432. High Converting Landing Pages with Greg Merrilees

Every landing page is going to have a different purpose, Right? But if we're thinking holistically for the brand, to build more trust in your brand, all these landing pages that we're talking about will help do that because they're trying to showcase your authority or boost your authority, essentially. But yeah, if we talk specifically about each of these landing pages, let's say if we were to start with the speaking landing page, you got to think about who is your audience is an event organizer, for instance, or it could be somebody else in the business. But the point is, in this case, sure, you may want people to reach out, but they may not be ready yet. Their intent might be to just be looking around the Internet for speakers and figuring out who's a good fit and then downloading say, the one sheet, for instance, or a speaker kit. Right. So therefore, if you think, okay, what's in it for them? It might be to download the speaker kit and they're not ready to make an inquiry yet. But. But at the same time, you still want to get an email address in return for giving them that speaker kit, potentially, right? It's not always the case because you may find that could be a barrier for some people that really just want to download the speaker kit without letting you know that they're interested at this point. So that's something you can test. Having an Opt in versus not an Opt in welcome to Marketing Speak, a.

Series of interviews and monologues featuring thought.

Leaders and industry practitioners in search engine.

Optimization, e commerce and online marketing.

Here's your host, Stefan Spencer, SEO expert, author, speaker consultant and Internet entrepreneur.

How can you make your brand appear larger than life and punch above its weight through effective website design? My guest on today's show has a pretty amazing track record in getting exactly these kinds of results for his clients. It's so great to welcome back my friend and longtime collaborator, Greg Merrilies, founder and director of Studio One Design. Based in Australia with a distributed team of 24, Studio One has custom designed and transformed over 2000 websites for some high profile online marketers and brands, including Sylvester Stallone, Frank Oz, who's the voice of Yoda, as well as a number of Marketing Speak and get yourself optimized guests in this discussion, we hone in on the power of a well done landing page. Greg shares proven strategies and examples for crafting persuasive landing pages that convert cold visitors into hot leads and sales. And he explains how to structure engaging pages to promote speaking engagements, live events, books, podcast interviews and more. Greg provides tips on Conveying authority and social proof while showcasing your unique value proposition. You'll learn how to borrow credibility from other ventures and progress your brand's story across different pages. So, without any further ado, on with the show. Thanks for coming, Greg, and let's get into it.

It's a pleasure. You've got two other people that we design for. One is you and your wife, Orion.

Yeah, that's true. That is true.

Our favorite clients to design for many.

Websites you've designed for me over the years, including this podcast's website, marketingspeak.com, which looks beautiful. I love it. Stefanspencer.com, which is a Studio One 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. Also in the process of getting an update, mild but important redesign or update to go in line with my brand. Kind of refocusing from biohacking to more about spirituality. And yeah, Orion's website, which is also in the mock up phase, is just one, probably the most gorgeous website I've seen. So great job.

Thank you. Yeah. And look, 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. So it's a combination of your input and our input combined to produce something that you love and converts. Yeah, that's our specialty. Yeah.

Yeah. And hopefully by the time this episode airs, those website redesigns will be live. Especially I want orionsmethod.com to be live by then because it's a whole other level. Like, I've never seen a coach website like a transformation coach hypnotherapist website of this kind of caliber ever.

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

Okay, so 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?

They definitely still a thing. I remember started this. You mentioned landing pages are dead. I remember Russell Brunson used to say that websites were dead, right? Because he obviously wanted everybody to use click funnels and just have landing pages and then funnels, et cetera. And to me, there's no reason why you can't put all that on your own website that you own. You don't need to pay clickfunnels or any of 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, put on your own website and then you can constantly tweak it over time as well and you can add what's the next step after somebody's on that landing page and turn it into its own funnel in its own. Right, right. So yeah, landing page is definitely not dead. Unless they're not designed very well and then as good as dead.

Yeah, well, not just from the design angle, but also from the underlying kind of infrastructure. If they are, for example, on a click funnels or leadpages domain and a subdomain of their domain. Now you have an SEO problem because this isn't your website, this is somebody else's website and you're building on rented land. So if you quit with clickfunnels or leadpages, you lose that subdomain and you lose any juice like link equity that you've built to that sub site. So making that part of your main website is really important from an SEO perspective.

Yeah, exactly. I guess the only pages you wouldn't want to have discoverable would be the hidden funnel pages. After that particular landing page might be a thank you page that leads to another limited time offer or a webinar or something else that.

Yep, here's your bonus. Yeah, you want that behind the curtain.

Yep, exactly. So those pages wouldn't be discoverable in the Google search, but the landing pages. Yeah, generally speaking, you would want them to be discoverable because especially the landing pages that we're going to talk about now, which are really designed to boost your authority, then why hide them? Because ideally, the purpose of a page that boosts your authority is to build more trust in your brand. And really what we're talking about is if you think about Robert Cialdini's book Influence, one of the main psychological drivers to help people or to influence people to buy from you is authority. And that's the pages that we're gonna 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. And if you're making a one page website with just a landing page and that's it, that's not going to do well on Google. It might build authority once somebody's on that page. But how do you get people onto the page? If it's a one page website, it's just not going to rank. So 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.

Exactly, exactly. And you don't want to just put a page up for the sake of just trying to boost your authority. But if you think through, and I know you do this with your clients, Stefan, that we design for, is you help them with a strategy to really think through. Okay. How are we going to get their website to rank? What are the things we need to do on the page and then off the page as well, to really drive the website and not just traffic, but conversions and build trust in the brand. And so, yeah, I mean, the pages that we're going to talk about are things like a speaking landing page, a book landing page, and an event landing page, and a couple other pages. But how do you, Stefan, come up with helping a client with a strategy to say you need this type of page or you need to release a book, et cetera? How do you assess them?

Yeah, well, first thing I do is I try to understand their unique point of difference. What is the magic behind their brand and what's their backstory? What's their origin story so that we can build kind of a superhero Marvel comic out of it. Right. So something that makes me want to hear your story, because I'm rooting for you. You're the underdog, and you're going from zero to hero. I want to hear that story. I want to be able to see if I can retell it in a way that is captivating and full of suspense. And then I want to find ways to tie in the different products and services that you offer to that hero's journey, but still provide the opportunity for the visitor to be the true hero. And my client is really the guide. So that's the story. Brand framework for doing a brand script is visitors the hero, the brand? The client that I'm working with is the guide. They're Obi Wan Kenobi, they're not Luke Skywalker, and they have the plan to blow up the Death Star so that Luke can fully step into his hero status. So we also figure out lots of other things, like what are the internal problems, the unspoken problems of the visitor who's the shared enemy, the villain that we can all agree to hate. A lot of elements from the Storybrand SB7 framework, plus other just basic demographics, psychographics, clickographics of the audience understanding them and their Persona, the avatar of that visitor, so we can kind of step into their shoes.

