High Converting Landing Pages with Greg Merrilees

In This Episode

• [01:37] – Greg Merrilees, founder of Studio One Design, shares strategies for creating persuasive landing pages that convert visitors into leads and sales.
• [03:06] – Stephan and Greg discuss the redesign of several websites, with a focus on conveying authority and social proof.
• [07:31] – Stephan and Greg talk about creating effective landing pages for businesses to drive conversions.
• [14:16] – Greg discusses the purpose of landing pages, including building trust and authority for a brand.
• [16:54] – Greg and Stephan describe ways to optimize a speaker’s website for lead generation. They suggest using a “thank you” page to build trust with the audience.
• [21:58] – Stephan highlights the importance of relevant logos and social proof on a Press page to appeal to journalists.
• [25:53] – Greg emphasizes having social proof on landing pages, such as attendee testimonials and TV appearances, to showcase authority and credibility.
• [35:37] – Greg suggests creating live event pages to showcase in-person events. He highlights the effectiveness of having a standalone website for a live event, citing SEO benefits and a more professional appearance.
• [45:12] – Greg explains the relevance of visual hierarchy, using large headlines to make the most important information stand out on a landing page.
• [49:37] – Stephan and Greg suggest book marketing strategies, including offering a free book or workbook in exchange for contact information.
• [53:10] – Greg and Stephan share their book landing page optimization strategies.
• [61:58] – Greg uses the SPIN Selling technique to understand podcasters’ situations, problems, implications, and needs and offers a solution to help them improve their websites’ conversion rates.
• [66:33] – Greg showcases his strategies in podcast guest outreach and interview preparation.
• [71:01] – Greg and Stephan explain how a compelling “about” page with personal branding and social proof boosts authority.
• [81:34] – Greg describes how a career page can be used as social proof to showcase the brand’s vision and culture.
  

Jump to Links and Resources

Thanks for coming, Greg. Let’s get into it.

It’s a pleasure. You forgot two other people that we designed for, and one is you and your wife, Orion.

That is true. Many websites you’ve designed for me over the years, including this podcast’s website, marketingspeak.com, which look beautiful. I love it. Stephanspencer.com is a Studio1 masterpiece that is about to get a new iteration from you. I’m very excited. I love the mock-ups I’m seeing. Get Yourself Optimized is also in the process of getting an update. Mild but important redesign or update to go in line with my brand refocusing from biohacking to more about spirituality. Orion’s website is also in the mockup phases. That’s probably the most gorgeous website I’ve seen. Great job.

Thank you. It’s been great working with you guys and just your input as well because, obviously, we offer unlimited design revisions. We want you to love it, but we also want you to get a good result. It’s the combination of your input and our input to produce something you love and convert.

I want orionsmethod.com to be liked by them because it’s a whole other level. I’ve never seen a coach website of this caliber, like a transformation coach or hypnotherapist website.

Awesome, man. Thank you. Well, let’s get it live.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about landing pages. Why landing pages? Why are landing pages still a thing? Or are they still a thing?

The only pages you wouldn’t want to have discoverable would be the hidden funnel pages after that particular landing page.

They definitely are still a thing. I remember some of these you mentioned, “Landing pages are dead.” I remember Russell Brunson used to say that websites were dead because he obviously wanted everybody to use ClickFunnels, just have landing pages, and then funnels, etc. To me, there’s no reason why you can’t put all that on your website that you own. You don’t need to pay ClickFunnels or any one of those other platforms.

They’re great platforms for testing offers, don’t get me wrong, but once you’ve got an offer that converts and puts it on your own website, you can constantly tweak it over time. You can add what’s the next step after somebody’s on that landing page and turn it into its own funnel, right? Landing pages are not dead unless they’re not designed very well, and then they’re as good as dead.

Yeah, not just from the design angle but also from the underlying infrastructure. If they are, for example, on ClickFunnels, Leadpages domain, and a subdomain of their domain, you now have an SEO problem because this isn’t your website. This is somebody else’s website; you’re building on rented land. With ClickFunnels or LeadPages, you lose that subdomain. You lose any link equity that you’ve built to that sub-site. Making that part of your main website is important from an SEO perspective.

Exactly. The only pages you wouldn’t want to have discoverable would be the hidden funnel pages after that particular landing page. It might be a ‘thank you’ page that leads to another limited-time offer, webinar, or something else.

Yeah, here’s your bonus if you want that behind the curtain. 

Exactly, so those pages wouldn’t be discoverable in the Google search. Generally speaking, you would want the landing pages to be discoverable. Especially the landing pages we’re going to talk about now, which are designed to boost your authority, so why hide them? Ideally, a page that boosts your authority aims to build more trust in your brand.

What we’re talking about is that if you think about Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, one of the main psychological drivers that influence people to buy from you is authority. Those are the pages we will talk about in this little podcast to show people how to boost your authority and build that perceived value in your brand and your offer.

Right. If you’re making a one-page website with just a landing page, and that’s it, that’s not going to do well in Google. It might build authority when somebody’s on that page, but how do you get people onto it if it’s a one-page website? It’s just not going to rank. Having these landing pages as part of your main website is going to be important so that you have the opportunity to boost your authority by having the visitor there in the first place.

One of the main psychological drivers that influence people to buy from you is authority.

Exactly. You don’t want to just put a page up to boost your authority. But if you think through it, and I know you do this with your clients, Stephan, that we designed for, are you helping them with a strategy to think through, “Okay, how are we going to get their website to rank? What do we need to do on the page and then off the page to drive the website, not just traffic but conversions and build trust in the brand?”

The pages we will discuss are things like a speaking landing page, a book landing page, an event landing page, and a couple of other pages. How do you, Stephan, come up with helping a client with a strategy to say you need this type of page, or you need to release a book, etc.? How do you assess them?

The first thing I do is try to understand their unique point of difference. What is the magic behind their brand? What’s their backstory? What’s their origin story so that we can build a superhero Marvel comic out of it? Something that makes me want to hear your story because I’m rooting for you. You’re the underdog. You’re going from zero to hero.

I want to hear that story. I want to see if I can retell it in a way that is captivating and full of suspense. Then, I want to find ways to tie in the different products and services you offer to that hero’s journey but still provide the opportunity for the visitor to be the true hero, and my client is the guide.

The StoryBrand framework for a brand script is that the visitor is the hero. The brand, the client that I’m working with, is the guide. They’re Obi-Wan Kenobi. They’re not Luke Skywalker. They have the plan to blow up the Death Star so that Luke can fully step into his hero status.

We also figure out many other things like the internal problems, the unspoken problems of the visitor, who’s the shared enemy, and the villain we can all agree to hate. A lot of elements from the StoryBrand Framework (SB7), plus other just basic demographics, psychographics, click graphics of the audience understanding them and their persona, the avatar of that visitor so we can step into their shoes.

I love that. Also, I think about all the advice you’ve given me over the years. I think that when I started my journey, it was to design t-shirts, and then we pivoted that the business was going down. So we pivoted to online, where I’ve met a few other online marketers, business coaches, etc.

Landing pages are a vital tool in boosting the authority of your main website. Click To Tweet

My confidence was really low. We have regular calls. “Let’s do things to boost your authority. Write a book, get on stage, and things like that.” Even though I was quite scared to speak on stage, doing that has just been a game changer for our business. It’s just you looking at things and saying, “Okay, what’s missing in your story to help boost your authority?”

