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Let me know your thoughts and comments on today’s video!
Please leave a comment below.
Note that I don’t reply to all comments, but I do read them all. If I don’t reply to your comment, it most likely means that I agree with what you say and don’t have anything meaningful to add, myself. I appreciate and read all comments and your comments play an important part in what I write about, so keep them coming.
Spammy comments are always filtered or removed. No surprise there.
My Homepage Sucks? Guilty My Lord!
Gotcha!
Definitely get some lead capture on that homepage. Oh also: don’t use the Striking homepage options. Those are weird. Just create a full-width page and set it as the homepage in settings->reading. Works better for me, anyway.
Every time I attend a webinar this happens as well – entirely too much talking about how ‘successful’ they are. Often times I just click out rather than listen…
So true! When anyone starts telling a rags-to-riches story about themselves, I just zone out…
Hi Shane,
Thanks for the video.
I really appreciated your honesty and would like if you could look at my website and advise me on a few things.
http://djministry.co.uk
Kind Regards
Jason A
Hi Jason,
Watch this.
Shane, I don’t know Jason, but I enjoyed your critique of his website. Would love to see more of this. Thanks!
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Shane, your no-nonsense, straightforward approach is very much appreciated by me and I’m sure by many others. Thanks and keep up the great work.
Thank you, Eric!
Have just come across you via the private group of Mind Valley on FB. Am relatively new to this stuff but think you have a great way of teaching/sharing, and am in the process of changing my homepage, but def going to make sure the focus is a lot more on capture!
Thankyou!
Glad to help!
Definitely get rid of/change that slider on the homepage. The images just link to themselves, which makes them a dead-end. The images need to communicate something and need to lead visitors towards an action.
Of, just ditch them in favor of a headline, which might do better anyway.
I was thankful to learn that my homepage sucked for reasons OTHER than the ones you cited :-)
I’m not sure how I got on your list, but I also appreciate your straighforward approach. I’ll definitely be opening your emails from now on.
Haha, thanks! Does that mean I just unintentionally helped you with something?
I must be getting good at this guru thing… :P
OMG – You’re right! My home page really DOES suck! The good news is that now I know how to fix it!
Thank you!
Thanks, Ron! Glad to be of service. :)
I agree with what you are saying in this video. My question is how do I do what you recommend on my WP Blog. How do I make a static home page yet still have all the functions of a regular blog?
Thank You;
Lonney
That’s quite easy to do, with most themes.
To set the homepage, you simply go to Settings -> Reading in your WP admin panel. There, you’ll see an option to pick a specific page as your homepage and a different one as your blog page.
As for the content on the homepage, most themes come with a full-width page template, which you can use for this. This removes the sidebar, so that the homepage content can be fully focused on one message and one conversion goal.
Shane,
Are you sure you’re not talking about me and my homepage??!! Thanks for the advice and you are right nobody gives a crap who I am and how I started the company…all they want to know is how I can fix their problem toilet flange…
Thanks for giving us the business!!
Tom
Of course I’m talking about you and your homepage!
The best message is one that could have been made specifically for you, right? :)
Hello from Montana, USA
Thanks for sharing your ideas. I am curious on how to get more comments. You simply ask for them. DUH! Now, there is a novel idea.
Best of luck, Judy
Hi Judy,
That’s exactly it! You want someone to do something, ask for it.
Now that I read that back I just realized that this is actually generally good advice for life, not just for online business. :)
I can’t tell you the number of times I have this argument with clients when we test website updates to improve conversion.
I insist now that in most cases the question “How can we best help you today?” with 3-4 clear choices is heavily featured. Works every time.
Nice, I like that idea!
Hey, Shane.
Thanks for this post. It came just as I was trying to decide whether or not I should do a dedicated home page within my blog or a static html page. As usual, I agree with everything you said.
Thanks, Adrienne!
I see you have a blog homepage and dual sidebars… definitely needs a lead-gen homepage. I think you’ll find it makes a dramatic difference.
As an examle: I get about 7x the conversion-rate from the homepage, than from the sidebar opt-in.