Yeah, love that. And also, I think about all the advice you've given me over the years. I think about when I started my Journey. We used to design T shirts, and then we pivoted that business was going down, and so we pivoted to online. And that's kind of where I've met you and, you know, a few other online marketers, business coaches, et cetera. But my confidence was really low, and we have regular calls and let's do things to boost your authority, like write a book, you know, get on stage and things like that. And even though I was quite scared to do speaking on stage, doing that has just been a game changer for our business in general. And, yeah, it's just you looking at things and saying, right, okay, what's missing in your story to help boost your authority? And those are the type of things that you help me with and, you know, still working on these things. And you say, let's get on more podcasts. Just recently, I remember you saying, well, if you want to get a more podcast, why don't we look at the strengths that I have and reach out to podcasters and say, hey, here's how we could help improve your website. And to me, it's just those little bits of strategy piece that you do with all of your clients that is super helpful for helping grow their business, and it's all based around authority. So, yeah, I appreciate that.

Yeah, it really is about being remarkable. It's the idea from Seth Godin of how to just build a brand for yourself is to be worthy of remark. So 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 or a podcast tour or a documentary or docu series or whatever. Right. Just 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, I don't know, these kids or pets that need new homes or what, 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, it relates at least tangentially to their story, and it makes you remarkable and memorable. Now you really got something. Not everybody needs to have a book or should have a book, or it's not their highest, best use to write a book, but if the book is leveraged in such a way, or is 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, and they want to kind of overhear the rest of the conversation because their interest has been piqued. Now you got something. So that's what I'm always looking for.

Love it. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. Well, I mean, 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 what the focus or the objective is of the landing page. If it's just generic, we're going to get into specific types of landing pages. But if it's just a generic landing page, is it meant to get an email address? 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, Tripwire product? What's the point generally of a landing page?

Yeah. And every landing page is going to have a different purpose. Right. But if we're thinking holistically for the brand to build more trust in your brand, all these landing pages that we're talking about will help do that because they're trying to showcase your authority or boost your authority, essentially. But yeah, if we talk specifically about each of these landing pages, let's say if we were to start with the speaking landing page, you got to think about who is your audience. Is it an event organizer, for instance, or it could be somebody else in the business. But the point is, in this case, sure, you may want people to reach out, but they may not be ready yet. Their intent might be to just be looking around the Internet for speakers and figuring out who's a good fit and then downloading, say, the one sheet, for instance, or a speaker kit. Right. So therefore, if you think, okay, what's in it for them? It might be to download the speaker kit, and they're not ready to make an inquiry yet. But at the same time, you still want to get an email address in return for giving them that speaker kit, potentially. Right. It's not always the case because you may find that could be a barrier for some people that really just want to download the speaker kit without letting you know that they're interested at this point. So that's something you can test, having an opt in versus not an opt in. But you still want to obviously have the right.

But generally speaking, you're going to have, in most cases, an opt in on a landing page.

That's true. That's true. Yeah, absolutely.

And a landing page doesn't necessitate somebody entering the website at the homepage, and then they've gotten some idea of your unique selling proposition and what's in it for them. And then they move on to, let's say, a speaking page or some sort of other landing page. No, they could end up directly on this landing page from some marketing campaign, an email, a TV or radio ad, magazine ad, whatever. And that page needs to be able to stand on its own without requiring the visitor to have come in from the homepage.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Spot on. Yeah. And once again, if it's well designed and written well, and it's got maybe the Yoast plugin with some SEO value in there, then, yeah, it should, should rank for that particular topic that you're speaking on as well, or at least your name and the word speaking. So, yeah, but as far as the structure for the speaking page, I mean, I'm going to start with your website, Stefan.

Not my company website, netconcepts.com, but my personal brand website, Stefan Spencer.

Exactly. And this page is the new page that we're working on currently. But basically just to explain it, what we're doing, doing above the fold here is showing you on stage, essentially. Right. So that people can see straight away that you do speak on stage. And you have done that in the past. And then we want to let people know what's in it for the audience that will be watching you on stage. And so just letting people know, your attendees will leave full of enthusiasm and ready to take action. And then we've got the speaker kit as well. Now you speak on a whole range of topics, so we couldn't get specific above the fold on what that topic would be. So that's why it's a little bit broad. Then we have a call to action above the fold, which is really to book you to speak or to download the speaker kit so they can do either one of those. All right. And then when pressed, there would be a pop up for people to with the form for either one of those. Call to actions, essentially.

Yeah. And 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. And 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 umpteen number of potential speakers. So I need to really be proactive and chasing after whoever these folks are that are Downloading the PDF?

Yes.

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 video. So if you scroll down a bit, you'll see a mention of my speaker kit.

See that? Understood. Yeah.

My speaking 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're going to click on that big orange button. And there's also a pop up if they leave this page, an exit intent pop up that invite to download my speaker kit and provide their first name and email.

Exactly. And then when somebody does either download the speaker kit or make an inquiry, then you want to send people to a thank you page with a face to camera video, just thanking them for what they've done and just at that point give them the next step. So I mean, Stefan, I think you introduced me to this idea of a thank you page where it has, sure, 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 have just downloaded or made an inquiry. So yeah, it's just a way of building more trust in your brand and showing them that you have other educational content that positions you as an authority.

Yeah. Just to give credit where credit's due, I heard of that strategy from John Shoemaker who was a past guest on this podcast and he calls it the Netflixing strategy. And it's just basically getting people to binge watch as much of your content as possible before the strategy call, before that first zoom interaction that you have.

Yeah, great way to build trust in the brand. And speaking of trust, even above the fold, underneath the main photo and speaker kit and call to actions, we've just got some logos of places that you've spoken at previously and in this case we're picking ones that you want more of and really showcase your authority. But yeah, for instance, if you want more similar type of businesses, they're the best logos to put here as opposed to putting other might be 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 would stick to ones that you want more of.

Yeah, so for me, I want to speak at more prestigious universities. So I got to speak once at Stanford. I put that there, even though that was, I don't know, eight years ago. I Spoke at Stanford and I only did it once, but I want to convey that prestige, that trust of such a prestigious institution and that's why that logo is there. I've spoken a number of times at Affiliate Summit and it's a pretty well known brand in the affiliate marketing space. So I added that logo in and yeah, a few other of these that 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. Now whether that's in this highlight reel or not, it's really enticing and showcases your authority. Once again, because of who Tony Robbins is.

I do have the audio in there of him saying that because it wouldn't be relevant to just have it be a frame with the thumbnail and not have it in the video itself.

Yeah.

But I also want to point out something that I think is a nuance that needs to be looked at or considered and that is having a logo bar like I have on this page that's relevant to what we're offering or what we're 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, et cetera.

Yeah, nice touch.

If you go to the media page or the press page on my website you'll see a different logo bar there again, which is all the as seen on appearances, the TV networks like abc, cbs, NBC, et cetera. So that it's like, oh, okay, Stefan's been on TV and he's been featured in magazines and so forth. So I, as a journalist or TV producer see that he's not a newbie if I had him on my TV station.