Those are the types of things you helped me with, and I’m still working on these things. You say, “Let’s get on more podcasts.” Just recently, I remember you saying, “Well, if you want to get on more podcasts, why don’t we look at your strengths and reach out to podcasters and say, ‘Hey, here’s how we could help improve your website?’” To me, it’s just those little bits of strategy you do with your clients that are super helpful for helping grow their business. It’s all based on authority, so I appreciate that.

It really is about being remarkable. It’s the idea from Seth Godin of building a brand for yourself that is worthy of remark. If I can find that hook, that angle that allows whatever the venue, the medium is for them to reach their audience. Whether it’s a book, a podcast tour, a documentary, a docuseries, or whatever, that by itself isn’t the magic.

But if you work in an angle where, “Okay, now, let’s partner with these nonprofits, and let’s bring in these kids or pets that need new homes,” I don’t know, I’m just making stuff up totally on the fly here, but some sort of angle that makes sense for the business or the founder that relates at least tangentially to their story. It makes you remarkable and memorable; now you really have something.

Not everybody needs to have a book, should have a book, or it’s not their best use to write a book. But if the book is leveraged in such a way, or it has an angle or a hook to it that makes it something that people go, “Wow,” it’s essentially a scroll stopper for somebody who’s online and for somebody who is kind of overhearing a conversation from another table. They want to overhear the rest of the conversation because their interest has been piqued; now you have something. That’s what I’m always looking for.

So cool. From here, do you want to launch into the landing pages and talk through the structure and things like that?

Yeah, let’s do that. But first, let’s explain the landing page’s focus or objective. If it’s just generic, we will get into specific types of landing pages. But is it meant to get an email address if it’s just a generic landing page? Is it meant to get an inquiry for a salesperson to make a call to them? Is it meant to get somebody to buy a small, let’s say, a tripwire product? What’s the point, generally, of a landing page?

Every landing page is going to have a different purpose. If we’re thinking holistically for the brand to build more trust in your brand, all these landing pages we’re talking about will help because they’re essentially trying to showcase your authority or boost your authority. If we talk specifically about each of these landing pages, let’s say if we were to start with the speaking landing page, you’ve got to think about who your audience is. Is it an event organizer, for instance? Or it could be somebody else in the business.

In this case, you may want people to reach out, but they may not be ready yet. Their intent might be to look around the internet for speakers, figure out who’s a good fit, and then download in one sheet, for instance, or a speaker kit. Therefore, if you think, “Okay, what’s in it for them?” It might be to download the speaker kit. They’re not ready to inquire yet, but at the same time, you still want to get an email address in return for potentially giving them that speaker kit.

It’s not always the case because that could be a barrier for some people who just want to download the speaker kit without letting you know they’re interested. You can test that with an opt-in versus not an opt-in.

Generally speaking, you will have, in most cases, an opt-in on a landing page.

That’s true.

A landing page doesn’t necessitate somebody entering the website at the homepage. Then, they have an idea of your unique selling proposition and what’s in it for them, and then they move on to a speaking page or other landing page. Now, they could end up directly on this landing page from some marketing campaign, an email, a TV or radio ad, a magazine ad, or whatever. That page needs to stand on its own without requiring the visitor to come in from the homepage. Correct?

Every landing page will have a different purpose, essentially trying to showcase your authority or boost your authority.

Spot on. Once again, if it’s well designed, written well, and it’s got maybe the Yoast plugin with some SEO value in there, then it should rank for that particular topic that you’re speaking on as well, or at least your name and the word speaking. As far as the structure for the speaking page, do you want me to share the screen with those who are watching on YouTube? We’ll keep it very audio-focused for the podcast.

Yeah, let’s do that. A picture says a thousand words.

Okay, cool. I’m going to start with your website, Stephan.

Not my company website, netconcepts.com, but my personal brand website, stephanspencer.com.

Exactly. This page is the new page that we’re working on currently. Just to explain it, what we’re doing above the fold here is showing you on stage so that people can see straight away that you speak on stage, and you have done that in the past. We want to let people know what’s in it for the audience watching you on stage. Let people know your attendees will leave full of enthusiasm and ready to take action. And then we’ve got the speaker kit as well.

You speak on a whole range of topics, so we couldn’t get specific above the fold on what that topic would be. That’s why it’s a little bit broad. Then, we have a call to action above the fold: to book you to speak or download the speaker kits. They can do either one of those. When pressed, there would be a pop-up for people with the form for either of those calls to action.

The modal box that pops up is a very simple form with just first name and email address to lower the barrier for people to opt-in for this. This is important because if I get people downloading my speaker kit PDF without opting in, most likely, I’m not going to get their contact info, and I’m not going to hear from them. They’re evaluating me against how many other potential speakers there are. So, I need to be proactive and chase after whoever these folks are downloading the PDF.

I also, for Google, have a version of the same PDF available without the opt-in, but it’s very subtly placed in the paragraph underneath the highlights reel videos. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see a mention of my speaker kit. Click, and then you download it without the opt-in, but the likelihood they’ll click on that in the middle of the copy on that page is much less than they will click on that big orange button. There’s also a pop-up if they leave this page and an exit intent pop-up that invites you to download my speaker kit and provide their first name and email.

When somebody downloads the speaker kit or makes an inquiry, you want to send people to a thank you page with a face-to-camera video just thanking them for what they’ve done. At that point, give them the next step.

Your website always has room to grow. Constant testing, monitoring, and tweaking of your website is important. Click To Tweet

Stephan, I think you introduced me to this idea of a thank you page where it has that video we just mentioned, but underneath that, some previous content that you’ve created, whether it’s speaking at an event or podcast, interviews, something that’s relevant to the audience that has just downloaded or made an inquiry. It’s a way of building more trust in your brand and showing them that you have other educational content.

To give credit where credit’s due, I heard of that strategy from Jeremy Shoemaker, a past guest on this podcast. He calls it the ‘Netflixing’ strategy. It’s just getting people to binge-watch as much of your content as possible before the strategy call, before your first Zoom interaction.

It’s a great way to build trust in the brand. Speaking of trust, even above the fold underneath the main photo, speaker kit, and call to action, we’ve just got some logos of places you’ve previously spoken about. In this case, we’re picking the ones you want more of and showcasing your authority.

For instance, if you want more similar types of businesses, they’re the best logos to put here instead of using either Microsoft or whatever the case is. If you don’t want more of them, or if you don’t get the majority of them, I wouldn’t stick to the ones that you want more of.

For me, I want to speak at more prestigious universities. I got to speak once at Stanford. I put that out there, even though that was eight years ago that I spoke at Stanford, and I only did it once. I want to convey the prestige and trust of such a prestigious institution. That’s why that logo is there.

I’ve spoken several times at Affiliate Summit, and it’s a well-known brand in the affiliate marketing space, so I added that logo in. A few other of these are staple conferences for e-commerce and online businesses.

And then the highlight reel as well. This is a really cool first frame, where you’ve got a photo of Tony Robbins saying an awesome thing about you. Whether in this highlight reel or not, it’s enticing and showcases your authority again because of who Tony Robbins is.

Actually, I do the audio in there of him saying that because it wouldn’t be relevant to just have it be a frame without the thumbnail and not have it in the video itself. I also want to point out something that is a nuance that needs to be looked at or considered. That is, having a logo bar like I have on this page relevant to what we’re offering or addressing, in this case, speaking.

“I want to be a keynote speaker at your event.” That’s why the logos are of conferences and organizations that run events, versus if you go to my results page on my website, you’re going to see a different logo bar in the same spot, which are client logos, big brands like Sony, Zappos, Volvo, CNBC, etc.