Shane,
Great video. Super honest and direct…I like direct.
Thank you, Wally!
Hi Shane,
I started building our new website straight after attending your “critique-a-website” webinar last year.
As one of your long term subscribers (mainly just lurking in the background learning from all your posts)I volunteered our website for critique – a soft easy target as it is awful!!
That site still exists – only for a little while longer – however after your Webinar we started a fresh and re-launched a new site at the end of last year using many of the principles learnt from that Webinar (would love your comments…)
Though of course always a work in progress and after this post I will now re-look at the website Home page and also the Blog home page.
Also greatly appreciate the ONLY review of EVS that has no link to buy- once again your integrity is beyond everyone else out there.
Cheers
Alison
Thanks for your comment!
I made this quick video for you.
My EVS review does have affiliate links, by the way. I’ve never had any problem with affiliate links or promotions. If someone buys through my review, I’ll gladly take that commission. :)
Still a real review, though.
Your killing me Shane”‘ But you are right”‘ Lol
Truth hurts, I know.
If it’s any consolation, just remember that my homepage sucked for YEARS, before I figured this out.
Hi Shane,
For all of my sites that have a sales funnel, the homepage is a Lead Gen squeeze page and it works well. But my homepage does not contain the menu bar.
I have been thinking of using s sales video on the homepage and doing a split test with the homepage I have now.
Do you have any plans of using a video on your Lead Gen homepage? If not, why?
Kind Regards,
Dave
PS: I use Wistia based off your recommendation. I like it and I plan to keep it.
Hi Dave,
I had a video on one of my previous homepage versions. I do plan on making another one for the next round of split testing.
As long as I can get better conversions with video, there’s no reason not to use it.
Thanks Shane for your honesty.
I’ve tried getting around the changing homepage by creating 2 sticky posts, but I can see what you are saying…
I also probably have too much about me stuff which I was using to build credibility… I need to change this to be about the reader.
Cheers
Ian McConnell
Western Australia
Hi Ian,
The credibility stuff belongs on the about page, in my opinion. If you look at the about page on this site, you’ll see that it’s all about me and has a lot of credibility stuff.
Although even there, it might be a good idea to lead with something more benefit oriented and a call to action.
In fact, I think that’s something I’ll have to test.
But at any rate, the way I see it, when someone clicks on the about link, they are actually asking for information about me. In any other case, it’s always good to assume that your visitors are mostly interested in themselves.
Great Stuff as usual Shane!
Keep up the great work! I enjoy watching Your Sunday Updates.
Staying in the loop.
Think Great Thoughts and Great Things will Happen!
Burt
Thank you, Burt!
Many thanks for your down-to-earth blog posts Shane. As someone who is a technical nightmare when it comes to websites I always appreciate your valuable easy to understand input.
I have just created a dedicated home page with an opt-in box but it still needs more work as there are too many distractions.
Hi Amnuai,
Just had a quick look at your page.
That slider is probably not doing you any favors. I know sliders are a really popular design element because they look neat, but in actual testing, they rarely do well.
I think one of the strongest points on the site might be “directly from the weavers”. Eco friendly and ethical are strong selling points for a certain demographic.
What I’d really like to see on that page is a big headline that combines the message of “this is good quality stuff” with “this is ethical and eco-friendly/you’re doing a good thing by buying this”.
Shane many thanks for taking some of your valuable time to do this – it is greatly appreciated.
I will rethink the image sliders as you suggest but we have had some really good comments about them and they are linked to specific pages.
But nothing on our website is “set in stone” and your expertise is worth acting upon. Many thanks
This is kinda super obvious but it has taken me years to get it right and it is only a minority of my blogs that I have this done.
One problem is the word “blog” because it almost implies the usual blogging collection of posts on the “home page”.
Another shock – the left hand icon on your navbar is not Home but something else…Hmmm!
Another corker Shane.
Alex
PS
O and thanks to Jason for asking for the webclinic and to you for providing it.
More please!
Even “pretty please”!
Thanks, Alex!