Yeah, totally. Yep, absolutely. So it's got to have context and be completely relevant to think about the audience always like the people that's on the page, what's going to be most relevant and most appealing to them. But yeah, cool, good point.

Yeah. But that's a nuance that is often overlooked. It's like, oh, I read the book Influence by Bob Cialdini and it says to have some sort of social proof logos or something. So here you go and let's say certifications or like distributors of your product that's not social proof or the 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?

Exactly, yeah, spot on. And the speaker reel, like the highlight reel, I think that's an important thing as well. Usually just like two minutes long roughly, just to give people a taste of what, what to expect. But don't give away everything that you're going to be talking about, just give them a taste for it. But yeah, it's usually something that's energetic and just shows you in action, essentially.

Yeah. Just to differentiate something I didn't realize is different, a sizzle reel, highlights reel is different from a sample reel or I don't know if there's another term for it. But anyways, the sample video of you speaking highlights reel or sizzle reel is a bunch of little snippets of either you speaking on stage and, or you in front of the camera getting interviewed by, let's say, TV hosts or journalists or whatever. And so now you have ideally on the landing page, both that show that, oh, this person has been on TV and they're a celebrity and 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 or getting laughter or whatever from the audience. So you get a sense for, oh, this guy performs great on stage and he's pre selected. He comes pre selected. All the other TV producers and whatever have already had him on. So I don't have to take a career risk in having him on. And then potentially him freezing in front of the audience.

Yeah, totally. Yep, love that. Cool. And then really you just want to let people know in another section underneath the sizzle reel, what are the benefits of hiring you? Essentially, what's in it for them? And it's really just trying to just give people an overview of what to expect. By the way, all these sections, they don't necessarily need to be in this order every time. It'll vary based on what you know. For instance, like 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, so I'm not saying you need all of them, but ideally, if you've got all of them, that's great. And you've got attendee feedback. So most people may not have a video of attendees, they may just have a few little written testimonials so the point is, what we're trying to do here is showcase your authority with all these various things, but it's not 100% essential if you don't have them. Just build on a page over time, essentially, because you have various event feedback, you have specific feedback from various events from industry professionals. You know what I mean? Like, most people probably won't have as much social proof as you have, but the social proof aspect is extremely important. So the more you get over time, just keep adding it to the page.

Yeah, so for that attendee testimonial video, we actually brought in a videographer to video the workshop and then to interview a bunch of the attendees. There's probably 10 or even maybe 15 short interviews of maybe a minute each, two minutes, something like that, of them talking about some of the great takeaways that they got and the value they got from attending. We didn't have for a long time. But once we did, then we added it to the page. We didn't have a sizzle reel for a while and then we did. And once I got my TV appearances, we had it redone so that we could incorporate all the little things of the hosts of these different TV stations saying, and here we have Stefan Spencer and. No, next up, Stefan Spencer. And here's Stefan Spencer. So just over and over and over again said, wow, Stefan's on lots of tv.

Yeah, yeah, love it.

It was a step by step evolution. And as we added these social proof elements, we just added them to the landing page.

Yeah, fantastic. And that's the thing. Just keep adding them over time. But yeah, the more social proof the better in my opinion, on all these pages. But yeah, so I know we've got a few landing pages to get through, so we'll just talk about the next section. Once again, it's just another section reiterating why hire you to speak? Essentially, so just a few paragraphs of text in there, another image of you speaking, and then talk through this little section here, Stefan, because this is, you know, most people won't have this.

They're kind of like impact metrics, or at least they were inspired by the impact metrics little bar that you tend to have on many of your websites that you design. It's like X number of customers served, average star rating of 4.9, 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 and different audience feedback forms and things like that and just turn that into something really short and Punchy. So a top rated breakout session@shop.org so that was something that the conference organizer mentioned in passing or put in an email or something and like that's amazing. So now I've got a little nugget here that I'm going to make into an impact metric. And so that's how we positioned it. And then you laid it out, you and your team, in such an elegant way.

Yeah. The purpose of these impact metric bars or something like this is so that people can just visually, without thinking too much, they just visually write. Okay, look at all these logos. Look at these amazing. Top rated breakout session. 4.9 out of 5 stars @ content Marketing World, et cetera. Like, it's just a really quick visual way of boosting your authority essentially. So, yeah, I love that section and most people won't have that, but it was really smart idea, I thought, coming from our Impact metrics bar, but relevant to this topic essentially. So that was cool. Yeah. And then you have speaker topics. So obviously you have a lot of topics and you can speak on a lot of different things. But yeah, generally most people just have maybe one or two topics. But yeah, it's further down the page. It's probably not as important closer to the top of the page. But at this point down the page, I really like the idea of mentioning the topics.

Yeah. One little nuance about that that I really liked that you guys did is the Show More button. So there are three or four or just a small handful of potential topics to hire me to speak on that are visible by default and then there's plenty more. But I don't want to overwhelm the page with all of those. So that's all hidden by the Show More button. And if they're interested, then they click that button and they can see more topics.

Totally. Yeah. Cool. Yep. Absolutely. And then you will put some upcoming events in there when you decide to do some more. And then you've got some videos of past events, which I think is fantastic. Are these the full videos or just snippets?

Yeah, no, they're not just snippets. They're maybe an hour long talk or whatever.

Yeah, incredible. Yeah. Cool. So, yeah, like I say, and people probably won't have as many with all these sections that you put on here, as many either social proof or past videos. But yeah, once again, the more you can have on there, the better because it's just boosting your authority and the.

Devil'S in the details. If you're going to put a picture of you speaking have a picture, not just of 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, I don't know, spilling through out of the seats and stuff. So it's like the whole stadium is full. That's powerful social proof. Or if you're going to speak at an event, let's say you do a TEDx talk and you didn't even check to see if it's being videoed. There are some TEDx talks that don't get videoed. Would you speak at a TEDx? And it's not going to end up on video and end up on the TEDx channel on YouTube. It's not even worth knowing. So if they're not going to video it, pay for a videographer and make sure your talk is videoed. It's worth it.

Totally. Yeah, absolutely. It's a wasted opportunity if you don't. And then if you don't put on your speaking page as well, it's a wasted opportunity. So that's why I like the fact you've put all these on there. You've even got show more just to keep.

There's so many.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but that's cool. Yeah. And then you've got praise from conference organizers. More social proof, you know, it's just incredible. And basically every call to action on this page for the book Stefan to speak would anchor link down to this. In this case we're anchoring down to the bottom of the page. And the reason we did it this way instead of just a pop up is because of the fact that when somebody presses it, we want it to just not quickly and not slowly. Just kind of 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. So it's like, oh, okay, just realized then they can scroll back up and review all that. But if you just have it in a pop up, they may not see everything else that's below the fold. So that's why I think we changed.

So there's a handful of fields here 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 be costing them for me to speak or 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. So that's why we ask for half dozen different data points. And then the opt in for the speaker kit, that's the modal box, the pop up that shows up with just the minimum amount of information, first name and email.