If you go to the media page or the press page on my website, you’ll see a different logo bar again, which is all the same as seen on appearances and TV networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. So that it’s like, “Oh okay, Stephan’s been on TV, and he’s been featured in magazines and so forth. As a journalist or TV producer, I see he’s not a newbie if I had him on my TV station.”

In other words, it’s got to have context and be completely relevant. Think about the audience always, the people on the page, and what will be most relevant and most appealing to them.

That’s a nuance that is often overlooked. It’s like, “Oh, I read the book Influence by Robert Cialdini, and it says to have some sort of social proof, logos, or something, so here you go and certifications or distributors of your product.” They’re like, “No, that’s not social proof, or social proof isn’t relevant.” Why do you put your client logos here when this is the press page, and you’re trying to get journalists interested?

That’s spot on. Speaking of the highlight reel, that’s an important thing as well, usually just about two minutes long, roughly, to give people a taste of what to expect. But don’t give away everything you’ll be talking about. Just give them a taste of it. It’s usually energetic and shows you in action.

To differentiate, something I didn’t realize is different. A sizzle reel and a highlights reel are different from sample reels. I don’t know if there’s another term for it. Anyway, the sample video of you speaking. A highlights reel or sizzle reel is a bunch of little snippets of either you speaking on stage or in front of the camera getting interviewed by TV hosts, journalists, or whatever.

Now you have, ideally, on the landing page, both that show that, “Oh, this person has been on TV, and they’re a celebrity. Also, they’re an amazing speaker because I’m seeing a little snippet of 20 seconds or whatever of them presenting to a large audience, and then here’s another 20-30 second segment on a different topic of them getting engagement, laughter, or whatever from the audience.”

You get a sense of, “Oh, this guy performs great on stage,” and he’s pre-selected. “All the other TV producers and whatever have already had him on, so I don’t have to take the career risk of having him on and then potentially freezing in front of the audience.”

You just want to let people know in another section underneath, a sizzle reel. What are the benefits of hiring you, essentially? What’s in it for them? It’s just trying to give people an overview of what to expect.

All these sections don’t necessarily need to be in this order every time. For instance, you’ve got the speaker reel, you’ve got the highlights reel, you’ve got the speaker kit. People may not have all those things. I’m not saying you need all of them, but ideally, if you’ve got all of them, it’s great. You’ve got an attendee feedback. Most people may not have a video of attendees, and they may have a few little written testimonials.

Social proof is extremely important. The more you get it over time, the more you keep adding it to the page.

We’re trying to showcase your authority with all these various things here, but it’s not 100% essential if you don’t have them. Build on a page over time because you have various event feedback. You have specific feedback from various events from industry professionals. Most people probably won’t have as much social proof as you have, but the social proof aspect is extremely important. The more you get over time, just keep adding it to the page.

For that attendee testimonial video, we brought in a videographer to video the workshop and interview many attendees. There are ten or even fifteen short interviews of maybe a minute each, two minutes, or something like that, of them, talking about some of the great takeaways they got and the value they got from attending. We didn’t have that for a long time, but once we did, we added it to the page.

We didn’t have a sizzle reel for a while, and then we did. Once I got my TV appearances, we redone it to incorporate all the little things the hosts of these TV stations say, “Here we have Stephan Spencer. Now, next up, Stephan Spencer. Here’s Stephan Spencer.” It’s just over and over and over again. “Wow, Stephan’s on lots of TV.” It was a step-by-step evolution. As we added these social proof elements, we just added them to the landing page.

Fantastic. That’s the thing: just keep adding them over time. The more social proof, the better, in my opinion, on all these pages. We’ve got a few landing pages to get through, so we’ll talk about the next section. Once again, it’s another section reiterating why to hire you to speak. There are just a few paragraphs of text and another image of you speaking. Talk through this little section here, Stephan, because most people won’t have this.

The impact metrics, or those inspired by them, are a little bar that you tend to have on many websites you design. It’s like X number of customers served, an average star rating of 4.9, and that sort of stuff. I got inspired by that to take some of the social proof elements from some of my keynotes that I’ve given, different audience feedback forms and things like that, and just turn that into something really short and punchy.

It’s a calculated breakout session at shop.org. That was something that the conference organizer mentioned in passing, put in an email, or something. That’s amazing. Now, I’ve got a nugget that I will make into an impact metric. That’s how we positioned it, and then you laid it out, you and your team, in such an elegant way.

The purpose of these impact metric bars is for people to visually, without thinking too much, like, “Okay, look at all these logos, look at this amazing top-rated breakout session 4.9 out of five stars at Content Marketing World, etc.” It’s just a quick visual way of boosting your authority. I love that section.

Impact metric bars provide a purposeful way to help visually boost your authority. Click To Tweet

Most people won’t have that, but it was a really smart idea, coming from our impact metrics bar that’s relevant to this topic. And then you have speaker topics. Obviously, you have a lot of topics, and you can speak on many different things. Generally, most people have one or two topics. But it’s further down the page, and it’s probably not as important as it is closer to the top of the page. But at this point, down the page, I liked the idea of mentioning the topics.

One little nuance about that that I really liked that you guys did is the show more button. There are three or four, just a handful of potential topics to hire me to speak on that are visible by default. There’s plenty more, but I don’t want to overwhelm the page with all of those. That’s all hidden by the show more button. If they’re interested, then they click that button, and they can see more topics.

Totally. Then, you will put some upcoming events there when you decide to do more.

I have one two weeks from now. I’m speaking at a Maverick Virtual Masterclass, Maverick1000 Mastermind.

This new page is not live yet, but it is understood. It’s cool. Then you’ve got some videos of past events, which I think is fantastic. Are these the full videos or just snippets?

No, they’re not just snippets. They’re maybe an hour-long talk.

Incredible. As I say, people probably won’t have as many with all these sections you’ve put on here, either social proof or past videos. Once again, the more you can have on there, the better because it’s just boosting your own page.

The devil’s in the details. If you’re going to put a picture of you speaking, have a picture, not just have you on stage, but have a picture where you’re on stage, and it catches the audience, and the audience is wrapped. They’re so engaged. Maybe they’re also overwhelmingly spilling out of the seats and stuff. It’s like the whole stadium is full. That’s powerful social proof.

If you’re going to speak at an event, let’s say you do a TEDx talk, and you don’t even check to see if it’s being videoed. Some TEDx talks don’t get videoed. Why would you speak at a TEDx, and it won’t end up on video or the TEDx channel on YouTube? It’s not even worth it. If they won’t video it, pay for a videographer and make sure your talk is recorded. It’s worth it.

Absolutely. It’s a wasted opportunity if you don’t. If you don’t put it on your speaking page as well, it’s a wasted opportunity. That’s why I like that you’ve put all these on there. You’ve even got to show more just to keep it.

There are so many.

You’ve got praise from conference organizers, more social proof. It’s just incredible. Every call to action on this page is for the ‘book Stephan to speak.’ In this case, we’re anchoring down to the bottom of the page.

The reason we did it this way instead of just a pop-up is that when somebody presses it, we want it to just not quickly and not slowly, just a mid-speed scroll so people can see all the stuff that they’re missing out on by the time they get to the bottom. It’s like, “Oh, okay,” just realize, then they can scroll back up and reveal that. But if you just have it in a pop-up, they may not see everything below the fold.

