text:
The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
The author's views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Landing pages rule. Blah.
Homepages suck. Blah.
Do some A/B testing. Blah.
Base your optimization strategy on customer feedback. Blah.
All of those statements are true. But they sound boring and being boring is lame. It's twenty fourteen and I refuse to be lame.
If you want to be a non-lame marketer, it's really easy. Read this post, have a laugh, and treat everything I say as gospel.
Be warned, however, that I may descend into telling bad jokes in the absence of witty metaphor and charming anecdotal rhetoric.
The experienced adult readers amongst you might remember that "Shit. The condom broke!" moment. Yeah you do. You might also remember that it felt like a good time to run a test. #STDsArentFunny. Perhaps. But, as we go through this epic journey together today, I'll show you exactly when and how you should really be testing.
But first. The best 7-part list of bullet points you'll ever read.
The start of the best part of your day begins now with this table of contents:
- First I'll give you the only rationale you'll ever need to explain why landing pages are to marketers, what Immodium is to an astronaut with diarrhea. Essential.
- I'll prove why context - not content - is king when it comes to conversion.
- Following that, I will make you fall in love with forms. FYI, it's really, really hard to make form love a "thing".
- Mid way through we'll sip some Canadian Club, get our Don Draper on, and learn how to write copy like the Mad Men (and Women).
- "Paint me a pretty picture Johnny!" "Screw you mommy. Design is not just rainbows and unicorns!"
- Is it greedy to want a second helping when you're an orphan? Not if you have my name. (It's Oliver in case you're confused). Always ask for more when it comes to conversion .
- And finally, I'll put my art critic hat on and rip into some landing page examples, both good and bad.
Challenge laid down. Challenge accepted (on your behalf).
Chapter 1: Why landing pages rule, and why you should never send campaign traffic to your homepage
If I've got your attention thus far, it's probably because you can't bear to tear your eyes away from my enchanting prose.
The only important word in that sentence is ATTENTION.
Attention is a state of mind that you can't assume your visitors will even enter if you don't give them the right conversion experience.
A good conversion experience is one in which your visitors are compelled to pay attention and ultimately interact with your conversion goal - clicking the Call-To-Action (CTA).
A bad conversion experience is one in which your visitor is compelled to run away.
There are three sides to attention that we need to consider:
Capturing your visitor's attention
Maintaining your visitor's attention
Focusing your visitor's attention
Your ad covers point #1, and landing pages are the answer to solve numbers 2 and 3, so let's start with number 2.
Genius Insight #1: attention ratio
Pay attention as I set the scene.
Let's say you're running a marketing campaign for a promotion:
"50% off Miley Cyrus Twerkout* DVDs"
* I'm claiming a ™ on that brilliant piece of branding.
Got your attention, right?
Well, let's see. What is attention ratio?
With that in mind, consider the two diagrams below. The first is a typical homepage, and the second is a campaign specific landing page.
The Homepage
On this homepage, your Twerkout campaign is represented by "promo 2" highlighted by the red circle.
The rest of the page is comprised of a few other Miley promotions, some tour dates, navigation, a general brand proposition about how Hanna Montana is no longer a thing, a photo slider, footer navigation and many other page "leaks".
If you send people to your homepage - from a paid ad, email or social media - the intended campaign conversion goal has to fight to get their attention with all of the other interactive elements on the page.
A typical homepage has approximately 40 links.
In the example opposite there is actually a total of 56 links, therefore:
The attention ratio is 56:1
Hey, don't just take my word for it. This overstimulus has impacted many other people's lives according to Princeton University wuuut!
Princeton neuroscientists found out the more stuff you have around you, the more each piece of stimulation competes for "neural representation"--that is, your attention.
Back to our scientific marketing experiment. Let's now consider the Twerkout promotion on a dedicated, campaign-specific landing page.
The Landing Page
On a campaign-specific landing page, the entire page is focused on only one thing, the Twerkout DVD campaign.
The messaging is very tightly related to the campaign goal and has only 1 interactive element - the CTA.
The attention ratio is 1:1
Let's look at an example of someone doing this right. Salesforce is a company with an incredibly complex product offering. Their website is a cacophony of possible pathways.