Spot on. Just to clarify what you said before. Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of the basis for a speaking page. So yeah, it's really just thinking about your audience and showcasing your authority and having social proof if you've got the more the better from past events and attendees. That's kind of the basis for this hiring Stefan to Speak page or hire me to speak page. And so now I know we've got a few pages to get through, but I just wanted to show you a couple of other designs that, that we've done that follow this same principle. It's just a totally different look and feel. So obviously you need to be on YouTube to be watching this. But I'm just doing a quick scroll to just show you there's. It doesn't have all the sections that Stefan has, but it still has the same essence. And here's another one as well. Jeff Fenster in this case, who's a bit of a big deal, but yeah, this is kind of his impact metric bar his speaker reel testimonials, why hire me to speak, et cetera. But yeah, so it's just a different design obviously and some images as well is probably not a bad idea to show you at past events or with other authorities. So that's one section I don't think we had on yours, Stefan, but you can definitely add into the page as well.

And we're going to include these pages, the URLs to them, links to these different landing pages that are being discussed in the show. Notes for the episode for this episode on marketingspeak.com cool.

Hopefully these are live by then as well. Yeah, but yeah, we'll do our best. For sure. They should be live, but then depends when it's going live. But yeah, cool. And then so the next page is really live events. So similar to speak in, except the purpose of a live event page would be to run your own live event. But once again, if people see that you run a live event, they're automatically going to be thinking that you're an industry leader. So yeah, it's a really power. Obviously it's a lot of work. But what we're talking about here are pages that are going to help grow your business and this would be once again one of those strategies that Stefan may identify that's missing from your business. And you may need to run a live event to help boost your authority. And so we're just going to run through a couple of these live event pages. What are your thoughts, Stefan?

Yeah, if it's high ticket, that will be something that's easier sold in a live in person event than virtually, I think that's my opinion, but I've heard plenty of people give that feedback as well. A live event also has a lot of opportunity for rapport building and for personal interaction. So if you're trying to get a transformation out of somebody, people buy transformation, not information. And if you can better deliver a transformation for somebody through an in person event, then I would do it that way. Because you don't know that somebody's actually going to consume your thing that you're offering virtually. They may not even watch the recording or if they are attending it live, but not in person, just virtual. They might also be meeting with somebody in the background or having lunch or checking their email or, I don't know, writing a report while they're half listening to your awesome content. So that's not going to get the transformation.

Yeah, totally, totally. And so just to run through the structure, this brand is Maximum Lawyer and their audience are lawyers, basically. They help them with marketing and things like that. And so basically they call it out at the top of the page, attention attorneys, firm owners and legal preneurs. So I really like that, just calling out who it's for and then they've just got the title and a little bit of a sub headline to give it a little bit more clarity on what they're talking about here essentially. And then they've got a photo of them at one of their past live events above the fold. So it really just helps tell the story. And it's all really well branded. Even the background of them on stage has the branding that matches their website and their brand overall, which I quite like.

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

Really good point. Yeah. And I think it's up to the client, essentially. But I agree with that. We've done a lot of event landing pages that have their own URL and. But yeah, you can't convince all clients to do it that way because it's obviously another domain they have to manage. But yeah, it's a really good point. And it's great for SEO as well, right, Stefan?

Yeah. If you're likely to get more links to that separate standalone site because it looks more legit, more, I don't know, just of a thing, then you're better off than just having a separate page on your site. But it's not always. If you have a massive, powerful, high authority website and you just registered a brand new domain for your event that you've never run before, that's not going to rank. So put it on the high authority website.

Sure. And another reason to have a standalone page, you may be running the event with another business and it might be two totally separate businesses, so probably wouldn't make sense.

Yeah. You might even want to, at some point sell it as a standalone entity and not have the whole company go with it. Like Traffic and Conversion Summit.

There you go. Yeah.

Was sold by DigitalMarketer.com to whoever owns Affiliate Summit. I forget who.

Yeah, nobody remembers that name. Yeah. Cool. And so, yeah, the structure of an event landing page is we've mentioned the bit above the fold and then we want some social proof and then we want, you know, and that could be any form, could be impact metrics, it could be written testimonials, video, et cetera. Yeah. And then just a little bit more clarity. This is kind of a little bit of spin selling, where we're letting people know we understand the situation they're in, essentially, and we have a solution to helping them solve whatever situation and problems they have. And that's when you introduce the event, basically, which will help solve those problems. So, yeah, it doesn't need to be much copy, like much copywriting. However, the more you can get inside the heads of your prospects and allow them to think that you understand the situation, that you have a solution, the better it will convert, essentially. So that's kind of what these two sections are. Yeah. And then, you know, in this case, they've got a couple of different events. Generally speaking, it might be one landing page per event, but these guys, I think they run events every couple of months, so they just have one landing page and they just change the dates for whichever events are coming up next. Yeah.

And I see there's some masterminds, some smaller events that they're running, and then there's a bigger event that has kind of.

Exactly. Probably correct. Yeah.

A much larger audience. So 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, let's say, their top 20 most important clients get together on a quarterly basis for a mastermind, a very small workshop of 10 or 20 people. An event landing page is relevant for them too.

Totally. Yeah, that's right. And it can work for virtual summits and it can work for any type of event. But essentially what we're trying to do here is get people to a live event, whether it's. Yeah, online or in person. But yeah, absolutely. And then you really just want to have a little bit of a section to explain who's behind the brand, who will be presenting at the event. Now like I was saying before, this page here is not exactly like for one event, it's 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 sec. But yeah, who are the speakers? And then a bit of a schedule for each of the days. Okay. So that's something that's important. So people can always refer back to that landing page to, even if they're at the event to see what's coming up next, if they don't have an app or things like that. But yeah, so I just thought I'd mention that. Yeah. Any thoughts, Stefan? Any questions at this point?

That's a great point. That people will come back to this landing page even after they have registered so that they can check the schedule, check the agenda. All right. Which track am I going to attend, which sessions am I going to attend, when am I going to fly out back home based on what kind of wrap up of the conference is going to be, whether I want to attend that or not. Maybe I can get home early. Yeah. So they're going to get back to this page multiple times even after they've registered.

Totally, absolutely. And then this section here is really just talking about the benefits, like what they can expect to personally to get out of the event, you know, so for instance, this one, embrace a growth mindset, unlock time saving strategies. So 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 really quite like that future proof your firm by niching down, et cetera, or niching. But yeah, so that section I think is pretty cool. Yeah. And so, and then these are the kind of the overarching things that people can get out of the event as well at networking, goal setting, it's just like a few words in each live event. Energy, expert, support, personal accountability, business and pleasure. So, yeah, I really quite like just the overview of what's on this page as opposed to just showing the topics from the speakers. This is more what you can expect to get out of the event for your practice, which I quite like.