There are a handful of fields to fill out if you’re listening and not viewing the screen with us. It’s not overwhelming, but it’s not just first name and email because I can’t respond with any real context of what it would cost them for me to speak, what would be involved, or anything if I don’t know the venue, I don’t know when it’s taking place, or anything like that. That’s why we asked for half a dozen different data points. The opt-in for the speaker kit is the modal box, the pop-up that shows up with just the minimum amount of information, first name and email to be filled out.

To clarify what you said before, that’s the basis for a speaking page. It’s just thinking about your audience, showcasing your authority, and having social proof. Suppose you’ve got more the better from past events and attendees. That’s the basis for this ‘Hire Stephan to Speak’ page or ‘Hire Me to Speak’ page.

Now, I know we’ve got a few pages to get through. Here are a couple of other designs that we’ve done that follow this same principle. It’s just a different look and feel. Obviously, you need to be on YouTube to be watching this, but I’m just doing a quick scroll to show you. It doesn’t have all of Stephan’s sections, but it still has the same essence.

A live event page is similar to speaking, except the purpose of a live event page would be to run your own live event.

Here’s another one as well. Jeff Fenster, in this case, was a bit of a big deal. This is his impact metric bar, big real testimonials, ‘Why hire me to speak,’ etc. It’s just a different design, obviously. Some images are probably not a bad idea to show you at past events or with other authorities. That’s one section. I don’t know what we had on yours, Stephan, but you can add to the page.

The next page is really about live events. It is similar to speaking, except the purpose of a live event page would be to run your own live event.

Once again, if people see you run a live event, they will automatically think you’re an industry leader. Obviously, it’s a lot of work, but we’re talking about pages that will help grow your business. This would be, once again, one of those strategies that Stephan may identify that’s missing from your business. You may need to run a live event to help boost your authority. We will run through a couple of these live event pages. What are your thoughts, Stephan?

If it’s a high ticket, selling in a live in-person event will be easier than virtually. That’s my opinion, but I’ve heard plenty of people also give that feedback. A live event also has a lot of opportunities for rapport-building and personal interaction. If you’re trying to get a transformation out of somebody, people buy transformation, not information. I would do it that way if you can better deliver a transformation for somebody through an in-person event.

You don’t know that somebody is going to consume the thing that you’re offering virtually. They may not even watch the recording. If they are attending it live, but not in person, just virtual, they might meet with somebody in the background, have lunch, check their email, or write a report while they’re half listening to your awesome content. That’s not going to get the transformation.

Totally. Just to run through the structure, this brand is Maximum Lawyer. Their audience is lawyers, basically. They help them with marketing and things like that. They call it at the top of the page, “Attention, attorneys, firm owners, and legal partners.” I liked that, just calling out who it’s for, and then they’ve got the title and a bit of a sub-headline to give it more clarity on what they’re talking about here.

Then they’ve got a photo of them at one of their past live events above the fold. It helps tell the story. It’s all really well branded. Even their background on stage has branding that matches their website and brand overall.

For a landing page like this, if you want to establish a brand for your live event, I recommend having a standalone website at the domain of the live event, not just hanging off of your main website as a simple landing page.

That’s a really good point. Essentially, it’s up to the client, but I agree. We’ve done many event landing pages with their own URL, but you can’t convince all clients to do it that way because it’s obviously another domain they have to manage. It’s a really good point, and it’s also great for SEO, right, Stephan?

If you like to get more links to that separate standalone site because it looks more legit, more just of a thing, then you’re better off than having a separate page on your site. But it’s not always. If you have a massive, powerful, high authority website and just registered a brand new domain for your event that you’ve never run before, that’s not going to rank. Put them on a high authority website.

Another reason to have a standalone page is that you may be running the event with another business, which might be two separate businesses.

You may want to sell it as a standalone entity and not have the whole company go with it, like Traffic and Conversion Summit. It was sold by digitalmarketer.com to whoever owns Affiliate Summit. I forget who the company is.

Nobody remembers their name. For the structure of an event landing page, we’ve mentioned the bit above the fold, and then we want some social proof. That could be any form. It could be impact met, and it could be written testimonials, videos, etc.

A bit more clarity: this is a bit of SPIN Selling, where we’re essentially letting people know we understand their situation. We have a solution to help them solve their situation and problems. That’s when you introduce the event, which will help solve those problems.

It doesn’t need to be much copywriting. However, the more you can get inside the heads of your prospects and allow them to think that you understand the situation and have a solution, the better it will convert. That’s what these two sections are.

Future-proof your firm by niching.

In this case, they’ve got a couple of different events. Generally speaking, it might be one landing page per event. I think these guys run events every couple of months. They just have one landing page and change the dates for whichever events are coming up next.

There are some masterminds, some smaller events that they’re running, and then there’s a bigger event with a much larger audience. This is an important page, not just for somebody who wants to put on a big seminar and have hundreds of people attending, but somebody who wants to have their top 20 most important clients get together quarterly for a mastermind, a very small workshop of ten to twenty people. An event landing page is relevant for them, too.

That’s right. It can work for virtual summits. It can work for any type of event. But what we’re trying to do here is get people to a live event, whether it’s online or in-person. You want a section to explain who’s behind the brand or who will be presenting at the event.

As I said before, this page here is not exactly for one event but for multiple events. These are the events that they have coming up. However, if it’s for an individual event, you want to show who the other speakers are and a bit of a schedule as well. I’ll just take you to another one just quickly. I’ll come back to this in a second.

Who were the speakers? Then, a schedule for each of the days was created. That’s important so people can always refer back to that landing page, even at the event, to see what’s coming next if they don’t have an app. I just thought I’d mentioned that. Any thoughts, Stephan? Any questions at this point?

It’s a great point that people will return to this landing page, even after they have registered, to check the schedule and agenda. “All right, which track am I going to attend? Which sessions am I going to attend? When will I fly out back home based on what kind of wrap-up of the conference will be, whether I want to attend that or not? Maybe I can get home early.” They will return to this page multiple times, even after registering.

This section here is just talking about the benefits, like what they can expect personally from the event. For instance, this one embraces the growth mindset and unlocks time-saving strategies. It’s not saying what the speakers are talking about. This is just an overview of what you can expect to get out of the event, which I quite like. Future proof your firm by niching, etc. That section, I think, is pretty cool.

These are the overarching things that people can get out of the event: networking and goal setting—it’s like a few words in each live event—energy, expert support, personal accountability, business, and pleasure. I really quite like just the overview of what’s on this page instead of just showing the speakers’ topics. “This is more what you can expect to get out of the event for your practice,” which I quite like.

“What’s the ROI? What’s the objective for me going to this event?” I like how it’s laid out. The design is really elegant, and it makes those key values pop. The networking, the goal setting, the personal accountability, those really pop. Then, if I want to read more about personal accountability, there’s that little paragraph underneath it, but I don’t have to get the gist of what the value of attending this event is.

We just want our landing pages to have a relatively good visual hierarchy.

That’s just a good point in general with landing pages. People just scan, and they stop at headlines. That’s why we just want it to be relatively like a good visual hierarchy, so good design, good, large words for headlines. The subtext is quite small in comparison just to give that visual hierarchy. People can read the small print if they want, but they don’t have to.

Just in general, with landing pages, we do always have it in sections. You might have noticed so far that we just talked about this section and then the next section. If it’s not in sections, it’s more cognitive load on the brain if it was just a big jumbled mess. It’s how people designed landing pages and things like that ten years ago, where it was just maybe two or three columns. But now it’s just big and bold; just get to the point and make it visually appealing.

