I know there are people who swear that more minimal landing page graphics are better for click through rates and ultimately revenue on parked domain names. There are also people who think that a better looking landing page creates a better user experience for visitors, and they will stick around longer as a result.
My company doesn’t do enough parking to really test these theories enough for me to take a guess. However, I’ve recently seen a couple of nice looking landing pages and wanted to share them with you.
The first one is for CampingSupply.com, which appears to be a Dotzup lander based on the DNS. The pictures match the domain name and theme perfectly, and the center links make the lander look like a developed website. I would imagine the links are hand selected to give visitors the options they would expect on a camping supply website. I don’t know the owner, but I believe he has a number of good domain names.
The second landing page I like is a weight loss theme from Domain Advertising. Although they can’t link to the actual website, you can see the test theme on their internal review website. Like the aforementioned landing page, the links are hand selected, and highly relevant to the theme. It’s very easy to navigate, and it looks very similar to a developed website, which probably helps with trust, time on the site, and perhaps CTR.
What are your thoughts on custom landing pages, and have you seen any nice looking ones recently?
Since landing page conversion is 100% of my business, I have tested this for the past decade, the minimal landing pages convert much better. That is why I refuse to take on partnerships or affliates. All these affliates want nice looking landing pages. They want me to give them nice looking forms and I tell them – I thought you want to make money.
Personally, I think it’s a waste of a domain name – and a terrible economic opportunity cost. CampingSupply.com could be so easily an affiliate site using one of hundreds of tools. (Ebay, Amazon tools abound.)
Alexa rank is over 16,000,000 – this website effectively doesn’t exist. Traffic and money is being lost hourly.
Domainers need to wake up and realize it’s not 1994 anymore. It’s so easy to monetize domains nowadays. Letting good domains languish on parking sites is throwing money down a drain.
I may have an interesting story because of this post 🙂 so I will let you know.
@George P
“minimal landing pages convert much better”
Oh so true! The flashier the landing page the whorst conversion rate.
For CampingSupply.com? It only looks good for a pure domainer. In reality that page goes against several rules of any ppc or lead marketing pro with qualified knowledge in building a money producing webpage.
I like the weight loss one, but the camping supply lander looks like a 1996 website imho.
That camping site sucked in my opinion. Too many links & not really designed to covert. I agree with CW post. This is not 1994. It is so easy to just get a WP SEO optamized theme & use that as your landing page. Make a few posts & get better rankings for it. Show the potential of the site domain at least. Never the less at least they have a landing page. somedomains never even see that kinda love from the owner. HeHe.
-Robert Motoya
Author & Serial Entrepreneur,
For designs that convert drop by
http://www.clevertonwebdesign.com
@ Robert
What are some examples of work you’ve done, and what % CTR increase did you see, and how much revenue did that bring?
For someone who owns a lot of names and has little development experience, your suggestion sounds like a lot of work unless you can show the results across many domain name examples… please provide some live examples.
Wow, I’m the only one so far that liked the CampingSupply.com site. I personally thought it was easy on the eyes, I can find what I want quickly and the sub pages opened quickly. Develop it into a real supply page certainly comes to mind but if the owner doesn’t want to spend the time and money, then this seems like a well thought out 2nd option.