If you dig deep into the site, their primary goal seems to be to get you signed up for a product demo. Not surprising given the complexity of their software.
So what happens when you search for Salesforce in Google? The first organic result will take you to the homepage. But the first paid ad (right at the top of the page) takes you to a different page entirely. Presumable because you typed in their name and are showing a level of prior knowledge.
The page you arrive at looks like this:
It's a great landing page. Entirely focused on a single goal. To get you to watch a demo of any of their products. The headline and CTA could use a bit more mention of the purpose of the page (watching a demo). Also, take a look at the button. It's the same colour as the form container. DON'T DO THAT! Use some contrast Salesforce.
Aside from those things, it's a really nicely designed, focused experience.
One last example. Where would you look/click in this situation?
How about now?
Got it? Never feed your marketing traffic to a peacock, unless you've poked his eyes out.
The feather ones, not his actual eyeballs! Wow, you're sick.
Genius Insight #2: conversion coupling
You are now 50% of the way to being smarter than 98% of all marketers.
Synergy. That's what I'm talking about. Uck. What a gross word.
Here's the second piece of most of almost everything you need to know to be the cleverest person in the room at any marketing conference. Try saying that fast.
In more detail it's comprised of one or more of the following:
Message match: Matching the copy of your ad to the headline of your landing page.
Design match: Matching the design of your display ad to the design on your landing page.
Let's look at the good and the bad of them.
Message match
To expand, message match is the idea of matching the pre-click message to the post-click message on your landing page, with the goal of making people think they made a "good click".
The messaging on the page reinforces the reason for their click, reducing/removing confusion.
Here's an ad for a startup I'll be working on after Unbounce:
If that link sent you to a homepage, the target headline may look something like this:
Get More Projects Done With Less Management
This may or may not be a good headline for expressing the brand value proposition, but it doesn't match the ad at all. Result? Bad message match.
The correct headline in this instance would be:
Project Management Software Without Deadlines
Result? It matches the headline of the ad perfectly, and thus it's great message match. Ding, ding, ding. Got it?
To build really strong message match, use the subhead of your landing page to reiterate the main point of your ad's description.
This example introduces aspects of a concept called conversation momentum, which I'll get to in part 2. But basically you can see that the subhead repeats the end of the ad description "Deadlines are dead." and finishes the sentence like people do when they're in the gushy part of a relationship "Choose procrastination instead".
And it rhymes. #doublerainbow
Here are some good and bad examples of message match from the Google
Carrying on the thread, I searched for "Project management software for teams".
Here's what I found:
Excellent match for the headline and the form header (Try it Free >> Try Smartsheet For Free).
Let's do that again:
There's no message match here. I was expecting "Project Management Software" and I got "DIY Custom Apps For Improving Team Productivity."
Not to mention the attention ratio, which is a whopping 35:1 not including the 40 links in drop-down menus.
Take a look at the page if we remove all of the distractions:
So much better! The Attention Ratio is 1:1 and it's much clearer what you're supposed to do.
And, going back to the ad:
Why shorten "management" to "mgmt" just to throw both Intuit AND Quickbase in there? To me, that's brand overload. I like to think of paid ads that are not based on a branded search as needing an application of " Message Before Brand." Your brand experience will be introduced after they sign up or through the communication of your page copy. Throwing your name in the ad can waste precious space with a name that people might not be familiar with.
Now I say this based on most companies that don't have a pervasive brand that could benefit from this tactic. If however you are doing TV ads and a lot of other brand exposure work, then this could be a beneficial tactic to catch people's eye. But I'd rather add 2-3 more value based words in the headline and relegate the brand name to the 2nd or 3rd row of the ad.
Sidenote: I would love to know some results of this level of branding in paid ads if someone has tested it.
I dare you to search for something that is of importance to your life and do a clickathon. The experiences are shockingly shocking.
So that's message match!
Boom. Insights. You're so lucky to be reading this. Next.
Design match
This is one of the easiest techniques to master. Take the design on your display (banner) ad and repeat it on your landing page.
Deep breath.
This time I'll start with the good side of the force. Example courtesy of RBC Canada via Facebook.
The Facebook ad:
The landing page:
Not only is the message match perfect (100% perfect - can perfect be less than 100%?), the design match also kicks ass. That little dude is following you around with his little sign, letting you know he cares.
