Recently I signed up for a website called FeedbackRoulette.com where you can review other people’s websites and they review yours in exchange.
After doing a few reviews for other guys (especially liked LuckyOrange) I started receiving feedback for TaskArmy, my service marketplace website.
Although all of them liked the idea, they mentioned the busyness of the landing page: “Cramming too much on the landing page.”, “there is too much information thrown at you all at once”.
What are the goals of the TaskArmy landing page?
When TaskArmy started, I wanted freelancers to list their services more than anything else. Without valuable services and talented freelancers, there is no point bringing potential clients on the website.
Nowadays, I want clients to interact with TaskArmy more than before. And more importantly, I want them to buy existing services as opposed to requesting a job (which has a longer time-to-completion cycle).
Improving the landing page
This is what the landing page was at the time:
I am glad I asked for feedback because I didn’t realize it was so busy.
So I asked myself: “What is not essential on this landing page?”.
Maybe the Twitter/Rss/Facebook buttons could be removed, as well as the lower part of the sidebar.
Then I took a different approach, what would be essential on my landing page?
1. What is TaskArmy.com (tagline, screenshot?)
2. Credibility factors (testimonials, terms of conditions, …)
3. Why use TaskArmy.com?
4. Call to action
5. Some incentives to gather email addresses
6. Least distractions possible
Implementation of the essentials
This is the new version of the landing page:
1. What is TaskArmy.com (tagline, screenshot?)
I kept the copy as it is because I think it describes well what TaskArmy.com does:
I added some whitespace around this text though to make it more visible.
2. Credibility factors (testimonials, terms of conditions, …)
I added some genuine testimonials from clients on the right side of the popular services box. As you discover the popular services, you will stumble across the testimonials.
The biggest credibility factor in my opinion is the use of the “Facebook like” button that shows that 4000 people have recommended TaskArmy:
3. Why use TaskArmy.com?
This one wasn’t present in the previous version of the landing page and I had to come up with the most important points that make TaskArmy.com a good choice.
Today, I feel the main benefits of TaskArmy is that it is easy to use, safe to use and remove a lot of choices for your benefit (the price you will pay a service is decided for you and you don’t have to pick a candidate in a long list of job applicants).
4. Calls to action
What are the most important calls to action on TaskArmy? I could have pick any of the following list:
- Register for free (neutral, you neither a freelancer or a buyer))
- Post a service (for freelancers only)
- Request a service (for buyers only)
- Browse existing services (for buyers only)
- Browse offered jobs (for freelancers only)
- Search for a service (for buyers only)
- Click on a category (for buyers only)
I decided to make the landing page speak to only one side of my audience: the buyers. The reasoning behind this is that TaskArmy already has a great range of services and now more clients is more important than more freelancers.
I went for “Browse existing services” and “Request a service” instead of letting the user pick a category or search directly from the landing page. (Note for self: this is a decision that I should probably split-test in the next weeks.)
I chose to put the “Browse existing services” button first because it doesn’t require any registration and I prefer people to buy an existing service rather than having to post a job and wait for freelancers to apply.
I moved the calls to action to a more central position in this iteration too:
I have also enhanced the Register/Login link in the top navigation to turn it into a secondary call to action:
5. Some incentives to gather email addresses
This is something that is still lacking the new landing page and I should do something about it.
6. Least distractions possible
I have removed most of the elements of the sidebar and the “latest services” and “latest jobs” boxes.
I hope this article gave you some ideas of what to improve of your landing pages.