HawkinzWeb Blog

It is a well known fact that on a traffic exchange it is better to use a splash page, preferably a personalised one, rather than an affiliate page, but a question I am often asked is how do I make a splash page?

This post is not going to talk about the design mechanics of building a splash page, but rather what you should be putting in, and leaving out, of your splash page.

Firstly you want to ask yourself
“what is unique or special or different about what I am promoting?”
ie, why should someone be looking at what you are offering? Related to this – if you are promoting an affiliate page – “why should they sign up under me rather than someone else?”

Once you have an idea of what it is that you can focus on, the next question is
“what is the purpose of my splash page?”
ie – Are you trying to make them sign up straight away? Go and get more information? Go and visit a different page? Collect their contact details?
This is important because it will affect what and how you present the information you include on the page.

You now should have a good idea of what you want to say, so how are you going to say it?

There has been a trend towards including video on splash pages as there is a school of thought that says videos are more effective than static pages. Whilst in general terms this may be true, there are a 2 points to bear in mind:

1. There has been an increase in people blocking videos and scripts, which means they may not be seeing your video.
2. The video needs to be very fast loading, and make its point in the first few seconds.

Because of the issue of people blocking videos / scripts, if your splash page is relying on just your video to make its point, then you will be unable to make any impact on the viewer, and so your page is worse than using an affiliate page.
The video needs to make its point fast, because most people will only be viewing your page for just 2 or 3 seconds – so if you can not grab their attention in that time then you have lost the opportunity.
Therefore you need to consider the video to be at best a supplement to the main message rather than replacing it.

Likewise, if your splash page relies too heavily on scripts – especially if you are using a script-driven signup form – then you will be excluding some potential respondants. Scripts generally are not recommended in a splash page as they will slow the loading time as the browser will take the time to load the script, and if the script is positioned before the sales pitch, then the content will load slower and may not even be seen! (remember the page only has a 2 -3 second viewing window for most surfers)

Try to avoid using an all-in-one graphic that contains all your message as:
1. they tend to load slower because the file size is bigger
2. if they graphic fails to load, then all your message is lost.
If possible, try to use a mixture of text and graphics so that your eggs are not all in 1 basket.

There is no ‘golden formula’ for making a winning splash page – despite what some marketers will tell you – remember you are marketing to people, not robots and individuals will respond differently to the same input. Some people will respond better to humour, some to facts/statistics, some to emotional factors. Therefore you need to test and adapt your content to see what works best. You will probably find that you end up with a variety of pages that are ‘targetted’ at different people.

Try and get a punchy, attention grabbing ‘headline’ – something near the top of the page to grab their attention away from whatever else it was they were doing when they saw your page – it does not have to be text, it could be a graphic.
Next, you want to get your primary message across in 2 or 3 short, concise statements – remember the idea of a splash page is that it is a quick taster of more, not a full 4 course meal
Finally, the call to action – this is what you want the viewer to do next eg click a link, enter contact details, etc

Popularity: 2% [?]