Another thing I wanted to mention was that this one was a few years old. She ran events for dentists. What we tried to do with the design was sell the location because this one, for instance, was based in Jamaica, and many of her target market was Americans. She would not just sell what’s in it for them for the event, but the lifestyle that they’re going to get out of going to this location. “This is very beachy.”

It’s a junket.

Exactly, and just showing some other activities they can enjoy, like golf, swimming, massages, and jet skis. They will do all that stuff when they get to Jamaica. The look and feel of this page represent the location. That’s something that I just thought I’d mention because this helps sell not just what’s in it for them but what else they’re going to get out of it outside of the event.

Sell the event by also selling the venue.

Yes, exactly. I think we did the same thing for Youpreneur Summit for Chris Ducker. I haven’t got that open, but it was very British. We’re just selling all the British icons and all the touristy things people do.

Bangers and mash.

Double-decker bus, the Big Ben, and things like that. That’s really how we design event landing pages. The next thing to talk about, Stephan, is book landing pages if you’re ready for that.

Yeah, let’s go into it. Not everybody will have a book, but you can easily create at least an ebook now that ChatGPT, Claude, and other LLMs exist. This is very doable for anybody.

Brandon is a very busy guy, so he didn’t have time to write it all by himself, so I hooked him up with a ghostwriter. This ghostwriter interviewed Brandon over a number of hours, recorded that, got all that transcribed, and then used that as fodder. Obviously, that isn’t the only way you could write a book, but it was very time-efficient for our shared client, Brandon, to do it that way.

Totally. The structure of this page is really above the fold. In this case, we don’t have a top navigation, so we’ve removed that altogether. We do have the brand. We got our Yosha Law in this case. That’s his business name. It’s also his family name, his surname.

We have a headline, which in this case is the title of the book From Running Back to Giving Back: A Lineage of Civil Advocacy, which is the title of the book. We also have a picture of the book as well. We have the Amazon bestseller logo, a little description of what the book’s about and a call to action, which is to ‘buy the book.’

Give your audience something of value in return for giving their email address.

That call to action may be to ‘buy the book.’ If you don’t have a book yet but have one coming soon, it’s really good to still put a landing page up and just get notified, ‘download a free chapter,’ or whatever it is. Just give them something in value in return for giving their email address.

It’s a good gauge if you don’t have a book yet, but it’s coming soon to say how many people are interested in it. Like I said, just offering them a free chapter, or it might be a digital copy just to get feedback if you’re after it. Before you go live and publish a book properly, you can still have a landing page to get feedback on the book, essentially.

One thing I’m a fan of is if you have the full book that’s already done and you have the book landing page. Instead of offering a free chapter, which is not a big thing, people can go onto Amazon and get a lot of sample content for free just by looking inside the book feature. But if you can provide a compendium companion piece, free download, a set of worksheets, a workbook, a planner, a guide, some sort of companion addendum or something, now you got my attention because I want to see the value of what you’re offering that’s above and beyond just me getting the look inside the book feature on Amazon.

If I’m an owner of the book already, I purchased it. That companion piece is valuable to me, of course. But even if I can get value from that companion piece without owning the book, that is also helpful for me considering buying the book. If the companion workbook or worksheets are so helpful, I think, “Okay, I probably should buy the book. That’s going to help a lot.”

That’s a really good point. Most clients will have that for people who purchase the book, as opposed to it being a lead magnet. But I like the way you’re thinking because if people get all that other stuff first, it’s more reason to buy the book. It’s a good strategic way of thinking about the extra content. You probably want to have those extra resources on a separate page. It’s hidden from search.

I like the logos for  Amazon, Spotify, Google Play, Apple Books, and Audible. Because he owns the rights to the book he self-published, he was able to do an auto-audio version of it. I helped him find a narrator. It’s a great way to consume his book without investing as much time physically reading it. You can just listen to it while at the gym or commuting to work. 

If you are willing or interested in giving that away, that could be something that helps as a sweetener to get somebody to buy the physical book or the Kindle book on Amazon, and you’ll get a free digital audio file of the audiobook. Or you could sell it on Audible. He sells it on Audible. He didn’t give it away.

I guess you can also do an audio-only as a lead magnet for return for an email address. The only problem with people going directly to Amazon or these other platforms is that you don’t get their email addresses. They own all that data, and you don’t get anything.

That’s why it’s important throughout the book to have those extra worksheets, etc. so that when people come back to your website and go to a hidden page, you can potentially have them opt in for that. At least you’ve got their details to keep the conversation going via email and market to them.

If you have something compelling, like a workbook planner or guide, they’re motivated to come back after they’ve purchased it on Amazon to opt-in for that free additional thing.

I guess there are many ways of trying to strategize to get people onto your list, but everything we’ve mentioned so far is a really good strategy. Another strategy that we’ve done for another client is unstoppableprosperity.com. This guy’s name is Charles Payne. He’s a Fox Business host on TV.

What we’ve done here is we have a claim for a free book, and you just have to pay for shipping, essentially. A publisher publishes this, but this is an entire funnel that gets people to buy the book. They enter their details first, then they go to another page and another page, and we’ve got all these things on various pages that might be to his workshop, to his various coaching offers, you name it. He’s got upsells galore throughout this entire funnel, which I’m just showing on my screen now just a couple of the different pages we’ve got this mobile version as well.

The point is, I can’t say how much, but it does extremely well. It’s in the seven figures from this landing page of sending paid traffic to this free book plus shipping that has all the upsell backend funnel. It does extremely well.

That’s impressive.

Various ways of monetizing.

A free shipping offer that presumably self-liquidates, meaning that they’re at least covering their costs on the Facebook ad spend and whatever other platforms they’re using as entry points into the funnel, and then they’re making a boatload of money on the back-end through the upsells.

Exactly. It works really well. This guy’s on Fox News, so he has pretty good authority by himself. This funnel works well, and this strategy works well for free plus shipping. The structure of these pages can vary, but really, what we’re trying to do is just showcase the authority of the person in this case with impact metrics, which is 36 years as a professional investor, 14 years presenting on Fox, 100,000 copies already claimed and one free copy for you. It’s just a little bit of fun at the end there.

We’re letting people know the value of this free copy. The reason it’s got all this value, it says $134, is because what he’s doing is putting in extra bonuses. I’m trying to find the bonuses on this page. For gifts that he adds, he does the value stacking to increase the overall value he’s giving away for free plus shipping. That’s another strategy you can use to make it a no-brainer.

The value stack is “Here’s a bonus. Here’s a fast action bonus.” It becomes a no-brainer for the visitor to opt in for this amazing deal because it’s a free book plus all these bonuses. “All I pay for is shipping.” That’s not sustainable on its own. That’s not self-liquidating. They need to upsell through these additional offers after the person puts in their credit card for the shipping, and then it says, “Oh, here’s a one-time offer, the OTO.”

This is a one-time offer if you want to upsell or upgrade to be part of our VIP community. You’ll never get it at this low price again. But since you bought the book or the shipping, you got it for free, so we’re going to give it to you right now. Add all that in, and that pays for the Facebook ad plus the fulfillment cost. That makes it self-liquidating.

That’s correct. You probably don’t need as many sections on a book landing page, but have a good look at this strategy for this page. It converts well. I’m just saying you don’t need absolutely everything that we’ve got on this page.

