A sublime
landing page

How to convince visitors to buy on the web

Press space or scroll down to read more.

Wes Bos is a web developer and writer, who achieved great success with his book Sublime Textbook.

The website sublimetextbook.com is designed for persuasion, and generated about $80K revenue in 3 Months.

This articles tries to unveil the story behind this success.

The other day, reading about

profitable side-projects on Hacker News,

one comment caught my attention.

wow!

Curious, I visited the website and

discovered an extremely well executed

landing page.

Wes Bos, its creator,

actually applies many professional sales techniques

on the page.

I reached out to Wes,

and asked about his conversion rates.

"It's about 3-4% right now - which is great. I'm going to try more things to increase that."

When we applied the techniques shown in these slides
for our client, smoall.com they experienced a

328% increase!

in the performance of their landing page

We also increased sales conversions amongst non-bounce visitors at coworkinghandbook.com from 5% to 32%

How does it work?

Let's put ourselves in a prospect's shoes

and have a look.

In case you're too busy to read the next 30 slides,

here are the key take-aways

1. Stay focused on the page's goal
2. Hook your prospects by talking about the problem you're solving for them
3. Put the benefits in front, not the features
4. Try to apply Cialdini's 6 principles of influence
5. Price smartly

Get in touch if you need any help :)

Let's see how the page looks.

It all starts with

Benefits.

You're not being sold a book.

You're getting extra skills, and time for yourself.

The headline explains the

problem

solved by this product.

Feeling this pain? You may want to read more.

Features

Advantages

Benefits.

This short text connects the dots.

Notice the thoughtful use of bold text

highlighting the key ideas for quick scan.

Already convinced?

Call To Action

The button is prominent

and its message is straightforward.

The site is

mobile friendly

of course.

Lesson 1

State the problem you're solving

People buy products and services that solve a problem they have.

Clearly stating the problem qualifies your audience.

Lesson 2

Highlight the benefits

of your solution.

Features by themselves are pointless.

This is the way sales work.

Scroll down. Next thing you see:

Social proof

Testimonials by reputable people.

This is one of the six principles from Robert Cialdini's

At this stage,

you know that this product

• solves a problem you have,
• brings you attractive benefits,
• is trusted and recommended by other people.

You're ready to hear about the features!

before diving in the details,

you're reassured that it's a

full-featured

solution.

Then the features list is

exhaustive.

You should find what you're looking for.

Curious?

You may have a taste, no strings attached

This is to

demonstrate the quality

of the solution.

Features listing and preview is

repeated

for each component

of the offer.

This product

• solves a problem you have,
• brings you attractive benefits,
• is trusted and recommended by other people.
• and has the features you need.

You should be

Ready to buy!

The two packages are

easy to compare.

Actually, there's a third package

at the bottom,

suited at a less common segment.

Extra assortments

provide extra opportunities to sell.

The next tool used is

scarcity.

A time-limited discount is available.

Scarcity encourages prospects to act early and buy before the discount is withdrawn.

This above

reinforces the social proof.

Wes told me this single change definitely

increased sales.

Commitment

and

Consistency

Because you committed to

clicking on the yellow buttons ealier (download free sample),

You're more likely continue that commitment

and click again on buttons that look the same

without realizing it..

You may need more convincing,

and Wes will have you

do the math by yourself.

He lets you

measure the benefits and

compute the break-even, based on

your own parameters.

More than a plain introduction,

this demonstrates the seller's

Authority.

Social sharing has not been mentioned until now because this page's

focus is selling

Even here is it not very prominent.

Sharing can be done after the sale is concluded.

The disclaimer at the bottom

not only shows the

integrity

of the author, it's also

an extra social proof.

This is a great conclusion because

while it repeats the value proposition,

it's definitely

not pushy.

Wrap up

• Keep your landing page focused on its main goal
• Don't try to sell a product/service. Instead, offer to solve a problem
• Show the benefits and advantages of your solution before talking about features.
• Try to apply Cialdini's 6 principles of influence
• Show, don't tell
• Be creative when creating your packages, and think about all segments
• Don't be pushy.

References

Read these to learn more about sales and pricing:

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
• Solution selling
• Price Intelligently's blog about pricing pages
• Michael Dearing on Pricing

Disclosure: I'm not affiliated with any of the people and companies mentioned in this list.

About us

We're Alef, a freelance activity using data to help businesses sell more online.

Have a look at our services offering.

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