I was also surprised at how few blogs apparently do this. I was looking for great blog homepages as examples for a post. Took me ages to even just find a handful of blogs that don’t have the usual blog list on the homepage, let alone good examples…
No it doesn’t Shane (OK maybe it does) :)
Probably really more for Internet marketing related sites and business related sites or sites with products & services to sell.
There are a lot of sites out there that have an ‘updated blog post’ homepage that seem to do perfectly well as a blog. Like universetoday.com as an example. But then again.
I’m testing my site (CalendarToPrint.com) with blog posts on the home page as I’m not sure if my site would make sense to build a list from (and have a opt in page for). If you have thoughts otherwise be great to hear.
But generally speaking I concur with your (mostly brilliant) ideas.
Thanks – Martin
:)
There are many, many blogs that are doing great and that have a blog homepage.
But does that mean that they wouldn’t do BETTER with a dedicated homepage?
Just because everyone’s doing something, doesn’t always mean it’s the right thing to do.
For the calendar website, you may be right about the opt-in. The question is: what’s the main conversion goal for the website? And is the current homepage doing the best possible job of communicating exactly what the site is about and driving visitors towards that conversion goal?
Shane you’re the man! I just want to say thank you so much for all you’ve done to help me become a better internet marketer!
A little over a year ago I built a Nerdy website for fun and wanted to get more traffic from Google. I learned SEO from your Backlink Battleplan 2.0 and applied it to my many websites. I kept experimenting and learning more about SEO and one year later landed a professional SEO job at http://www.DigOurIdeas.com. I even convinced the company to use Rank Tracker over at Swiss Made Marketing after Raventools killed there rank tracking service.
Anyways I’m a big fan and wish there was some way I could show you my appreciation besides sounding off on your comments. :D
I look forward to taking your advice about blog homepages and applying it to my Nerd Podcast blog page.
Thanks again,
Austin-
Hi Austin,
Thanks for your comment!
It’s extremely satisfying to read about good results that people have gotten from my content and products. Really can’t ask for more than that (except: keep buying my products!). :)
Best regards,
Shane
Great post! My SEO guy told me he preferred a blog type homepage because “it will force search engines to crawl the homepage again and again to index new content and thus help with rankings.”
I’d love to read any feedback you might have on this issue.
Thanks,
Tomas
What would you rather have: a frequently crawled homepage, or a homepage with kick-ass conversions?
Shane, a quick question: you mentioned that you are currently split testing/rotating your home page. Would you mind letting in on how you actually do that technically? i.e. is there a wp plug-in you use or is it a manual update and just gauge the opt-in rate? Thx!
Hi Thomas,
I use Visual Website Optimizer for split testing. Very easy to use. :)
Sorry to have to tell you this, YOUR homepage sucks! It’s all white with a bunch of content which whenever I see that on homepages, I click away. I won’t sit and read all that.
No engagement, no video, no color, BORING!
Hi Nicole – just noticed that you had some broken images on your homepage you might want to sort: http://screencast.com/t/XqVC4heQ2
Haha, fair enough! :)
Whether or not you like my homepage is somewhat besides the point, though. Maybe I’ll end up with a homepage that has video and colors and images flying all over the place – if that shows to deliver the highest conversion rate, after extensive testing.
Or maybe it will be a long block of text – if that turns out to bring the best conversions.
I doubt either of those scenarios will turn out to be winners, but the point is that my homepage is based on test results and on serving my business. That’s what I’m trying to get across, when I’m accusing everyone’s homepages of sucking. :)
Shane
Not a customer of yours at the moment but appreciate your tips and advice. Been relying on a squeeze page but take your points about a good home page. Many thanks
Aden
Hello Shane,
As usual your updates are most informative and appreciated, thank you.
I seem to remember back in the dark recesses of my memory that you gave us a run-down on blog setup, much more indepth than in the video above. I am sure it was you. You gave your thoughts about removing all the fancy crap that looks ‘stylish’ but is not all that effective for visitors.
I have tried to find it but cannot relocate the info.
Can you help me out with this?
Thanks – Trevor
Hi Trevor,
You probably mean the one that’s accessible from this page. :)