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

Yeah, good point. And that's just a good point. In general, with landing pages, people just scan and they stop at headlines. And that's why we just want it to be relatively good visual hierarchy. So good design, good large words for headlines. And the subject text is quite small in comparison. Just to give that visual hierarchy. So people can read the small print if they want, but they don't have to. But yeah. And just in general with landing pages, we do always have it in sections, so you might have noticed so far we just talk about there's this section, then the next section. Because if it's not in sections, it's more sort of cognitive load on the brain if it's just a big jumbled mess. It's kind of the way people used to design landing pages and things like that. Say 10 years ago where it was, it was just maybe two or three columns, but now it's just big and bold and let's just get to the point and yeah, make it visually appealing. And another thing I wanted to mention actually was, say with this one, this was a few years old, but what she ran event for dentists. And what she did was, or what we tried to do with the design was sell the location. Because this one, for instance, was based in Jamaica and a lot of her target market were Americans. So 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. So this is very beachy and like we've got pictures of.

It's a junket.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And just showing some other activities they can enjoy. Golf and swimming and massages and jet skis and all that stuff that they're going to do when they get to Jamaica. So the look and feel of this page represents the location. So that's something that I just thought I'd mention because, yeah, 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, which I really quite like.

Yeah, sell the event by also selling the venue.

Yes, exactly, exactly. Yeah. And I think we did the same thing for youpreneur Summit for Chris Duck. I haven't got that open, but yeah, it was very British and yeah, we're just selling all of the British icons, all the touristy things that people do.

When they go to London, essentially bangers and mash.

Yeah, all that, yeah, Double decker bus and the Big Ben and things like that. Yeah, yeah. So that's really. Yeah, that's really how we design event landing pages. So the next thing to talk about, seven are book landing pages, if you're ready for that.

Yeah, let's go into it now. Not everybody's going to have a book but you can easily create at least an ebook. Now that there's chat, GPT and Claude and other LLMs. This is very doable for anybody. Now 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. And this ghostwriter, she interviewed Brandon over a number of hours and recorded that and got all that transcribed and then used that as fodder. That isn't the only way that you could write a book, obviously, but it was very time efficient for our shared client Brandon to do it that way.

Yeah, totally. And yeah, so the structure of this page is really above the fold. I mean, in this case we don't have a top navigation so we've removed that altogether. We do have the brand Yosha Law in this case. That's his business name, it's also his family name, his surname. But then 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 Amazon bestseller logo and obviously a little bit of a description of what the book's about and a call to action. Right, which is to buy the book in this case. Now that call to action may be to buy the book. If you don't have a book yet but you have one coming soon, it's really good to still put a landing page up and just have get notified or download free chapter or whatever it is just give them something in value in return for giving their email address. But it's really good gauge if you don't have a book yet, but it's coming soon to just see how many people are interested in the book. So just offering them, like I said, a free chapter or it might be, I don't know, a digital copy. Just to get feedback. If you're after feedback before you go live and publish a book properly, you can still have a landing page to get feedback on the book. Essentially.

Yeah. One thing I'm a fan of is if you have the full book, it's already done and you have the book landing page. Instead of just 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 the Look Inside the Book feature.

Yeah, that's true.

But if you provide a compendium companion piece free download, like 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. And 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 also is a helpful assist for me considering actually buying the book. If the companion workbook or worksheets are so helpful that I'm thinking, okay, I probably should buy the book.

It's a really good point. And look, yeah, we find most clients will have that for people that purchase the book. Absolutely. As opposed to it just being a lead magnet. But I like the way you're thinking because yeah, if people get all that other stuff first, it's more reason to buy the book. So yeah, it's a good strategic way of thinking about the extra content. But yeah, you definitely want to have those extra resources. And probably on a totally separate page, it's hidden from search.

Yep. Awesome. I like the logos there for Amazon, Spotify, Google Play, Apple Books, Audible. Because he owns the rights to the book he self published, he was able to do an audio version of it. Helped him find a narrator. It's a great way to consume his book without having to invest as much time in physically reading it. You can just listen to it while you're at the gym or commuting to work. And if you are willing or interested in giving that away, that could be Something that helps, like as a sweetener to get somebody to buy the physical book or the Kindle book on Amazon, you'll get a free digital audio file of the audiobook. Or you could just sell it on Audible. He sells it on Audible. He didn't give it away.

Yeah, understood. Understood. Yeah. Cool. And. Yeah. And when you could also do an audio only as a lead magnet for, you know, return for an email address, I guess. So the only problem with people going to directly to Amazon or to these other platforms is you don't get their email address, do you? They own all that data. You don't get anything. So that's why I guess it's important throughout the book to have those extra worksheets, et cetera, so that when people come back to your website and they go to a page hidden in your website, you potentially have them opt in for that. So at least you've got their details. So you can keep the conversation going via email, then mock it to them, essentially.

Yeah. So if you have something that's really 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.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Cool. So I guess the point is there's lots of ways of trying to strategize to get people onto your list. But yeah, everything we've mentioned so far, really good strategies and. And I'll go through this page structure in a minute. But another strategy that we've done for another client, this is unstoppable prosperity.com so this guy is a. His name's Charles Payne, he's a Fox Business host on tv. And what we've done here is we have a claim, a free book and you just have to pay for shipping, essentially. Right. So this is published by a publisher, but this here is an entire funnel that essentially just gets people to buy the book. They enter their details first, they go to another page and another page and we've got all these things on various pages that upsell might be to his workshop. He's got various coaching offers and 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 that we've got this mobile version as well. But the point is, yeah, this is like, I can't say how much, but it does extremely well. It's in the seven figures, just from this landing page of sending paid traffic to this free book plus shipping that then has all the upsell backend funnel that does extremely well. So there's various ways.

That's impressive. Yeah, that's really impressive. So a free plus 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. Yeah, it works really well. I mean this guy is on Fox News so he has pretty good authority, you know, by himself. But yeah, this funnel works really well and this strategy works really well. Free plus shipping. But yeah, so the structure of these pages, it 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, you know, 36 years as a professional investor, 14 years presenting on Fox. A hundred thousand copies already claimed and one free copy for you. It's just a little bit of fun at the end there. But yeah, and then we're sort of letting people know the value of this free copy. And yeah, the reason it's got all this value, it says $134 is because what he's doing is putting extra bonuses. I'll try and find the bonuses on this page. Yeah, so free gifts that he adds, he does the value stacking to really increase the overall value that he's given away for free plus shipping. So that's another strategy you can use to really make it a no brainer.

Yeah. So the value stack is. Here's a bonus, here's another bonus. Here's a fast action bonus. Here's this bonus. And it becomes a no brainer for the visitor to opt in for this amazing deal of it's a free book plus all these bonuses. All I pay for is shipping. But 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.

Yes.

Right. If you want to upsell or not upgrade to be part of our VIP community, this is a one time offer. You'll never get it at this low price again. But since you bought the book or bought the shipping, got the book for free. Yeah, we're gonna give this to you right now. And so add all that in and that pays for the Facebook ad, plus the cost of the fulfillment and that makes itself liquidating.

