan and all that.

Well, that’s not the way Dianne Gregg sees it. In fact, she thinks the stuff is downright dangerous to your health and well-being. Ever wonder how much soy is actually lurking in the food we eat, unannounced and unidentified? Dianne has the goods on that info, too, and she wants to share.

She’s got a blog, a newsletter, and a book. She wants more subscribers and she wants to sell more books. For the purposes of this makeover, we want to focus on growing her subscriber base. Grow the subscribers and the book sales will follow.

The Goal: Increase subscription rate to 100 new subscribers weekly toward the overall goal of converting subscribers into buyers for her book, The Hidden Dangers of Soy.

The Problem: Need more traffic, unable to directly track sales from promotional efforts, including social networking, article writing, blogs, etc.

The Current Landing Page (homepage): hiddensoy.com

Value: $17.95 (a little cheaper at Amazon) & $10.50 e-book

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The Maven’s 10-Point Critique

#1 — Focus your readers’ attention with a strong establishing headline.

Your content doesn’t offer a clear entry point (I’ve highlighted the different areas where you dance all around it) where you connect the dots for the visitor. You need a strong headline to tie it all together, like:

“Could All the So-Called “Healthy” Soy You’ve Been Eating Actually Be Making You and Your Family Sick?”

(A variant for moms could be: “Could All the So-Called “Healthy” Soy You’ve Been Giving Your Family Actually Be Making Them (and You!) Sick?”)

It’s not enough to just present the danger; you need to make it personal.

#2 — Focus your content on the single most important thing you want visitors to do.

Here’s a heat map I did for your current site. (Courtesy of Feng-Gui.com.)

Notice how your newsletter sign-up area doesn’t light-up at all. The main focus is on your book cover and your headshot.

If the goal is to increase newsletter sign-ups, then all content — directly and indirectly — needs to support the visitor from first view to action. Your current content is a disorganized hodge-podge with no clear path from A to B. You need to put your book and its ancillaries in a secondary position and push your newsletter forward.

Also, does your newsletter have an actual title? I couldn’t tell from your current content. If not, give it one. Add “Dianne Gregg’s” in front of the name, just like you did the website.

#3 — Focus your content on building your authority and credibility for the topic.

Since you’re focusing on you and your expertise, you want to give your visitors enough info on your experience, background, quality of information you present, etc.

Starting with your personal story is fine, but you want to bring in scientific and medical experts as well as fans to support your expertise in this space. You do this in your book section, but there’s no reason why these kudos wouldn’t apply as general testimonials, as well. Use them that way.

Get them on the homepage where they’ll do you some good, as well as a separate section on the navigation. (Please note that a poorly written testimonial from a medical professional undercuts its value to you. All testimonials — from experts and just folks — should be written in clean and properly spelled standard English.)

I like the audio player. I might consider doing a video intro, as well.

#4 — Provide intuitive paths for your visitor to move around the site.

If you’re going to use your homepage as your main landing page, you need to have a navigation strategy that organizes your content for your visitor in a common-sense way.

Right now, you have ZIPPO navigation which makes moving through the site a tedious, frustrating exercise, even for the most committed soy-information seeker.

Here’s a recommended first pass:

HOME

PUBLICATIONS

Newsletter

Book

TESTIMONIALS

ARTICLES

RESOURCES

BLOG

ABOUT DIANNE

CONTACT

You have a lot of content on the site that could easily be thrown into these or equivalent buckets. Don’t make your visitors hunt for what they need.

#5 — Rethink and reorganize your homepage/website from the ground up.

Detecting a theme here? Sites that do a great job of organizing their content through intuitive navigation and clean, supportive design make for a comfortable and pleasant visitor experience. The easier and more pleasant the visit is, the longer the visitor stays on your site and engages with your message.

I found this simple WordPress blog template (courtesy of Notepad Theme Demo at IThemes) that provided a reasonably good format as a jumping off point for a possible redesign.

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What works well here is that it allows you highlight several different inputs for visitors to interact with, yet still focuses the primary attention on newsletter sign-up and you.

#6 — Rework the current banner.

Most people, including myself, wouldn’t know a soybean from a chick pea. I don’t think the image of the soybeans underscores the ‘dangerous food’ motif. I’d substitute a new banner that’s clean, clear and forceful about your topic.

#7 — Clarify your calls to action.

Right now, your call to action focuses on “Send me free stuff.” There’s no connection to the benefits of your topic (I want to stay healthy) or even that I’m getting a monthly newsletter (Subscribe or Join us now).

Again, connect the dots for your visitor. Remind me of the value of what you offer and how great it is that I’m going to get this important health information every month — free.

#8 — Clarify the newsletter specifics.

I read your newsletter page several times and wasn’t sure how the newsletter was formatted or what information/regular features came with it.

If this was a print publication, you’d talk in terms of number of pages, size, a number of main articles and a few regular features. So using this as a model, how can you translate this kind of detail to a description of your digital newsletter?

Give your prospects specifics. Design a cover visual and pop a thumbnail into the newsletter box on the homepage. Make it real.

#9 — Clarify the bonuses new subscribers get.

You offer a ton of free information for a sign-up (as noted on one of your interior pages), but I’m not sure what format they’re in. Are they individual reports? Articles? Separate emails? Again, be specific. Don’t just list a title and call it done. Add 1-2 sentences of description and detail. Add a value to each bonus offering, as well.

Tally them up, restate the value of good health in the face of lies, and make a strong call to action that makes the prospect ‘gotta have it’ — and wrap it all with a big fat call to action button.

#10 – Strengthen your SEO title and description (critical).

I did a quick search for “soy risks” on Google and you were nowhere to be found. That’s because your pages are missing those super important SEO title and meta descriptions.

Here are your current listings:

<title>The Hidden Dangers of Soy; Dianne Gregg</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”NONE”>

Here’s another way of going about it:

<title>Health Dangers of Soy, Are You At Risk? Get Free Newsletter | Dianne Gregg</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”The Hidden Dangers of Soy, by Dianne Gregg, reveals the dangerous truth about soy, its health risks, and why you should avoid it. Free newsletter and information.”>

Do your keyword research. What are the words and phrases people use to find your info? Those are the words and phrases that will form your site glossary for content as well as SEO and make it easier for people to find you.

My thanks to Dianne Gregg for her supreme patience and support of Heifer International. Look for my next makeover in about 4 weeks.

Want your own Copywriting Maven landing page makeover?

Got a landing page that’s more poop than pop? Need to get better results from your online marketing?

If you’re interested in a private page makeover, site audit, or other services, please email Roberta directly.

About the Author: Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc. Find her @CopywriterMaven on Twitter.