5 ms·

Startups, your landing page sucks

29 points by abarrera 14y ago

bogdaniordache 14y ago
Cool stuff :)
rocky1138 14y ago
https://www.thalmic.com/ https://www.thalmic.com/ comes to mind.
- danielgrieve 14y ago
  Quite ironic considering there isn't any interaction. Effortless indeed.
claireysan 14y ago
Oh my gosh read this startups. Please.
webbruce 14y ago
What's some good examples of well put together landing pages then?
- bluetidepro 14y ago
  I second this, is there a good round-up somewhere with great examples with awesome interactions?
  - at-fates-hands 14y ago
    Simply Google "website landing pages inspiration" you'll get a ton of great lists to comb over. Also tyler-b's comment should help you focus on the important features of a landing page
- tyler-b 14y ago
  http://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/ http://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/ is a great start. Just focusing on 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 will put you ahead of the game.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  What I've settled on is sales letters: http://www.instahero.com/ http://www.instahero.com/
sritch 14y ago
The irony here is how bad the press42.com landing page is; your value proposition is pretty unclear with your one sentence. Try working on your own landing page before dishing out criticism, (not to say that what you said isn't true).
- ytNumbers 14y ago
  "There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and find fault." - Cervantes There's only two sentences on the press42.com home page, but despite such brevity, I had zero trouble understanding their value proposition.
  - sritch 14y ago
    "We allow startups to get the right exposure to media while bloggers are able to filter the stories they get." So what does this mean for a blogger? Filtering stories I can get? To read? Write? Startups who are still figuring it out like to use ambiguous blanket statements in order to "capture as much of an audience as possible". They are afraid they are missing out on potential users if don't appeal to everyone.
  - martin-adams 14y ago
    I think you are the exception to the rule. I could guess what I think it means, but I shouldn't have to.
    - abarrera 14y ago
      How would you rephrase it? Would love to hear suggestions :)
- orangethirty 14y ago
  Plus: - They don't link from the blog to the site from their logo. Marketing 101 here, folks. - Here is their pitch: We allow startups to get the right exposure to media while bloggers are able to filter the stories they get. Huh? - Thier tagline: The matchmaking platform for startups and bloggers Unless the business is aiming at selling to bloggers, this line is not quite clear. - I have to click on an image of a button to find out you have not launched and are just asking for my email. Double huh? It is obvious there has not been a test run in this landing page. Which reminds me of rule #1 of landing page: Continually Test Everything. Good luck to the Press42 team.
skreech 14y ago
Regarding "have your contact details on your website, not an ugly, stupid and useless form that no one uses." Is there any advantage to having a visible e-mail address your site vs a contact form?
- cnlwsu 14y ago
  well, they could email you :) hard to put screenshots etc in a form but its pretty easy from mail client. I would think adding a little footer with an email and phone number wouldn't hurt. Be nice for people who don't like the "contact us" forms (ie me, especially when they don't work).
tzaman 14y ago
Our landing page is suffering from the same disease - anyone willing to help us out, we're missing a marketing person in our team :)
- RDDavies 14y ago
  Right now, it's suffering from a 502 Bad Gateway ;).
  - tzaman 14y ago
    Yeah, that's me - currently working on some server internals. Will be back soon :)
    - orangethirty 14y ago
      When you are done, shoot me an email.
      - tzaman 14y ago
        Done
- citricsquid 14y ago
  I think if you had a marketing person they would be slapping you for letting your site remain down for an hour while you have people interested in checking it out :D Any idea when it'll be back up? I'd like to check it out.
  - tzaman 14y ago
    It's up now, although this is still temporary - will be changed in a week or so, for two reasons: - we pivoted into WordPress market because talking with our prospective customers revealed a real need for a real-time WP support platform - we changed our name to Codeable, because Carmivore didn't position all that well (the new domain will be codeable.io) We already have 40 contractors (hand picked, invited) that are on standby (while we prepare the legalities to be able to process payments online).
SethMurphy 14y ago
I think startups confuse landing page with launch page. A launch page (i.e. ambiguous launchrock page) is to gain interest, quite possibly before you are certain what the MVP will do. A landing page (i.e. signup page) needs to communicate what value you bring to the person signing up. Too often the launch page turns into the landing page without much thought.
dotcoma 14y ago
Are the startups themselves any good?
fduran 14y ago
The Spanish web site I think he's referring to has an English version: http://greenmomit.es/en/ http://greenmomit.es/en/ , but the link is buried at the bottom of the page instead of at the top. The sarcasm of the author is a put off for me, like startups in an international competition didn't know about having pages in English. Criticizing is easy, for example: a media company should know better than using grey fonts over a black background.
- jules 14y ago
  He also criticizes startups for not defaulting to English. Not to mention the arrogance of making that statement when there are more native Spanish speakers than native English speakers.
  - kevinh 14y ago
    I don't think native speakers is that meaningful of a metric in this case. Fluent speakers is the more interesting case and as far as I can tell, many more people are fluent in English than in Spanish. Additionally, the average income of fluent English speakers is likely higher than the average income of fluent Spanish speakers.
- abarrera 14y ago
  You mean on the side column of the blog?
  - fduran 14y ago
    Yes
    - abarrera 14y ago
      Been wanting to change that for a long time, but yes, you are actually right. That's the reason why we changed the main site's look, but the blog is lagging behind. The fact is, that the side column isn't that important, as it's meta info, but you're right, thxs.
lnanek2 14y ago
Haha, yeah. I find it hilarious when a startup founder is running around doing business meetings and asking for tech cofounders and all this stuff, and I go to his landing page, and it has no information whatsoever. Like a tag line and a picture. In one case I met the guy and he actually had a decent demo, but there was no way for anyone to ever see it and get some interest in working with him unless you already knew him ahead of time and were willing to meet him to see it. People like this just don't get the power of the internet at all. Later on I mentioned his idea to a VC who was very into that space, and the VC got interested and immediately tried to lookup the app on the app store while I was talking to him, then asked for a web page. So the guy even blew VC interest by hiding his demo in his pocket. A YouTube video would have taken him 5 minutes and at least gotten him to YC "ugly duckling" demo day status.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dohertyjf 14y ago
YES, THIS. While I wish this article actually provided some examples (I did that here too - http://www.johnfdoherty.com/landing-pages-that-rank/ http://www.johnfdoherty.com/landing-pages-that-rank/), it's a decent rant.
rythie 14y ago
Potential startup in there based on his form to ask for feedback - i.e. people pay to get feedback early on in their startups. Someone connects businesses with feedback people.
- amirmc 14y ago
  http://www.feedbackarmy.com http://www.feedbackarmy.com One of the suggested questions you could ask (when I last looked) was "What does this site do?" The examples page gives you a pretty good idea of how it works.
amirmc 14y ago
Everything in a startup is a trade-off. When faced with "build product" vs "prettify website" what would most people here do? Seems like a lot of folks here are making assumptions about what's most important to a given startup at a given time by looking from the outside. I'm sure in some cases they're right but not necessarily all. Admittedly for 'launching' at a conference I'd assume an informative website would be a priority but what do I know?
reddiric 14y ago
"kudos to the other French start-ups for finally realizing that the world doesn’t speak French" Pardon, but I don't believe there is a language the world speaks. "three companies out of the sixteen had their webpage in their local language" Does the author mean that thirteen of the websites were in English, and is complaining about the remaining three being in a different language? Would the author hold the same standard to English-first websites to translate them in to a variety of other local languages? If not, what an astonishingly self-centered perspective.