That's correct, yep. Spot on. Yeah. But yeah, so like I said, we'll include these URLs, but yeah, there's a lot of sections on this page and 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 really well. But yeah, yeah, I'm just saying you don't need absolutely everything that we've got on this page. But one section I do like is just giving people a sneak peek of what they can expect from this book. What's inside the book. Essentially, I'll reveal it'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, critical requirements of building a recession resistant portfolio. All these things are really good. Copy that. But I just like the way it's laid out as well. It's like these are things you can get within the pages of the book because we've got this little graphic of a page curling back. But yeah, I quite like that.

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

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And 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. But 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. So yeah, and that's another thing people can think about as well. You may not have any social proof on 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, Unsung 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.

Yeah. Well, that's a book page structure. And look, we'll send links to these as well. It's probably very similar structure that we've just been through. This probably has more of his personal story on the Yoshi book landing page. But yeah, it's a different purpose to the Charles Payne one that we just mentioned. But it does have. Here's a snapshot of what to expect inside the pages of the book and it's just got some page numbers and Some highlights from each of those pages, which I really quite like. That idea similar to what we just explained on the Charles Payne one. Yeah. And he has some social proof from authorities, like Jay Abraham.

Jay is his cousin.

That's why. There you go. There you go.

Well, that's how I got Brandon as a client. Was.

There you go. Yeah, yeah. Awesome.

I spoke at one of Jay's events. I've spoken at multiple of his events, but this one I'm referring to. Brandon was there, and he was really swayed by my presentation.

Love it.

I did some hot seats and actually pulled up Brandon's website and tore it apart in a nice, gentle way.

But sure, yeah, I've seen those presentations. They're not that gentle, but they're good.

I don't want people not volunteering their site because they're terrified how I'm gonna tear it to shreds, But I want it to be real and valuable and not just a rubber stamp of like, oh, yeah, yeah.

Well, they are super helpful, those tear downs. Yeah. I mean, 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 them live on stage. True, true. Yeah. Cool. All right. And there's just another one we did for Gary Goldstein, producer of Pretty Woman and things like that. So what we did here, actually, is people may not know his name, Gary Goldstein, but he's an academy award winning producer. And so what we had was just some social proof to show that the covers of the movies that he's like Mothman Prophecies and Under Siege and Pretty Woman, we're actually using those. So visually, people connect. Connect the dots. The point is, there's different ways to show social proof, and 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, so there's just a few examples there for book landing pages. How are we doing for time, Stefan?

It's funny you asked, because I just noticed an angel number at 1 hour and 11 minutes. 111.

There you go. All right.

And I was thinking, is that 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. And I think we need to give all five landing pages so that everyone feels super equipped to deploy this brilliance.

Awesome. Okay, cool. Thank you. Well, then another one. This is one we're talking about that you've helped me with. And this here is a page where I am reaching out to podcasters to ask if I can be interviewed on their podcast. Now, if you think about the wrong way to do it, people get. You've got a podcast, Stephanie, I'm sure you get emails all the time from people that just try and pitch you and they say how awesome this person is and that person and blah, blah, blah, but they forget about the important thing that what's in it for you as a podcast host and what's in it for your audience, right? And so what we're doing on this page is attention podcasters and influencers. And then we've got a headline. Profit from interviewing a world class website design expert and deliver massive value to your audience. Plus you can earn commission, blah, blah, blah, from every new website sale generated from your podcast. That's one way of doing it. And you just gave us an awesome idea before as well, which is to which we'll be adding to this page. By the way, Stefan, thanks to your input, which is for us to review the podcaster's website. And you know, that's really something that would resonate with them. So we're adding that to this offer. But the point is the headline is all about what's in it for them, right? Then we have a call to action, request the interview now, which will anchor link down the page. And then, yeah, we're just trying to use a little bit of spin selling in here as well to let them know we love their podcast. We've listened to the episode, it's got great stuff. And then we're talking a little about the problem. So the problem is the podcast audience. Most of their websites aren't great and they're not usually designed to convert essentially. So we're just pointing that out. And so then we're trying to introduce our solution to help that problem. So it's a little bit of spin selling.

Why don't you elaborate on what spin selling is? Because not everybody is familiar with the spin selling book. Yeah, that's what spin stand for.

SPIN is an acronym, situation, problem, implication, need, and it's a book by Neil Rackham. And what it's all about is based on 35,000 sales calls where they worked out this formula that if the person that's selling doesn't sell at all, instead they use his acronym in the way they communicate, which is let him deliver person on the other end of the call. Know that I understand your situation, understand your problems based on your situation. And here are the implications if you don't address the cause of that problem. So situation, problem, implication, SPI and N is the need, which is your solution. And that's where you talk about what's unique about your solution and how that can help solve their problem. So that's spin selling. So if you can put that on any landing pages, it's really a game changer. And it can be really 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 a little bit of 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 literally just designing it in sections to let our audience, which is a podcast host, understand why we would be a good fit for them. So we've got a social proof section of the type of businesses that. And brands that we've designed for, essentially. But yeah, in other words, we're not going into a lot of copy. We're just visually showing why our solution might be good fit for them. And then we go into who am I? So you think about the structure up here. It's like, what's in it for them? A little bit of spin selling and a little bit of social proof before we go into who I am and how that will benefit. Why is it important to interview me, essentially?

And most pictures of potential guests are going straight into. Well, they start with the ingratiating nonsense or just the BS of I loved your last episode and I absolutely know they never listened to it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

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

Yeah. So what we'll be doing is putting a little email and I will be mentioning. Because I'm not reaching out to anybody unless I really love their podcast. And I'll be listening to at least five episodes of their podcast and I'll be telling them in my email to them with a link to this landing page, some tips that I've got from their Podcast. So that's super important point that you've picked up there. Yeah. And that's why this is a slow process because I want to make sure that their audience is going to love what I say on their podcast, essentially. And I don't want to be a waste of their time or mine, basically. Yeah. So it needs to be a good fit. So I do put a lot of time and effort into making sure. Yeah, it's the right fit. But yeah. So then really we just want to let people know this is kind of what we'll cover and just a section about what they can expect from the interview, essentially. But then what I've got is a past case study of a podcast interview that I did that turned into profit for the podcast host, which, yeah, was really good. So I've included the audio of the actual entire episode. And then I'd mentioned we send people to a quiz page where people can opt in to do a thing to do a quiz to figure out what's wrong with their website. And then there's another section that just talks about how well it worked for the podcast host. And so then he decided to do an ad himself on his own podcast to promote my business so that we kept getting more leads, which worked really well. And I've included a little audio of that ad. Just a 60 second ad, but yeah, so that's brilliant. Yeah. And then.

And he made a fair amount of money off of that, like a hundred grand or something.

It was five figures, but yeah, it wasn't that much, but it was still decent. Yeah, yeah, this stuff can work. And yeah, it works for, you know, his audience, for him and for us. So it's win, win, win. And then just another 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. And it would just be a design that's relevant to their brand that they could potentially give away to their audience. So it's. Yeah, it might be their brand or it might be their slogan or something like that. Yeah.

So it's just so cool.

