Cisco Adler, in his new eBook "The Landing Page Bible", offers an answer to the "Internet age"-old question of who controls a company's website: IT or Marketing. Rather than involve technical resources and attempt to revamp a section of the corporate website (or the entire thing!), Cisco suggests companies focus online marketing initiatives on landing pages, which can be more agile than a company's main website.

The Landing Page Bible
Adler's argument is a good one. Landing pages, whether they are the result of a click from a PPC campaign, an email blast, printed advertisements, or other sources, need to be written and rewritten, designed and redesigned, all based on significant analytics and testing of their conversion and ROI. A good landing page can stand on its own and be tweaked ad infinitum to achieve its desired goal. Even if it passes traffic directly to the main website, the initial page a potential customer sees needs to do a good enough job of selling the product or service to convince the customer not to immediately go elsewhere, or "bounce".
Convinced yet? If so, it's time to take Cisco's advice on building the best landing page possible. Cisco is an expert in landing page design, providing optimization services to clients through his firm
Adler Interactive. Prior to founding his company, he was vice president of marketing and communications for Belmont Abbey College. During his tenure he completely rebuilt Belmont Abbey's online initiatives. He has developed landing page strategies for companies throughout numerous industries and is a passionate believer in the value of high performance landing pages.
The number one thing to remember, according to the book, is to STAY FOCUSED. The landing page's headlines, imagery, and copy should all focus on the single most important benefit the user can receive by purchasing the product or service you're advertising. Beyond that, you should also address your writing to a single person. Don't focus on a group of users; instead, have a one-way conversation with the exact person reading your page, to convince them to make a purchase. From there, make sure your page addresses common objections to purchase, backs up its claims with statistics and facts, and avoids hype.
Once you have the landing page designed and written, read back through and then get it out there! According to Cisco, "If good is the enemy of great, then perfection is the enemy of online marketing." You can spend hours tweaking the copy, changing the image, and playing with position and color. But the longer it takes to publish the page, the more sales you are losing. The maneuverability of a single landing page allows it to be tweaked as needed after you publish it.
What other nuggets can you glean from the book?
- How to organize your bullet points
- How to increase the number of visitors that submit your landing pages' forms
- What to put under your form's button
- How to choose an image that conveys your message, instead of distracting from it
The best part is that the book also gives more cutting-edge ways to improve your landing pages. Cisco effectively discusses the use of video, prospect segmentation, content creation, and testing strategies. A bonus section at the end of the book gives you
5 Ways to Improve ROI.
Overall, "The Landing Page Bible" is an easy read, with a topic that is both well-covered and clearly explained. Cisco leaves you with the enthusiasm that you CAN actually increase your conversion rate, and a roadmap for finding the sweet spot on your landing page design. For those who don't wish to handle landing page optimization in-house, Cisco's firm Adler Interactive offers landing page optimization services to help you increase lead generation and conversion rates.
FREE DOWNLOAD - Read the first 5 chapters for free by downloading the sample from
http://a.adlerinteractive.com/LPBReviewNetblazon
Please Bookmark and Share:
Tim Peter
June 12th, 2009
Good review, Susan. Sounds like an interesting book. I’ll have to add that to my summer reading list.
Joanne Quinn-Smith, the Techno Granny
June 14th, 2009
Cisco’s book is outstanding and I personally feel that in many cases landing pages are a much better option for marketing purposes than an actual website. The advantages are that you not only caputre e-mail addresses but if you pay attention to Cisco’s instructions, you are also segmenting your list so that relevant information goes to the correctly defined prospects. If you would like to listen to my interview with Cisco Live,on my Techno Granny Show you can do so at: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/30986
Fantastic review by the way!
Continued prosperity and blessings,
Joanne Quinn-Smith, aka, the Techno Granny
Dominic @ Samurai Costumes
August 21st, 2009
If you can muster the time it takes to read these books (long haul flights are great!) then you usually get a lot from them. Landing pages are so critical in internet marketing, if you have a website, test and retest your LP to get best results.
Richard @ Internet Marketing Brisbane
September 3rd, 2009
When creating a landing page you need to have very clear objectives in mind – what single thing do you want the visitor to do? Sign up for a newsletter, buy a product? Lead the eye towards conversion.
Christmas Elf Costume
November 11th, 2009
Landing pages definitely require a lot of thinking, and like you say, rewriting. I think its often better to pay a professional and get it done right the first time…split testing is a great idea for landing pages as well…
Planszowe gry
December 2nd, 2009
I’ve read this book and it’s increase my landing page cash flow by 30%! Of course I need to do many rewrites and test but it finally pay back:)
used tires
January 5th, 2010
@Planszowe gry, 30%? Wow, I am wondering after your tests if you got any improvements, hopefully you’ll be able to answer sometime.
Till then,
Jean