HOWEVER. Take a look at the landing page in detail, the page does suffer from Attention Ratio deficiencies (7:1) and the CTA is horribly small. If you did a squint test (squint your eyes from a distance and see what stands out on the page) - you'd see the trust seal, not the CTA.
To improve this, the different options for applying for an account could be on the next page after the click has confirmed interest.
And the CTA would be a lot clearer if it was designed to be bigger with a strongly contrasting button color.
Brain break! Go smoke, pee, or text your life partner. I'll wait 'til you're back.
Chapter 2: Context is king, queen, emperor, and boss
The more testing I do the more I keep coming back to one central concept. Context. In this section I'll show you a few examples of context in action.
But first, a couple of definitions with names that I invented. #yourewelcome #payattention.
2.1 Conversation momentum
The purpose of Conversation momentum is to remove the break in communication that can occur when the click is made. If you're wooing someone in an email or blog post, it makes sense to continue to do so on the landing page.
You wouldn't invite someone into your house then act like you had never met them would you?
A big portion of this concept is respect. Respecting the click, respecting the time you want your visitor to invest.
Imagine this line is in your email.
"Let me show you how our product/service can help."
Sometimes a good way to preserve momentum is to express gratitude to your visitor for showing up.
"I'm glad you were interested in learning more about {words that were on the link}."
Creating a delightful experience humanizes the relationship and shows you care.
It's important to get to the point quickly (like a short email), but you should do so in a way that flows naturally.
"One of the important things to know about {words in the link} is that it can {establish the benefit}."
Getting warmer.
"What our solution does is to make {words in link} much easier to do. If you want to take it for a spin, I'll pay the first month for you. And I'm personally available if you fancy a chat about the best way to use it."
How yummy is that?
Now consider the lame-o, commonplace, and rude approach:
"Let me show you how our product/service can help."
"We're the best {what we do} in the world. Sign Up Now."
What? You stopped caring about me, and now you sound generic and only interested in yourself.
Conversation Momentum Case Study - Ecourse to landing Page
To show how conversation momentum works in action, take a look at the CTA in the top-right corner of the page below.
Establishing context
This page is from an 11-part course about landing page optimization, primarily written by me. It's driven by an email drip campaign where I speak to people in a very personal way. So anyone who is on a course page has received between 2-13 emails from me. My mugshot is also in the sidebar of every page.
Sidenote: The course is now ungated (no form) so there are no more emails. But up until this point there were.
At first I was sending this traffic to a rather generic landing page that has our standard value proposition headline:
The conversion goal of this page was a simple click on the orange call to action.
To improve the sense of context, I made three changes to the page design, producing the version below:
The changes were:
A co-branded header. The idea here is represent the before and after of the experience. You came from the ecourse, expressed interest in Unbounce, and are now having Unbounce presented to you.
A conversational headline that again connects with where you came from and introduces the purpose of the page.
A personal message from me (the familiar face of the ecourse).
The result? a 77% lift in conversions.
2.2 Context of use
Context of use can be defined as providing a visual demonstration of how your product or service will be used by a customer.
And I can't underline strongly enough how important it is for conversion. Actually I can - how important it is for conversion << that's not a link.
Here's an example:
Think of that guy Vince from the Slap Chop and ShamWow commercials. Annoying? Definitely. A role model for your children? Absolutely not. Excellent illustrations of context of use? Mos def.
You know exactly how to use them and what the outcome and experience will be like.
That's context of use. Check out this next case study:
Context of use case study - landing page templates
We all know that research is key when beginning an A/B test. It can tell you when you're delivering the wrong marketing message, and it provides insight into opportunities that could change your business.
So, I did some research.
I wanted to know how people were interpreting and reacting to the landing page templates page on Unbounce.com, so I added a Qualaroo survey widget to the page to ask a simple question:
What do you think of our templates?
- They look great: [ text box for extra info ]
- I don't understand how to use them: [ text box for extra info ]
- They don't meet our needs: [ text box for extra info ]
I ran this survey for about two months, and received 1,771 responses.
Analyzing these responses I spotted 3 consistently recurring questions from the freeform text entry fields that appeared when you submit a response.
The most common questions were:
- How much do the templates cost?