Another little incentive we offer. Yeah. And then on this page we show examples of. We've got John Lee Dumas and we've got James Franco and Perry Marshall and Clay Collins, the owner of LeadPages. So things like that, just to showcase our.

Those are big name Internet marketers.

Yeah, totally, totally. Yeah, exactly. And then just a short form and all the links on the page will just anchor link down to the bottom of the page. Yeah. Then we Also have a little one sheet which they can just download without opting in. And it's really just giving them an overview of. Well, it's got an intro, it's got interview topic suggestions and interview questions as well that they can ask a little bit of social proof from you, Stefan, in this case. And just helpful links for social.

Yeah, that is a beautiful one sheet. That's probably the best designed one sheet I've ever seen.

Ah, cheers. Cool. Maybe you help me with that.

Cheers.

Cheers, mate. Awesome. Get his gold.

Throw some shrimps on the barbie.

Barbie. We don't even say that. Yeah, cool. But yeah, and then we have examples of other podcast interviews that I've been on, essentially, so they can listen to it. And then we also have some social proof of some websites that were design resources. And that's pretty much the page. More social proof.

Really elegant, really well, well designed and really dialed in for conversion too. And for persuasion and building authority. Well done.

Thank you. Yeah. And we do have another section as well. We actually give back a percentage of our sales for every sale that we have. So just a little section to talk about that message. When we design for you, something impactful happens for both you and the world. And then we describe what that is. Yeah, but that is the podcast reach out page, essentially. Yeah, yeah.

So you have a social impact, environmental impact aspect to your business so that you make a difference in the world, not just through serving clients, but in the revenue you take in. You put some of that into the nonprofit sector.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, Spot on. Yeah. All right, so then we have. This is the last page. A bit of a surprising page if you think about a page to boost your authority. What we're talking about now is an about page, but done in a slightly different way to a normal about page. And so what we want to do on this page is we want to above the fold. We want to let people know what this business, or in this case, we're looking at a Stephen Spencer about page. So it's your personal brand, but this is kind of what you're about, and then what people can expect from you or from your offer in general. And a little bit of social proof. And then you've got a call to action, which is kind of your site wide call to action on this website. But then underneath that we have a video. And this could be kind of your bit of a backstory in there if you like. I haven't seen this video. Or maybe you haven't created the new one yet, Stefan. But yeah, it's really just letting people see, because people buy from people they know like, and trust. And 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. So, yeah, I really like the idea of having a video and it could just be you speaking. It could be a lot of B roll over the top of the narration, essentially. But this is the important bit that a lot of people don't do, but we do it for a lot of clients and it's called a timeline on your about page. And the reason we do this is because it lets people understand who is behind the brand and what was the story that got you to where you are today. And what we want to have in this timeline is anything that's relevant to getting people to know you a little bit better, but to boost your authority, essentially. So if you think about with you, Stefan, you were into computers well before most people were born by the looks of this. Right. And that sort of leads to you being an SEO expert because you're very tech savvy. And, you know, being tech savvy leads to being really good at SEO, in my opinion. So you've got a lot of milestones in this journey that help prove that you are a knowledgeable, credible expert in the whole tech space. And really with the evolution of the Internet, which leads to being an incredible SEO expert. So that's what I like about your timeline. And then you've got some social proof with big brands that you've worked with as well. What's your thoughts on the timeline approach, Stefan?

Yeah, it's really important to help the visitor see your origin story and your story of struggle to relate to you and to root for you as the underdog and somebody who's gone from rags to riches or from a tight situation to overcoming makes you more likable, as you said. And it's great storytelling. The old adage, facts tell, but stories sell.

Yeah.

And this timeline approach that you taught me and I've implemented across many websites is just phenomenal storytelling. So thank you for that.

Yeah, no worries. And look, you've got your books in there and things like that, because all that is part of your journey, but it also helps showcase your authority. So you can put whatever you want in there, from social proof to books to any type of milestone, as long as it's relevant to what you offer today. That's the whole point. 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 yeah, the rest of it is social proof and authority boost and things like when you started your podcast and when you got married. I mean, that is awesome from a personal story perspective. So, yeah, I really like that idea of timeline. And there's some businesses that don't have a long timeline and they wonder if they should have a timeline page. And I would say, even if it's a brand new business, what led you to starting the business? Think about that. And 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, well, at least give me reason to understand how you got to this point. Because if you don't have that backstory and you're a brand new business, there's not a lot of reason to trust you at that point. So that's why I would say have a timeline, even if it's a brand new business, what led you to that point?

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

Yeah. And then at the other extreme, there's. We go back to Yosha Law we were talking about before for the book landing page. They have a history that is ridiculously long. Right. They've been in business for 172 years. So in this case.

Well, no, no, that's not how long they've in business. That's how many years of expertise they have.

Beg your pardon?

Okay, what year did they Combined legal experience. But they've been in business for many years. Since many years.

That's almost. That's ridiculous, right?

No, no. 1904 was when Buddy's father came across the Atlantic. So that's just the history of the family.

I see. I see. Gotcha.

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

Totally. Yeah. Sorry, I misunderstood. Yeah, absolutely. 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, that's when they pretty much started the law side of it.

And I'll tell you that this goes so far back in the timeline, in part because of what I shared with Brandon that he's so passionate about and so loves his father, who still is somewhat involved in the law firm. He's not completely retired. It's just. This is a tribute wall.

Yeah.

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 one. And that's what you're seeing here.

Nice. Yeah. And yeah, these milestones are incredible. And yeah, it is a very, very long history. Even if the business did start in 1963, it's still a long time.

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

Totally. And so then, after all the milestones, we definitely want to have a call to action at the bottom of the page. Like, right. They've just read the journey that you've been on, now give them the next step, and they probably are more inclined to work with you at that point. So, yeah, 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 get a free case evaluation.

Yeah. Ask for the order. Right. If you don't ask, you don't get.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But that's the way we like to design about pages. Yeah. And I did the same on mine as well. But yeah, we'll put a link to that as well.

And I love your about page. I love the history of how you were designing T shirts and everything. And you show that visually.

Yeah, we do. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, of course you can see all that. But yeah, that's the way we like to design about pages. So. Yeah. Is there anything else, Stefan, 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.

Yeah, there is actually. Yeah.

And so do you want to share that since. Why not? I mean, we're already so over time. Just. What the hell?

We're so over time. No problem. All right, I'll just share my screen again. But what we're talking about now is a careers page, right? So people may not think of this as an authority boosting page. However, if you have a really well designed careers page, it has like a double benefit. One, you're going to attract the best team members. But two, when your prospects see a page like this, the effort that 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. Okay. We've had clients say that to us. So yeah, this here, I'll run through it in a minute. Will attract really good people and we'll run through. Why? Because of the sections. However. Yeah, imagine if a prospect comes to you and they see a really crappy careers page versus a really good careers page. It's like, oh, wow. Yeah, they really put a lot of effort into this. So, yeah, they're more likely to want to work with you if you've got a good careers page. So that's why I call it an authority boosting page.