29 points by abarrera 14y ago

bogdaniordache 14y ago

Cool stuff :)

rocky1138 14y ago

https://www.thalmic.com/ https://www.thalmic.com/ comes to mind.

danielgrieve 14y ago
Quite ironic considering there isn't any interaction. Effortless indeed.

claireysan 14y ago

Oh my gosh read this startups. Please.

webbruce 14y ago

What's some good examples of well put together landing pages then?

bluetidepro 14y ago
I second this, is there a good round-up somewhere with great examples with awesome interactions?
- at-fates-hands 14y ago
  Simply Google "website landing pages inspiration" you'll get a ton of great lists to comb over. Also tyler-b's comment should help you focus on the important features of a landing page
tyler-b 14y ago
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/ http://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/ is a great start. Just focusing on 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 will put you ahead of the game.
StavrosK 14y ago
What I've settled on is sales letters: http://www.instahero.com/ http://www.instahero.com/

sritch 14y ago

The irony here is how bad the press42.com landing page is; your value proposition is pretty unclear with your one sentence. Try working on your own landing page before dishing out criticism, (not to say that what you said isn't true).

ytNumbers 14y ago
"There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and find fault." - Cervantes There's only two sentences on the press42.com home page, but despite such brevity, I had zero trouble understanding their value proposition.
- sritch 14y ago
  "We allow startups to get the right exposure to media while bloggers are able to filter the stories they get." So what does this mean for a blogger? Filtering stories I can get? To read? Write? Startups who are still figuring it out like to use ambiguous blanket statements in order to "capture as much of an audience as possible". They are afraid they are missing out on potential users if don't appeal to everyone.
- martin-adams 14y ago
  I think you are the exception to the rule. I could guess what I think it means, but I shouldn't have to.
  - abarrera 14y ago
    How would you rephrase it? Would love to hear suggestions :)
orangethirty 14y ago
Plus: - They don't link from the blog to the site from their logo. Marketing 101 here, folks. - Here is their pitch: We allow startups to get the right exposure to media while bloggers are able to filter the stories they get. Huh? - Thier tagline: The matchmaking platform for startups and bloggers Unless the business is aiming at selling to bloggers, this line is not quite clear. - I have to click on an image of a button to find out you have not launched and are just asking for my email. Double huh? It is obvious there has not been a test run in this landing page. Which reminds me of rule #1 of landing page: Continually Test Everything. Good luck to the Press42 team.

