Thursday, January 15, 2009
Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions
Product Description
How much money are you losing because of poor landing page design? In this comprehensive, step-by-step guide, you’ll learn all the skills necessary to dramatically improve your bottom line, including identifying mission critical parts of your website and their true economic value, defining important visitor classes and key conversion tasks, gaining insight on customer decision-making, uncovering problems with your page and deciding which elements to test, developing an action plan, and avoiding common pitfalls. Includes a companion website and a detailed review of the Google Website Optimizer tool.
Product Details
* Amazon Sales Rank: #3626 in Books
* Published on: 2008-01-29
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 384 pages
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
OPTIMIZE YOUR LANDING PAGES TO TURBOCHARGE YOUR PROFITS
How much money are you losing because of poor landing page design? In this comprehensive, step-by-step guide, you will learn all the skills necessary to dramatically improve your bottom line:
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Identify mission critical parts of your website and their true economic value
*
Define important visitor classes and key conversion tasks
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Gain insight on customer decision-making and make your page friction-free
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Uncover problems with your page and decide which elements to test
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Understand the power and limitations of common optimization approaches
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Develop an action plan and get buy-in from all key players
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Avoid common real-world pitfalls that can sabotage your test
Packed with case studies, practical strategies, a detailed review of the Google Website Optimizer tool, and a comprehensive companion website, this one-of-a-kind resource will help you make your landing pages more profitable.
"Tim has figured out what so many people don't understand: your website can (and should) get better. Every single day."
—Seth Godin, author of Meatball Sundae
"This book is a must-read for the modern Internet marketer."
—Kevin M. Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch
"This is the best business-focused, measurement-based guide to website design I have seen."
—Don Norman, cofounder of Nielsen Norman Group and author of The Design of Future Things
"Stop guessing at the best landing page designs and embrace true customer centricity. This book shows you how!"
—Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist and author of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day
"Tim's Landing Page Optimization is a must-have for your bookshelf."
—Bryan Eisenberg, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author
About the Author
Tim Ash is a recognized expert in the field of landing page optimization. He is the president of SiteTuners.com, a company that improves the conversion rates of website landing pages through state-of-the-art scientific testing. Tim has spoken internationally at such industry events as Search Engine Strategies, PC Expo, the Affiliate Summit, and Internet World. Visit Tim's book site at LandingPageOptimizationBook.com
Customer Reviews
Helpful Book, But A "Light" & Too Technical3
I am not a techie, but have a good working knowledge of web design and analytics. I own a website and manage some of the html and all of the analytics. The book was informative, but I was hoping to see much more guidance on proper design with a bunch of examples and less on multi-variate testing. Not a bad book, just not quite what I was looking for.
Less filler than most4
If you've ever read a marketing book the lesson is not on the lines of the book but what's written between them. If you can deconstruct how the book was sold to you you win. The content is seldom useful for much more than getting excited about learning the lesson that never arrives.
And this is no accident. Marketers are magicians, and magicians never give away their best secrets. So we shouldn't be surprised when we don't get the deepest darkest secrets in a book they so willingly published to have us buy.
Having said that this book did in fact provide facts (yes, actual facts) about online marketing design and implementation. Much more than other book son the subject. So many in fact, that the book is half full of them. While you can't buy just half the book, I would recommend you buy the entire book and learn what you can from one of the best in the industry. You're not going to get the whole picture, but you're going to get more than most other books are going to offer you. Remember, think "Why is he telling me this? What is he not telling me?"
Go forth and advertise.
Impractical Collection of Laundry Lists for Corporate Users2
So, let's say you have a website and want to improve the landing page.
Perhaps you're not sure about the best style of landing page for your type of product and would like a discussion about what kinds of pages work best with products like yours. You won't find ANY answers here. In fact, you won't even find a hint.
If you can't do the math to figure out what optimization is worth, then maybe you should read this book. But even then I have to believe that this material is covered on the web for free. It includes the typical fodder about team buy-in. Hey, guess what? If you have a team you need it. Next topic please.
There is even a gratuitous section on Meyers Briggs personality types. How that ties in to landing page optimization was not revealed.
Save your money. I normally don't review books negatively, but this one has so many positive reviews that I thought somebody should warn the unsuspecting. If you spend a couple of days reading this book you will not be much farther than you are right now. It just goes to show that there are a lot of people in this business who really don't have a clue.
I gave this book 2 stars because I believe that it would be useful to a corporate user who knows absolutely nothing about the web or web marketing. For me it was excruciating. I want my money back.
Labels:
Business Management,
Tim Ash