One section I like is just giving people a sneak peek of what they can expect from this book and what’s inside it. He’s got a section here. I’ll reveal even more of the stock market principles I’ve trusted for the past three decades. My stealthy portfolio, composition, management, and critical requirements of building a recession-resistant portfolio are all good copies. I just like the way it’s laid out as well. You can get these things within the pages of the book because we’ve got this little graphic of a page curling back.

That’s some serious social proof, by the way. 200,000 copies have already been claimed.

That’s true. Obviously, if it’s a new book, you’re not going to have that many, but we’re doing a new landing page for this guy right now. What we’re doing for the brand new book, which has zero copies sold, is borrowing the social proof from the previous book, which is this one. That’s another thing people can think about as well. You may not have any social proof of the thing you’re selling, but you think about the other social proof you built up in your business that you can display to help boost your authority.

I love the definition of a brand, which is a promise or a promise delivered, and the brand of this book, Unstoppable Prosperity, is such a compelling and memorable promise. It’s like, “Yeah, I’m signing up for that. I want that Unstoppable Prosperity. That’s a great name.”

That’s the book page structure. It’s probably a very similar structure that we’ve just been through. This probably has more of his personal story on the Yosha book landing page, but it’s a different purpose from the Charles Payne one that we just mentioned.

But it does have. Here’s a snapshot of what to expect inside the book’s pages. It just has some page numbers and highlights from each page, which I like. That idea is similar to what we explained in the Charles Payne one. He has some social proof from authorities like Jay Abraham.

Jay is his cousin.

That’s why. There you go.

That’s how I got Brandon as a client through Jay. I spoke at one of Jay’s events. I’ve spoken at multiple of his events, but Brandon was there at the one I’m referring to, and my presentation swayed him. I did some hot seats. I pulled up Brandon’s website and tore it apart nicely, gently.

Yeah, I’ve seen those presentations. They’re not that gentle.

I don’t want people not volunteering their site because they’re terrified of how I will tear it to shreds, but I want it to be real, valuable, and not just a rubber stamp.

They are super helpful, those tear-downs. They’re not subtle. It’s the truth, but it’s helpful. It’s extremely helpful. I like the way you do them. I’ve seen the one on stage.

Tough love.

We did just another one for Gary W. Goldstein, producer of Pretty Woman, and things like that. What we did here is that people may not know his name, Gary Goldstein, but he’s an Academy Awards-winning producer. We had just some social proof to show that the covers of movies like The Mothman Prophecies, Under Siege, and Pretty Woman, we’re using those visually so that people connect the dots.

Anyway, there are different ways to show social proof. I think, visually, it just needs to make sense for the brand to connect what you’re trying to portray to the audience so they understand it quickly. All right, there are just a few examples there for book landing pages. How are we doing for time, Stephan?

It’s funny you asked because I just noticed an angel number at one hour and 11 minutes, one, one, one.

There you go.

I’m wondering if that is an angel number. I feel like that’s an angel number, but then you called it out and asked me what the time was. Keep going because this is awesome. I think we need to give all five landing pages so that everyone feels super-equipped to deploy this brilliance.

Awesome. This is one we’re talking about that you’ve helped me with. Here is a page where I am reaching out to podcasters to ask if I can be interviewed on their podcast.

If you think about the wrong way to do it, you’ve got a podcast, Stephan. I’m sure you get emails all the time from people who are just trying to pitch you, and they say how awesome this person and that person are. But they forget about the important thing. “What’s in it for you as a podcast host? And what’s in it for your audience?”

What we’re doing on this page is attention, podcasters, and influencers. Then, we’ve got a headline profit from interviewing a world-class website design expert and delivering massive value to your audience. Plus, you can earn a commission from every new website sale your podcast generates. That’s one way of doing it.

You just gave us an awesome idea before as well, which we’ll be adding to this page, by the way, Stephan. Thanks for your input, which is for us to review the podcaster’s website. That’s really something that would resonate with them, so we’re adding that to this offer.

The point is the headline is all about what’s in it for them. Then we have a call to action: ‘Request the interview now.’ We’re just trying to use a little SPIN Selling here to let them know we love their podcasts. And we’ve listened to the episode, and it’s got great stuff. And then we’re talking a little bit about the problem.

The problem is the podcast audience. Most of their websites aren’t great. They’re not usually designed to convert. We’re just pointing that out, and then trying to introduce our solution to help that problem.

Why don’t you elaborate on what SPIN Selling is? Not everybody is familiar with the SPIN Selling book. What does SPIN stand for?

SPIN is an acronym for situation, problem, implication, and need. It’s a book by Neil Rackham. What it’s all about is based on 35,000 sales calls, where they’ve worked out this formula that if the person that’s selling doesn’t sell at all, instead they use this acronym in the way they communicate, which is letting the person on the other end of the call know that I understand your situation, I understand your problems based on your situation, here are the implications if you don’t address the cause of that problem.

Good copy is vital to your credibility. Bad copy talks at an audience rather than engaging with them, and comes across as pushy and sales-y. Click To Tweet

Situation, problem, implication—SPI, and N are the needs, which are your solutions. That’s where you talk about what’s unique about your solution and how that can help solve their problem. That’s SPIN Selling.

If you can put that on any landing pages, it’s a game-changer. It can be short like it is here, or it can be quite elaborate. It just depends on the offer and where it fits in. But essentially, in this case, we’re just trying to do some SPIN Selling before we introduce our solution.

This here. Remember, we’re a design business, so we’re not putting oodles of copy on the page. We’re just designing it in sections to let our audience, a podcast host, understand why we would be a good fit for them. We’ve got a social proof section of the type of businesses and brands we’ve designed for.

In other words, we’re not going into a lot of copy. We’re just visually showing why our solution might fit them well. Then we go into, “Who am I?” You think about the structure up here. It’s like, “What’s in it for them?” A bit of SPIN Selling and some social proof before we go into who I am and how that will benefit, like, “Why is it important to interview me?”

Most pictures of potential guests go straight into—they start with ingratiating nonsense or just the BS of I loved your last episode, and I know they never listened to it.

After that supposed rapport building they did, which is not credible, they launched into a whole spiel about this guest that would be amazing for my show. It’s just a big, long bio, and then they’ll attach something like a PDF sometimes, but it’s just a terrible pitch. Usually, they’re terrible pitches. “So and so has a company, and they’ve been in business for X number of years. Here’s the unique solution that they offer.” That doesn’t cut it.

What we’ll be doing is putting a little email. I’m not reaching out to anybody unless I love their podcast. I’ll be listening to at least five episodes of their podcast, and I’ll be telling them in my email with a link to this landing page some tips that I’ve got from their podcast. That’s a super important point that you’ve picked up there.

This is a slow process: I want to ensure their audience will love what I say on their podcast. I don’t want to be a waste of their time or mine, basically. It needs to be a good fit. I put a lot of time and effort into ensuring it’s the right fit.

We just want to let people know we’ll cover this and just a section about what they can expect from the interview. But then I’ve got a past case study of a podcast interview that I did that turned into a profit for the podcast host, which was good. I’ve included the audio of the actual entire episode. I’ve mentioned that we send people to a quiz page where they can opt-in to take a quiz to determine what’s wrong with their website.

People buy from people they know, like, and trust.

Another section just talks about how well it works for the podcast host. He decided to do an ad on his own podcast to promote my business so that we kept getting more leads, which worked well. I’ve included a little audio, just a 60-second ad.

It’s brilliant. He made a fair amount of money from that, like $100,000.

