Why do most landing pages look like crap?

[bgbg]

No mean to disrespect, but...
There are thousands of landing pages that look like .... like .... like a landing page. As if there is a single template that uses all possible combination of 10 fonts and 10 colors to create an ugly page that immediately is associated (by me, of course) with a scam.
Examples:
http://forex-megadroid.com/
http://www.thirtydaychallengeplus.com/
http://www.worklesstoearnmore.com/

Not only they all have the same look, they also have the same structure: some mambo-jambo -> testimonials (go figure whether they are fake or not) -> buy now -> explanation why the price is very low

Again, no mean to disrespect :-)

[kamakiri]

They look that way because long copy works. It has worked since people started sending it out as letters in the mail during the Hoover Administration, and it works today.

If you are really interested in the mechanics of it, go out and buy Michael Masterson book Changing the Channel. That guy is like the king of long copy.

That you think it is a scam has nothing to do with the effictiveness of those campaigns. You bought the 4HWW didn't you? "Join the NR", "Live anywhere", and all of the blurbs are the same ones used on those landing pages. Did you mention the 'testimonials'?

Sure, I think we can both agree that these sites do prey on the weak minded to a certain extent. If it was that easy we would all be doing it, but it hasn't stopped books like The Secret or the thousands of 'Wealth Attraction' seminars, books and programs from getting marketed and sold every day.

You might think they are a bit hokey, but you definitely can't knock their effectiveness. In most cases they were set up in a few minutes from the 10 font/10 color template and are profitable after the first sale.

[bgbg]

Thanks again. I wasn't even aware of the term "long copy". Googling a little bit on this term gave me this:

Long copy works. Online sale letters that use long copy (i.e 20, 50, 100 pages)… not so much anymore. Especially the ones filled with ridiculous hype and garish colors and fonts.
from http://www.copyblogger.com/the-death-of-the-long-copy-sales-letter/

[kamakiri]

That quote was probably written by someone who has seen too much long copy. They even conceded the point that long copy works. The huge difference is that 40 years ago, you needed a type setter, envelope stuffers, stamp stickers, addresses, and the necessary resources to send out that marketing stuff. Today with the internet, you can do it in an afternoon, buy a domain, and start with adwords for under $20. Sell 1 ebook for $40, and you have not only made back your original investment, you have made money. It is very easy to sell 1 ebook.

Where the problem comes in is the sustainability. It is so easy to get into that everyone is doing it, and soon you have a full time job just keeping your sites up and tacking the results.

You buy an ebook on how to do this exact thing and sell a book, and boom, "Hey! I am an internet enterpreneur..." syndrome sets in. You can find thousands of customizable ebooks out there just waiting for someone to stick a long copy sales page on them and be sold.

All in all it does work, not in the 4HWW sense, but in the sense of an MLM. You need to spend 50 hours a week doing in order to make any money.

[blackhatontherocks]

Uah. Slow Down there Tiger. I know plenty of folks who do this who may have worked their fair share of 50 hour weeks when starting out, but now work about 2-3 Hours per week just "keeping everything together".

They may work more, but the rest of the time they spent on creating entirely new projects or to expand on old ones.

While they are doing that, their current level of income keeps coming in without additional work, aside from the afrorementioned 2-3 Hours per week (mostly spent writing emails and checking the results of outsourced projects).

It's just a matter of knowing the basics of a strategy, then putting it to work to get to know all the roadbumps, then streamlining and outsourcing everything as far as it's reasonable (i.e., humanly possible - in most cases).

Anyway, back to the original topic:
They are used becasue they work like cake. Simple as that. Now go and copy the best of them (rewriting it and getting new graphics to fit your products, of course) and get rich on your own.

EDIT: The thirty-day-challenge-page is something else though - any good freelance copywriter knows he *once had* a job if he tries to deliver a "headline" as long as this mess to any client with any experience selling stuf at all. Ed dale can just pull it off because of his perfectly-primed "one step at a time" 30-day-challenge-finisher crowd of prospects he now cashs in on.
No disrespect to the man, he just knows how to squeeze a bug out of someone.
/EDIT

Video+Signup-only pages work pretty well, too, btw - it's just the other extreme end of the spectrum.

[networkmemetics]

I think that the landing pages look like crap because you aren't interested in what they are selling.

The landing pages were targetted to a specific market or problem within the market, and pushes the hot buttons of that market segment.

Imagine you saw a landing page that described EXACTLY why crappy looking landing pages sell so well....you would be pulled in by the exact same design, but with a a message that speaks directly to you and pushes your hot buttons.

Make sense?

These sales letters get tested constantly....they are there because they work.

[Chewy]

I agree with the OP, I've always felt that landing pages look really really cheesy...almost scam-like. That being said, they seem to work so I have no qualms about harnessing the for my own gain :)

[Frank]

Maybe they look so cheesy because we see so many of them. People who frequent this forum probably tend to do many more searches on items that lead to these landing pages - we're always on the lookout for new ideas and concepts.

When a regular customer chances across one of these pages it's probably not nearly as ugly to them. Besides, as one of the previous posters pointed out, they are actually a potential customer for the product. Their interest level is much higher and their focus is on content more than design.

Having said that, though, I thoroughly agree that many landing pages look like garbage. What really bothers me is the sameness of every page. Everything is in a big rectangular box and it's always linear. It's probably the easiest way to go but it shows absolutely no imagination.

The argument that they work doesn't mean that a bit of imaginative design wouldn't make them a work whole lot better.

[camdengirl]

I hate these pages and will not, under any circumstances, buy from them because I hate to be rewarding this sort of laziness. Seriously, I have a friend who sells information products and uses these pages and even if I was dying to get my mitts on the info I'd not buy simply because they look so horrible. However they must work because people wouldn't use them otherwise.

Number 1 bugbear: They look horrible and samey
Number 2 bugbear: The amount of add-ons, special offers, and "limited edition" offers which make it difficult to assess what you are actually buying.
Number 3 bugbear: When you actually can't see how much they cost because of all the stuff they are spouting on about...

[DaveinHackensack]

No mean to disrespect, but...
There are thousands of landing pages that look like .... like .... like a landing page. As if there is a single template that uses all possible combination of 10 fonts and 10 colors to create an ugly page that immediately is associated (by me, of course) with a scam.
Examples:
http://forex-megadroid.com/
http://www.thirtydaychallengeplus.com/
http://www.worklesstoearnmore.com/

Not only they all have the same look, they also have the same structure: some mambo-jambo -> testimonials (go figure whether they are fake or not) -> buy now -> explanation why the price is very low

Again, no mean to disrespect :-)

I'm about to launch a site with completely different copy on the homepage: no exclamation points, no special offers, no colored fonts, etc. Part of the reason my copy is going to be toned-down is because my site is aimed at relatively sophisticated audience; part of it is for legal reasons; part of it is because I don't want to over-promise and under-deliver. We'll see if my way works or not.

[webgal]

The people who write the sales pages are direct response copywriters. They also write the infomercials. Yes, there is a formula. And yes, it does work. Just count how many ginsu knives and George Foreman grills were sold this way.

[DaveinHackensack]

As far as I know, neither the George Foreman grill nor Ginsu Knives were sold with long copy; they were sold with infomercials.

Long copy probably does still work well for some products, depending on what you are trying to sell and who your audience is. My guess would be that the more sophisticated the potential clientele, the more long copy sets off scam-alert alarm bells with them and reminds them of get-rich-quick scheme mailers. I could be wrong. But if you look at one of the businesses Tim mentioned in his book, his friend's sound effects business, you don't see a long copy sales letter on its home page, probably because his product is geared toward a niche, sophisticated clientele.

[webgal]

I just meant that those information type commercials are written by direct response copywriters, the same type of copywriter that writes long sales letters.

You are correct in that you tailor your marketing to what your target audience will respond to.

[TheBaker]

Your not alone OP... as soon as I see them I think scam, I can't believe people fall for them, there again, I'm going off the BS PDF type ones with the pictures of fancy cars, yachts and the "Make millions easily" yadi ya garbage. But I guess to the newbie it might seem real. I'd never buy or use one though.

I was actually surprised when I saw a product I knew of that Is great and I would use, using the style, they're not all Scams. :)

[webgal]

I will say that most landing pages and most websites are dreadful. There are more horrible ones that well done sites. And there are sites that look cool but are not effective. The key is balancing what looks good to the target and what gets search engine attention.