- Where can I download them?
- Can I use them in Wordpress?
Wuuuuut?! They exist inside the Unbounce product. You can't buy them, you can't download them, and you certainly can't use them with Wordpress!
Epic fail followed by big opportunity.
Clearly visitors (a large portion of whom were arriving via organic search), were getting an entirely incorrect impression from this page. They didn't understand the context within which you can use the templates.
How do you fix a broken experience like this?
First, let's take a look at the original page:
Templates right?
Sure, but for what? In what? How much what?
When someone arrives on your landing page, the first thing they do is to look around and subconsciously ask for help.
"I know why I came here, but I'm not sure where I am or what this is."
Your job as a business, is to understand the mindset of your potential customers when they arrive at your landing page, and communicate appropriately.
In this instance, like I said, there are a large number of organic search visitors showing up who have absolutely zero context. They searched for "landing page templates" and are thinking about templates and templates alone - not restrictions of where or how they can be used.
To answer the questions of these visitors, we created a two-step diagram to illustrate context of use:
The context of use we designed for this circumstance worked as follows:
- You can view the template library in the app when you choose to build a new landing page.
- When you choose a template, you are taken to the page builder where you can customize and edit it.
Test results
Page A [Control] - No context of use
The conversion rate for people who see the templates page is 2.1%.
Page B [Treatment] - With context of use diagram
The conversion rate of people who saw the new version of the page was 3%, a conversion rate lift of +43%.
EPIC WIN! 43% Conversion Lift in New Account Trial Starts
A really impressive result. But this type of number is thrown around all the time. What does it actually mean to a business? What is the impact on revenue?
Impact on Revenue
To figure out the affect this win had on the business I took into account all of the relevant numbers.
- Additional new trial starts (NTS) per month due to this test -- 120
- NTS over 12 months -- 1440
- Average lifetime value of a customer -- $706
Incremental impact on revenue based on a year of extra acquired customers:
1,440 x $706 = $1,016,640
That's what happens when you help visitors to understand where they are and how the world works while they are there.
Chapter 3: How to make friends forms and influence people
"I f**#ing hate forms! They ruin everything." -- Denis Suhopoljac
That was the reaction from our art director the last time we designed some landing page templates.
Unfortunately, forms are a landing page staple, and because they represent your conversion goal, your ability to understand their nuances is the key to success.
You should remember this statement:
Friction is the barrier to entry (effort) that your form presents to your visitors. Friction falls into two categories and has one solution:
3.1 Perceived Friction
This is the shock factor of suddenly being faced with a long form. The perception of having to fill out such a long form can be daunting and cause people to change their mind. A solution to this can be to either shorten the form or split your form over more than one page.
3.2 Actual Friction
This is the time and trouble it takes to actually *fill in* the form, and it can cause pretty serious abandonment issues if it's not considered. Things that can slow down - or cause frustration during - the process of form completion include:
- Too many open-ended questions that people have to think about.
- Dropdown menus that don't include a viable option for the visitor. An example of this is the commonly asked "What industry is your business in?". If there isn't an answer available and you don't provide a way out (like an "Other industry" option) then frustration can occur.
- Captcha security input fields. This is when you have to read strange looking words or letters and type in what you think they say in order to proceed. Anyone not hate those?
3.3 The solution: reducing friction with conversion lube
You probably thought that was a passing reference. Nope. Conversion lube is whatever you can give to your visitor to ease the transaction.
Method One: Ask the data for help
One approach to improvement is to analyze the results you get and adapt your form accordingly. When looking at your form data, ask yourself:
- Are a high percentage of dropdown results the first option in the list? If so, you should try to make the answers as short and clearly distinguishable as possible. If people can easily/quickly read the option that applies to them without lots of hunting/scrolling, they will be more inclined to select it.
- Are the responses to open-ended questions actually real answers? Or are they nonsense (such as "asdfasdf") designed to get through the form as quickly as possible? If so, you should make the questions more direct and easier to answer. Examples would be: "Tell us about your biggest marketing problem" (requires a short story as an answer) vs. "What is the biggest barrier to your marketing success?" (which could often be answered in a few words like "Not enough traffic.").
Method Two: Apply some balance
"The prize" is the incentive you offer up in exchange for personal data. Your goal is to balance the size of the prize with the amount of friction.