No, it was five figures, it wasn’t that much. It was still decent. This stuff can work. It works for his audience, for him, and us. So it’s a win-win. That little thing, what we do, we’ve got a history of designing t-shirts, so we give a bonus t-shirt to the podcast host. It will just be a design relevant to their brand that they could potentially give away to their audience. It might be their brand, and it might be their slogan or something like that.

That’s so cool.

It’s just another little incentive we offer. On this page, we show examples of it. We’ve got John Lee Dumas, James Schramko, Perry Marshall, Clay Collins, the owner of Leadpages, and things like that.

Those are big-name internet marketers.

Yeah, totally. Then, just a short form. We’ll just anchor the link down to the bottom of the page for all the links on the page. Then we also have a little one sheet, which they can download without opting in. It’s just giving them an overview. It’s got an intro, and it’s got interview topic suggestions and interview questions that they can ask, a little bit of social proof from you, Stephan, in this case, and just helpful links for social proof.

That is a beautiful one-sheet. That’s probably the best-designed one-sheet I’ve ever seen.

Cheers. Maybe you can help me with that.

Cheers, mate. Get his gold. Throw some shrimp on the barbie.

Shrimps on the Barbie. We don’t even say that. We have examples of other podcast interviews that I’ve been on, essentially, so they can listen to them. Then we also have some social proof of websites we’ve designed recently. That’s pretty much the page and more social proof.

It is elegant, well-designed, and dialed in for conversion for persuasion and building authority. Well done.

Thank you. We do have another section as well. We give back a percentage of our sales for every sale. It’s just a little section to talk about that message. When we design for you, something impactful happens for you and the world, and then we describe that. The podcast reaches out page, essentially.

You have a social impact environmental impact aspect to your business so that you make a difference in the world by serving clients and the revenue you take in, and you put some of that into the nonprofit sector.

Alright. This is the last page. It’s a bit surprising if you think about a page to boost your authority. What we’re talking about now is an about page, but it’s done slightly differently from a normal about page.

What we want to do on this page is, above the fold, to let people know what this business or, in this case, we’re looking at a Stephan Spencer about page. That’s your personal brand, but this is what you’re about, and then what people can expect from you or your offer in general, a little bit of social proof, and then you’ve got a call to action, which is your site-wide call to action on this website.

Underneath that, we have a video. This could be your backstory in there if you like. I haven’t seen this video, and maybe you haven’t created a new one yet, Stephan. It’s really just letting people see because people buy from people they know, like, and trust. If you can show yourself on video, there’s a lot of body language in that video that people will pick up on and resonate with. I like the idea of having a video. It could just be you speaking, and it could be a lot of B-roll over the top of the narration.

This is the important bit that many people don’t do, but we do it for many clients. It’s called a timeline on your About page. We do this because it lets people understand who is behind the brand and what was the story that got you to where you are today. What we’re going to have in this timeline is anything relevant to getting people to know you a little bit better but to boost your authority.

With you, Stephan, you’re into computers well before most people were born by the looks of this. That leads to you being an SEO expert because you’re very tech-savvy—being tech-savvy leads to being really good at SEO, in my opinion.

You’ve got a lot of milestones in this journey that helped prove that you are a knowledgeable, credible expert in the whole tech space, and really, the evolution of the internet leads to being an incredible SEO expert. That’s what I like about your timeline. You’ve got some social proof with big brands that you’ve worked with as well. What are your thoughts on the timeline approach, Stephan?

It’s really important to help the visitor see your origin story, your story of a struggle to relate to you, to root for you as the underdog, and somebody who’s gone from rags to riches or from a tight situation to overcoming it. As you said, it makes you likable and is great storytelling. The adage is that facts tell, but stories sell. This timeline approach that you taught me and that I’ve implemented across many websites is just phenomenal storytelling, so thank you for that.

You can put whatever you want, from social proof to books to any milestone. As long as it’s relevant to what you offer today.

You’ve got your books and things like that because all that is part of your journey, but it also helps showcase your authority. You can put whatever you want, from social proof to books to any milestone. As long as it’s relevant to what you offer today.

You don’t want it just to be a whole bunch of personal stories because, yes, you want a bit of that, because you want people to understand, like you said, your struggle or where you came from, but the rest of it is social proof, authority boost, and things like that. When you started your podcast and married, that is awesome from a personal story perspective. I like that idea of the timeline.

Some businesses don’t have a long timeline and wonder if they should have a timeline page. I would say, “Even if it’s a brand new business, what led you to start in the business? Think about that.”

To me, that’s the backstory that people want to know because if they’re going to buy from you and it’s a brand new business, at least give me a reason to understand how you got to this point. If you don’t have that backstory and are a brand-new business, there’s not much reason to trust you. That’s why I would say have a timeline, even if it’s a brand-new business.

Tell people about your lemonade stand when you were a kid and how you dropped out of college to start your first business. These are important milestones in your life, and that helps somebody get to know and like you.

At the other extreme, if we go back to Yosha Law, which we were talking about before for the book landing page, they have a ridiculously long history. They’ve been in business for 172 years.

No. That’s not how long they’ve been in business; that’s how many years of expertise they have combined with legal experience, but they’ve been in business for many decades.

Since 1904, that’s ridiculous.

1904 was when Buddy’s father came across the Atlantic. That’s just the history of the family.

Jay Abraham, being the cousin of Brandon’s father and, of course, of Brandon, that history of how they made it across the Atlantic, followed the American dream, and all that, is a great and relevant story. Why choose Yosha Law Firm and not Mike Hammer or something? If you care about somebody who started with nothing, followed the American dream, and went across the Atlantic with nothing and built something, it’s quite impressive. That’s part of the storytelling.

Sorry, I misunderstood. I clearly didn’t read that. They did start the business in 1963, though, which is a second milestone, but they’ve just done a little intro of when they came to America, essentially. From that point, they pretty much started the law side of it.

I’ll tell you that this goes so far back in the timeline, partly because I shared with Brandon that he’s so passionate about and loves his father, who is still somewhat involved in the law firm. He’s not completely retired. This is a tribute wall. This is a way to show your love and respect for your father that just oozes out of you in conversations, but where is it on the website? “Oh, we’ll take care of that. Let’s build that in with the help of Studio 1 Design,” and that’s what you’re seeing here.

Nice. These milestones are incredible. It is a very long history, even if the business did start in 1963.

His father has such an incredible network and such an incredible reputation. Everyone is so just in love with this guy. Competing law firms have wonderful testimonial videos about Buddy. As I said, it’s like a tribute wall, as well as being a timeline of the storytelling.

Totally. After all the milestones, we definitely want to have a call to action at the bottom of the page. It’s like, “Right, they’ve just read the journey that you’ve been on. Now, give them the next step.” They probably are more inclined to work with you at that point. Generally speaking, it depends on the business. But generally speaking, it could just be the main call to action of the website. In this case, it’s getting a free case evaluation.

Ask for the order. If you don’t ask, you don’t get it.

Exactly. That’s why we like to design about pages. I did the same on mine as well.

I love your About page. I love the history of how you designed t-shirts and everything, and you show that visually.

Yeah, we do. That’s the way we like to design pages. Is there anything else, Stephan, you wanted to talk about as far as authority-boosting pages?

I think that covers it. These are really great examples of different types of landing pages. At least some of them are going to be relevant, I would imagine, to every listener or viewer. I think you shared before we hit record here that there is a potential bonus landing page.

There is, actually.

Do you want to share that? Why not? We’re already so over time.

People may not think of the careers page as an authority-boosting page. However, if you have a well-designed careers page, it has a double benefit.