Yeah, you look larger than life. You look like you're punching above your weight.

Exactly, exactly. And so on this page, you want a benefit driven headline for the prospects. Sorry, people. You want to become part of your team, essentially. You want a call to action above the fold. And in this case, we've got an image of the team behind all of that copy, which is kind of pushed into the background because we want the copy to be the hero. But it does tell the story quite well above the fold. And then they've got a section. You know what it's like working at Enterprise. This is Enterprise Fitness, which is a personal training studio in Melbourne, Australia. And yeah, these are just almost like an impact metrics bar, but it's just a row of benefits to something that's unique. Working at this place versus being. If you're a personal trainer, for instance, these guys offer one to one personal training. If you're a personal trainer, they generally work at a big box gym. They have to pay rent, they have to wonder when their next sessions coming in, et cetera. So these are kind of fighting against these benefits here. Sessions guaranteed, no rent, model work with dream clients, great culture, competitive pay. All those things are competing with what they're doing currently. So it's really smart, in my opinion, to put those little benefits right there. Yeah. And then it just goes into more reasons to what is enterprise all about? And gives them more reasons to want to potentially join their culture. And then they got some social proof from people that work at this place. And. Yeah, and then they're talking a little bit about. It's kind of spin selling, once again, talking about the situation they're in and the problems that they face. And then they kind of draw a. Imagine a day, they're kind of drawing a conclusion that if they work with us, their life's going to look a lot better.

All right.

And they're just trying to sell what that will look like in this next section, which I think that's pretty smart as well.

Like a visioning exercise. They're doing some subtle hypnosis there or something.

That's true, exactly. Imagine what life could look like if you work with us. Yeah. And that's what they're doing. Just selling the dream, essentially, through all these sections. And then a little bit about what they're looking for and then a little bit about their culture, which I really love this. And with culture, a culture code in general, you don't want to have too many things in your culture. And between 5 and 6, I think is a good amount. Do the right thing, no nonsense, strive for excellence, create impact, have fun, show people you care, et cetera. I really quite like that approach. But yeah, and then they're also showing, in this case, what people can expect in their journey as a personal trainer. They'll start off at level one as an intern, then they can grow to level two, level three, level four, and become a master trainer. So it's just letting them know that it's not just a job, it's a career path and progression that they can go on in their journey. And then they just reiterate what the benefits are, working at their place versus somewhere else. And then, yeah, more social proof and a call tax at the end. So really quite like a little bit of social proof as far as where they've been featured, just to help showcase their authority. But, yeah, that to me is a killer careers page.

Yeah, that's a great example. Wow. I love it. And also, I'm just thinking in terms of if somebody is listening or viewing this and they're a solopreneur and they don't want to be typecast as a solopreneur, create a careers page like this.

Yeah, totally.

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 man band, it's not just the Stefan show. He's got a team or he's recruiting.

Exactly. And we did the same thing on our website as well. Join a world class design team, 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, blah, blah, blah, blah. So work from anywhere, get paid weekly, ongoing training, build world class design skills. So similar approach, we've got examples of the designs we do. And then yeah, it's just a similar approach, different design. But you can see that if you get a link in the show notes or just if you're watching YouTube right now. But yeah, so that's the way we've done that. And there's another one here which we can also share, but it's the same sort of approach, has a little bit more copy. Speaking of copy, we don't write copy at Studio one, but if you get in touch with us or Stefan, we use the same copywriters that we can introduce you to if you decide to work with us. But yeah, the copy is a very important part of all this, right, Stefan?

Absolutely. Yeah. And I have a copy team. And if you have the right copy, then you're persuading people and you're connecting with them and you're building rapport and relatedness and all that. And 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 you're just talking at people and not with them.

Totally, totally. Yeah, copy is super important. Awesome. Well. Well, they're the landing pages. And just remember as well, final tip is that your website's never finished and you should always be testing and monitoring and put Google Analytics and Heat Maps and user videos, like have videos of people using your website and then just constantly monitor it and tweak it over time. But only test one. If you're going to make a change, just maybe split test one thing at a time. Otherwise if you split too many things, split test too many things, you don't know which one's really working.

Yeah, because you have to have statistical significance and you can do a multivariate test, but you gotta have enough visitors and visits to your website that you get statistical significance. Now, I know you designed a landing page specifically for this episode, for Our visitor, our viewer, I should say, or a listener. So what does that landing page offer and where do they go?

Yeah, so if you go to studioundesign.com Stefan S T E P H A N then you'll see an opt in to take a quiz. And in this quiz there's 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? And at the end we're going to give you a score out of 50 and if your score is under 20, which we find most people's score is, then you'll be able to identify what are those other 30 odd things that you need to put on your website to help it convert better. All right, so yeah, check that out. Studioundesign.com Stefan and then from there as well, on the thank you page, just this is the way we do things is we're going to have an offer completely free, but to watch a webinar where we're showcasing some of our other clients websites and we go through the spin and Robert Cialdini's principles to show you how we design websites essentially. So it's just a little mini funnel, all completely free. But yeah, just gotta opt in for that. Yeah.

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

It's a pleasure. Thank you, Stefan.

All right now, listener, you need to take action. You need to do something with this. This isn't just edutainment. So at least pick three things that you've learned out of this entire episode to implement, even if they're really small. Like reformulate your about page. Copy into a set of milestones in a timeline, or to add some impact metrics to your landing pages or your homepage, or to put some sort of social proof above the fold, something. Pick something, three things actually, and apply them to your website and let me know how you did with it, what the impact was, what the results were. Send me an email. I don't get enough emails from you guys. So get in touch, let me know. We'll catch you in the next episode. I'm your host, Stefan Spencer, signing off. I just want to make a quick plug here for Greg Merrilies and his awesome team at Studio One Design. If you hadn't figured out already. I just love him and his company and their services. I recommend him all the time. All the time. And of course I'm doing that right now. And do mention my name when you inquire with him so that he takes extra special care of you and maybe gives you an even better price than he normally would, which is incredibly competitive and high, high value. But yeah, you're going to be in really good hands. So please do connect with him and his team. I also of course want to make recommendations here for a few episodes on converting visitors into buyers. So check out episode 18 with Jared Spool, episode 222 also Greg Merriliese, and episode 394 with Jamie Marie. Also, I invite you to check out the show notes, transcript, action based checklist and all the URLs mentioned in this interview with Greg Merrilies@marketingspeak.com 432 thanks for listening to the Marketing Speak podcast. This is your host Stefan Spencer. I'm the founder of the SEO agency Net Concepts, co author of the Art of SEO and author of Google Power Search. In addition to this podcast, I also host Get Yourself Optimized which is about up leveling your life, relationships, peer group, career, business and spirituality. If you want more traffic and you want to work with me and my team, visit www.netconcepts.com. the site also contains a wealth of resources that include online courses, screencasts, webinars, white papers, articles and more. To reach me directly, email Stefan Stephan Spencer or visit my personal website at www.stephenspencer.com until next.