There are many incentives for a user to give up their personal information: Digital documents: Ebook/whitepaper/report, webinars, newsletters, consultations for professional services, discount coupons, contest entries, free trials, product launch notifications.
The rule here is: Don't be greedy.
Only ask from your visitors what you would be willing to give up if the roles were reversed.
Okay, be a little more greedy than that, but not much.
For instance, if you will be sending an automated newsletter to registrants, email or email/name are all that's needed. Whereas if you have a product/service that requires a follow-up sales call, you would want more information to qualify the level of interest, and sometimes extra friction can actually help to remove the looky loos from your funnel and improve lead quality. Like I said, it's a balancing act.
When in doubt, don't get ahead of yourself. Remember that you should always start by asking for a kiss before trying to take it a step farther.
I just got a sad feeling.
I don't think I've done enough to make you fall in love with forms.
You should take a trundle over to this page where it'll all fall into place.
How to design the ultimate lead gen form
Now we've covered some of the theory behind forms, you might be wondering exactly how to go about creating a rockstar form. We can do this by designing our form as if it's the only thing we're allowed to put on our page.
Your form consists of the following elements:
- A headline to introduce the reason for the form
- A description with bullets to highlight the benefit and contents of what you're giving away upon completion
- The form with descriptive form fields (original label names and questions can capture attention)
- A Call-To-Action
- Trust statements or links
- A closing urgency or context-enhancement statement
Below is a sketch of how a form designed using this method might look:
How was that? All loved up on forms? Not yet?
Maybe we need some real examples. Below are some examples of lead gen landing pages (#withforms) that I happen to like.
The short and sweet signup form
The ebook download form
The request a callback form floating over a guy's crotch
The super-long form with a happy guy at the end
Chapter 4: The Mad Men pitch - writing copy that converts
Your words are the first thing people pay attention to when the page loads, and the last thing they read before deciding whether or not they will complete your conversion goal.
You would be a mad man (or woman) not to heed this next piece of advice.
Of course, that's an exaggeration; you should at least spend 5% of your time writing the body copy of your landing page, but that grandiose statement should at least give you a sense of the relative importance of page elements when it comes to conversion rate optimization. For this reason, I'm going to stick to these two elements (headline and CTA) and try to get you outta here before the bell rings.
Start with your headline
Chances are you've had to go for a job interview at some point. Either that, or you're an entrepreneur begging to be heard by either potential customers or potential investors.
Regardless, the most and ONLY important thing when you start a conversation with someone, is to get your foot in the door.
That's what your headline does.
If you can write a headline interesting and useful enough to hold someone's attention, you've got your foot in the door of conversion. Now that you're in the elevator, you have those precious extra seconds to communicate/pitch your idea.
Copywriter Roberta Rosenberg offers this sage piece of advice:
" Your headline has one job and one job only. To get your visitors to continue engaging with your message, increase their desire for what you're offering, and motivate a Call-To-Action click.
That's why when it comes to crafting effective landing page headlines, choose clarity over clever.
Clever calls attention to itself at the expense of the message.
Clarity smooths the way to conversion."
I can verify the part about clarity over clever. Whenever we A/B test email subject lines, the clear version beats the funny or clever one. Stupidly, we still carry on testing them ;)
There's an art to crafting an effective headline, but there are also some techniques and formulas you can lean on to help you get started.
To be very clear though. These are formulas for the construction of writing, not formulas for success - because there are no formulas for success. If there were, I'd be sitting behind a diamond studded Macbook Pro, eating beef jerky and telling stories about eating beef jerky while being successful…
Point being. Use these constructs to do exactly that. Construct your headline. The success depends entirely on your idea plus your will and enthusiasm.
So back to the writing:
Joanna Wiebe from Copyhackers suggests these headline writing formulas:
The Only Way to [Do Something Desirable] Without [Doing Something Undesirable]
The Only Way to Turn Off the Lights Without Clapping or Getting Out of Bed
[Do Something Hard] in [Period of Time] or [Promise]
Tune Your Piano in 15 Minutes or "Piano Tuner App" Is Free
[Do Something Desirable] Like [an Expert] Without [Something Expected & Undesirable]
Learn to Play Chess Like Bobby Fischer - Without Any of the Crazy!