We’re so over time. No problem. What we’re talking about now is a careers page. People may not think of this as an authority-boosting page. However, if you have a well-designed careers page, it has a double benefit. (1) You’re going to attract the best team members. (2) When your prospects see a page like this, the effort you’ve put into attracting the best people in the industry to come and work for you, they want to work with you even more. We’ve had clients say that to us.

I’ll run through this here in a minute; we’ll attract really good people. We’ll run through why because of the sections. However, imagine if a prospect comes to you and they see a crappy careers page versus a really good careers page. It’s like, oh wow, they really put a lot of effort into this. They’re more likely to want to work with you if you’ve got a good careers page. That’s why I call it an authority-boosting page.

You look larger than life. You look like you’re punching above your weight.

Exactly. On this page, you essentially want a benefit-driven headline for the people you want to become part of your team. You want a call to action above the fold. In this case, we’ve got an image of the team behind all of that copy, which is pushed into the background because we want the copy to be the hero, but it does tell the story quite well above the fold.

They’ve got a section. What is it like working at an enterprise? This is Enterprise Fitness, which is a personal training studio in Melbourne, Australia. These are just almost like impact metrics. It’s just a row of benefits.

It’s unique working at this place versus being. If you’re a personal trainer, for instance, these guys offer one-to-one personal training, they generally work at a big box gym, they have to pay rent, they have to wonder when their next session’s coming in, etc. These are fighting against these benefits here: sessions guaranteed, no rent model, working with dream clients, great culture, and competitive pay. All those things are competing with what they’re doing currently. It’s really smart. in my opinion, to put those little benefits right there.

It just goes into more reasons. What is the enterprise all about? It gives them more reasons to potentially want to join their culture. Then they got some social proof from people who work at this place. Then they’re talking a little bit about its SPIN Selling once again, their situation, and the problems they face. They’re concluding that if they work with us, their life will look a lot better. They’re just trying to sell what that will look like in this next section, which I think that’s also pretty smart.

Like a visioning exercise, they’re doing some subtle hypnosis there or something.

That’s true. “Imagine what your life could look like if you worked with us.” That’s what they’re doing, essentially selling the dream through all these sections. Then, a little bit about what they’re looking for, and then a little bit about their culture, which I love.

With culture code in general, you don’t want too many things in your culture. Between five and six, I think, is a good amount. “Do the right thing, no-nonsense, strive for excellence, create impact, have fun, show people you care, etc.” I quite like that approach.

They’re also showing, in this case, what people can expect in their journey as a personal trainer. They’ll start at level one as an intern, and then they can grow to level two, level three, and level four and become a master trainer. It’s just letting them know that it’s not just a job; it’s a career path and a progression that they can go on in their journey.

They reiterate the benefits of working at their place or elsewhere, and then more social proof and a call to action. It’s quite like a little bit of social proof regarding where they’ve been featured just to help showcase their authority. That, to me, is a killer careers page.

That’s a great example. I love it. Also, if somebody is listening or reviewing this, I’m just thinking that they’re a solopreneur, and they don’t want to be typecast as a solopreneur. Create a careers page like this. Even if you’re not ready to pay an additional salary, just having that page up there for when you are to start getting inquiries and when prospects go to this page like, oh, it’s not just a one-person band, or it’s not just the Stephan show, he’s got a team, or he’s recruiting. He’s growing.

Exactly. We also did the same thing on our website as well: “Join a world-class design team to develop your skills. It’s all about what’s in it for them. Take the next exciting step in your design career. You want flexibility. Work from anywhere, get paid weekly, have ongoing training, and build world-class design skills.”

It’s a similar approach, and we’ve got examples of our designs. It’s a different design, but you can see that if you’re watching YouTube right now. That’s the way we’ve done that.

We can share another one here, but it’s the same approach. It has a little bit more copy. Speaking of copy, we don’t write copy at Studio 1. But if you get in touch with us or Stephan, we use the same copywriters we can introduce you to if you decide to work with us. The copy is a very important part of all this, right, Stephan?

Absolutely. I have a copy team. If you have the right copy, you’re persuading people, connecting with them, building rapport, relatedness, and more. If you have the wrong copy, you’re just bragging. You’re just talking about yourself. You’re plugging your fingers into your ears and talking at people, not with them.

Copy is super important. They’re the landing pages. Just remember as well, the final tip is that your website’s never finished, and you should always be testing, monitoring, putting Google Analytics, heap maps, have videos of people using your website, and then just constantly monitor it and tweak it over time. But only test one. If you make a change, just maybe split-test one thing at a time. Otherwise, if you split test too many things, you don’t know which one’s really working.

You have to have statistical significance. You can do a multivariate test, but you have to have enough visitors and visits to your website for you to get statistical significance. I know you designed a landing page for this episode for our viewers or listeners. What does that landing page offer, and where does it go?

If you go to studio1design.com/stephan, you’ll see an opt-in to take a quiz. In this quiz, there are 50 things that we’re going to ask you. “Do you have this on your website, or do you not have this on the website?” At the end, we’re going to give you a score out of 50. If your score is under 20, what we find most people’s score is, then you’ll be able to identify those other 30-odd things you need to put on your website to help it convert better. Check that out: studio1design.com/stephan.

From there, on the thank you page, this is why we do things. We’re going to have a completely free offer to watch a webinar where we’re showcasing some of our other clients’ websites.

We go through the SPIN Selling and Robert Cialdini’s principles to show you how we design websites, essentially. It’s just a little mini funnel, all completely free, but you just have to opt in.

Awesome. Fantastic. You’ve really outdone yourself. I just love the work that you do. The portfolio that you have is incredible. I love your case studies because you’re giving so much more than just the before and after, giving the whole situation, the problem they were solving, you were solving for them, and so forth. That’s just all impressive. Thank you for sharing all this on the show.

It’s a pleasure. Thank you, Stephan.

All right, listener, you need to take action. You need to do something with this. This isn’t just edutainment. At least pick three things you’ve learned from this episode to implement. Even if they’re really small, like reformulating your about page copy into a set of milestones in a timeline, adding some impact metrics to your landing pages or your homepage, or putting some sort of social proof above the fold, something.

Pick three things and apply them to your website. Let me know how you did with it, the impact, and the results. Send me an email. I don’t get enough emails from you guys, so get in touch and let me know. We’ll catch up with you in the next episode. I’m your host, Stephan Spencer, signing off.

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Your Checklist of Actions to Take

Use landing pages to boost my authority and build trust in my brand. Utilize speaking, book, event, podcast interview request, and about pages.

Have a standalone website for my event. A simple link from my main site isn’t enough. This helps with SEO.

Offer a free workbook, planner or guide as my lead magnet. This provides my audience with more value upfront.

Include a timeline on my about page to showcase my origin story and journey. This helps to build my authority.

On my speaking page, include section features like speaker reel, highlights reel, testimonials, speaker topics, etc.

For my newly-released book landing page, use my social proof from a previous book.

Build audience trust. Use the “Netflixing strategy” and recommend related content on thank you pages after form submission.

Make my careers page appealing for both potential new hires and to showcase my authority to prospects.

Continuously test, analyze and optimize my pages with tools like Google Analytics. Pick at least three goals to implement on my own website and measure my results.

Connect with Greg Merrilees on his website for website design, and follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for the latest updates regarding his web design and branding services. 

About Greg Merrilees

Greg Merrilees is the founder of Studio 1 Design. He’s passionate about really good-looking website design that gets results!