skreech 14y ago

Regarding "have your contact details on your website, not an ugly, stupid and useless form that no one uses." Is there any advantage to having a visible e-mail address your site vs a contact form?

cnlwsu 14y ago
well, they could email you :) hard to put screenshots etc in a form but its pretty easy from mail client. I would think adding a little footer with an email and phone number wouldn't hurt. Be nice for people who don't like the "contact us" forms (ie me, especially when they don't work).

tzaman 14y ago

Our landing page is suffering from the same disease - anyone willing to help us out, we're missing a marketing person in our team :)

RDDavies 14y ago
Right now, it's suffering from a 502 Bad Gateway ;).
- tzaman 14y ago
  Yeah, that's me - currently working on some server internals. Will be back soon :)
  - orangethirty 14y ago
    When you are done, shoot me an email.
    - tzaman 14y ago
      Done
citricsquid 14y ago
I think if you had a marketing person they would be slapping you for letting your site remain down for an hour while you have people interested in checking it out :D Any idea when it'll be back up? I'd like to check it out.
- tzaman 14y ago
  It's up now, although this is still temporary - will be changed in a week or so, for two reasons: - we pivoted into WordPress market because talking with our prospective customers revealed a real need for a real-time WP support platform - we changed our name to Codeable, because Carmivore didn't position all that well (the new domain will be codeable.io) We already have 40 contractors (hand picked, invited) that are on standby (while we prepare the legalities to be able to process payments online).

SethMurphy 14y ago

I think startups confuse landing page with launch page. A launch page (i.e. ambiguous launchrock page) is to gain interest, quite possibly before you are certain what the MVP will do. A landing page (i.e. signup page) needs to communicate what value you bring to the person signing up. Too often the launch page turns into the landing page without much thought.

dotcoma 14y ago

Are the startups themselves any good?

fduran 14y ago

The Spanish web site I think he's referring to has an English version: http://greenmomit.es/en/ http://greenmomit.es/en/ , but the link is buried at the bottom of the page instead of at the top. The sarcasm of the author is a put off for me, like startups in an international competition didn't know about having pages in English. Criticizing is easy, for example: a media company should know better than using grey fonts over a black background.

jules 14y ago
He also criticizes startups for not defaulting to English. Not to mention the arrogance of making that statement when there are more native Spanish speakers than native English speakers.
- kevinh 14y ago
  I don't think native speakers is that meaningful of a metric in this case. Fluent speakers is the more interesting case and as far as I can tell, many more people are fluent in English than in Spanish. Additionally, the average income of fluent English speakers is likely higher than the average income of fluent Spanish speakers.
abarrera 14y ago
You mean on the side column of the blog?
- fduran 14y ago
  Yes
  - abarrera 14y ago
    Been wanting to change that for a long time, but yes, you are actually right. That's the reason why we changed the main site's look, but the blog is lagging behind. The fact is, that the side column isn't that important, as it's meta info, but you're right, thxs.

lnanek2 14y ago

Haha, yeah. I find it hilarious when a startup founder is running around doing business meetings and asking for tech cofounders and all this stuff, and I go to his landing page, and it has no information whatsoever. Like a tag line and a picture. In one case I met the guy and he actually had a decent demo, but there was no way for anyone to ever see it and get some interest in working with him unless you already knew him ahead of time and were willing to meet him to see it. People like this just don't get the power of the internet at all. Later on I mentioned his idea to a VC who was very into that space, and the VC got interested and immediately tried to lookup the app on the app store while I was talking to him, then asked for a web page. So the guy even blew VC interest by hiding his demo in his pocket. A YouTube video would have taken him 5 minutes and at least gotten him to YC "ugly duckling" demo day status.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dohertyjf 14y ago

YES, THIS. While I wish this article actually provided some examples (I did that here too - http://www.johnfdoherty.com/landing-pages-that-rank/ http://www.johnfdoherty.com/landing-pages-that-rank/), it's a decent rant.

rythie 14y ago

Potential startup in there based on his form to ask for feedback - i.e. people pay to get feedback early on in their startups. Someone connects businesses with feedback people.

amirmc 14y ago
http://www.feedbackarmy.com http://www.feedbackarmy.com One of the suggested questions you could ask (when I last looked) was "What does this site do?" The examples page gives you a pretty good idea of how it works.

amirmc 14y ago

Everything in a startup is a trade-off. When faced with "build product" vs "prettify website" what would most people here do? Seems like a lot of folks here are making assumptions about what's most important to a given startup at a given time by looking from the outside. I'm sure in some cases they're right but not necessarily all. Admittedly for 'launching' at a conference I'd assume an informative website would be a priority but what do I know?

reddiric 14y ago

"kudos to the other French start-ups for finally realizing that the world doesn’t speak French" Pardon, but I don't believe there is a language the world speaks. "three companies out of the sixteen had their webpage in their local language" Does the author mean that thirteen of the websites were in English, and is complaining about the remaining three being in a different language? Would the author hold the same standard to English-first websites to translate them in to a variety of other local languages? If not, what an astonishingly self-centered perspective.