Article 9

Now There’s a Great Landing Page

By Ryan Carson @ryancarson

28 July 2009 | Category: Design, Web Apps

Screenshot of UK Food Bloggers social network

Last night Gill was browsing around the web and she stumbled across the site for UK Food Bloggers Association (she's a keen veggie gardener) which was created with Ning, a white-label social network web app.

She clicked on the Ning logo in the top left corner ...

Arrow pointing to the top left logo for Ning

Which led her here …

Home page of Ning with a red circle around the signup box

I love the simplicity of this. When she arrived at the page, she immediately started typing in the name of a social network she wanted to start.

The only real option on the page is typing in the big box that says “Name your social network”.

She had signed up and created an account in literally eight seconds. How’s that for an effective home page?

The downside of this method is that they’ll have a lot of dead accounts – social networks that have been created and never used. Who cares though? It’s easy to clean up unused accounts, it’s a lot harder to grow your user base.

They’re allowing people to do exactly what they want to do, in just a few seconds. Brilliant.

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Comments

http://www.w3roi.com Dan Grossman

I just bookmarked that landing page in my LP inspiration folder yesterday. I wonder how long that design’s been up.
http://www.saltlinestudio.com chris gillis

Great article Ryan.

I did the same thing last year when I found the perfect platform CapeCodsters http://www.capecodsters.com – a Social Network for my region – its very tweak-able (CSS & Widget Ready) and has served its purpose beautifully.
http://fwdvault.com Frank

I love seeing how others have been able to boil down registrations and signups to an absolute minimum. I recently finished coding the registration for my site, which creates an entire working account from a single input box (email address)…

http://fwdvault.com

It even parleys directly into a 3-box signup should the user wish to set a password up front.
http://www.brunobergher.com Bruno Bergher

I think it’s very interesting how much you managed to boil down your sign-up form.

But it may have gotten ‘too simple’. Maybe it’s the look of it, but it seems that if I put my e-mail and hit the button that I’d sign-up for for a newsletter about the beta or something. It just doesn’t feel as if you’re actually starting to use the app.

Of course the user would realize it’s an actual sign-up in the following screen, but it does not seem that clear up front. Or perhaps it’s just me and it’s perfect the way it is : )
http://www.brunobergher.com Bruno Bergher

Oh, and the people at Tumblr have been masters on this kind of thing for a while: http://www.tumblr.com

Last week I was pitching a Tumblr account as part of a website for a client, I could create the account and insert some sample posts on the fly, during the meeting itself. The client loved it.
http://chrispeoples.com Chris

simple, yes, but for a person like me a complete deterrent. I like to know a little bit more about a service before creating anything, and they offer no such information. I like tumblr’s solution quite a bit more.
http://daus.trala.la Daus

@Chris, well, the “about” part is exactly on top, can’t you see it? :)

“Ning lets you create and join new social networks for your interests and passions”

That’s a crystal clear to me, at least.
Ryan Carson

I agree – Tumblr’s home page is brilliant.
Ronald

I love the simplicity of this. When she arrived at the page, she immediately started typing in the name of a social network she wanted to start. I like tumble solution quite a bit more.

Topics

Learn with Treehouse

Now There’s a Great Landing Page

By Ryan Carson @ryancarson

28 July 2009 | Category: Design, Web Apps

Other Posts You Might Find Interesting

Comments

Think Vitamin Radio
Episode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable

Advisory Board

Aarron Walter

Ethan Marcotte

Molly Holzschlag

Paul Boag

Jeff Veen

Ryan Carson

Topics

Learn with Treehouse

Now There’s a Great Landing Page

By Ryan Carson @ryancarson

28 July 2009 | Category: Design, Web Apps

Other Posts You Might Find Interesting

Comments

Think Vitamin RadioEpisode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable

Advisory Board

Aarron Walter

Ethan Marcotte

Molly Holzschlag

Paul Boag

Jeff Veen

Ryan Carson

Think Vitamin Radio
Episode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable