Death of the long sales page - requiem

Another datum surfaces, again from recent browsing. Saw a sales page that just when on and on and on with video series after video series and ended off with several scroll-downs of testimonials.

While long sales pages are useful - they depend on content. Real content.

What drives a sales page is the story. Read Collier, Vitale, etc.

A sales page isn't a over-filled shopping cart full of sugar-enriched fast-food.

It's another conversation. You have to get and keep your viewers' interest - all the way down your page.

The particular sales page which set me off was simply a dozen or two NEW HOT VIDEO SERIES! - each and all with clever graphics. OK, so I got that the guy likes to do videos. Great.

But what happened to my mouse - it started to scroll down the page faster and faster and faster. Then I finally saw the guarantee, right after the testimonials. I didn't bother to stick around to read his PS. It was what goes for a "standard" sales page these days.

However, that approach is pretty dead - except to the 2-3% who will buy anything.

What the guy should have done with this was to offer a teaser, which he did, and then simply link to all these video series. Each video series would then have its own sales page and would link to the same sign-up page. (When you build like this, you are actually creating a mini-net and can actually get some good organic SEO pagerank and wind up higher on Google when you do - but that's another story...) But every single page would have great value.

Even long testimonials can go on another page - or in a side column.

I know that people are trying to keep viewers on that one page with few choices to click somewhere else. But in doing that, they also then encourage use of the back button (or close tab button).

You have to have a story and keep to that story.

You have to give real value in what you offer. Sure, make it pretty, but don't over-glam it. Keep it nice, but not too ritzy. Even diamond-sellers are known for understated elegance. The design of the page develops trust. When you design like a used-car salesman, you get people avoiding the lot.

While the rumors of the long sales page's death are exaggerated, there are more than a few which should never have been born.