They're not going to work for everything, but they will get you thinking.
I often like to write the landing page value proposition as a sequence of 3 headlines split throughout the page, like a classic story arc of beginning, middle, and end.
- The main headline
- The reinforcement statement
- The closing argument
You can construct your story like this:
Statement of uniqueness
Backed up with a supporting statement to establish credibility
Expand on the experience
And explain how you solve a pain point
Close with urgency to encourage a call-to-action click
For example, if you are advertising a luxury resort in Costa Rica (cos like, we all do that right?), your 3 part headlines might read something like this:
The Only Luxury Rainforest Retreat in Costa Rica
Dedicated to preserving our wild jungle paradise
Indulge Your Senses in Our Hot Spring Jungle Spa
Without the crowds and distractions of the large tourist resorts
Escape to Costa Rica for a Luxury Experience in One of the World's Last Remaining Rainforests
What this does is provide big bold statements for people who are quickly scanning your page.
You can see how it's broken down in the screenshot below:
And don't bother asking where the Pura Vida resort is.
I made it up.
You're welcome.
Now write your call to action (CTA)
As Mr. Draper and I pointed out earlier, your CTA is of prime importance because it represents the final tipping point between the success and failure of your campaign.
To click, or not to click. That is the question.
You can break a CTA down into many factors, such as:
- Description (being explicit about what I'll get)
- Actionable phrasing (using verbs like 'get')
- Possessives (choosing 'my' vs. 'your')
- Subtext (supporting information)
- Urgency (a reason to act now)
To expand on that. I'll rattle off a paragraph of words that you should memorize while holding your breath:
Every time you add a button to your landing page you need to write down exactly what will happen when the button is clicked, then write those words on the button. It should be specific and driven by the desire to click it. Add words like 'Get' at the start to amplify the fact that you will get something by clicking it. Use 'my' instead of 'your' to personalize the connection. Tell people how long they have to click the button to encourage them to do it NOW! And provide extra context and detail in subtext either inside the button or as an addendum beneath it.
Here's an example call-to-action based on these 5 factors:
Breaking the button apart you can see how the components work together in beautiful harmony.
- Description: "Get My Free SaaS Project Management Guide" - Describes what you'll get by clicking.
- Actionable phrasing: "Get" - Describes that you will receive something.
- Possessives: "My" - Personalizes it.
- Subtext: "A quick 5 minute read with 10 top tips!" - Lends extra benefit to the offer as it's easily digestible.
- Urgency: "Every day you don't implement these tips you're losing productivity and money" - Connects with the pain of your prospect and how the offer will help them more if they get it now.
Okay, I get the structure, now how do I write the CTA copy?
Michael Aagaard from ContentVerve.com recommends asking yourself 2 questions in order to optimize your call-to-action copy:
- What is my prospect's motivation for clicking this button?
- What is my prospect going to get, when he/she clicks this button?
Genius takeaway number 412:
A call-to-action that conveys the value of your offering and its relevance to your prospect will lead to more conversions.
Whoa there, horsey!! You need to resist the "Let's just test 10 different CTAs" syndrome. I've been there and it's dangerous. Your CTA is also one of the most sensitive and impactful places to play, both in the positive and negative directions.
So take heed of this next section.
Unexpected CTA conversion killers: the power of negative suggestion
Something I see a lot of (and something I highly recommend) is subtext beneath a button. A little horse whisper to encourage the click. These can range from privacy statements to special offer reinforcements.
However, there is a certain type of statement that you want to avoid at all cost.
I'm talking about the "insert a negative word that I wasn't even thinking of" type of statement.
Consider this scenario. You've filled in a form and are about to click the button, when all of a sudden, your eye sees the word SPAM! Albeit in a well meaning way: "We will never spam you."
"But I wasn't thinking about spam until you pointed it out! Now I have 'cause to pause™.' "
Man, I'm getting good at trademarking awesome terms!
What this does is place a seed of doubt in people's minds at exactly the wrong time.
In an A/B test performed by Michael Aagaard, the inclusion of the word spam bombed conversion rates by 18.7%.
Another example is shown below where the phrase "No Gimmicks" is written right beneath the CTA.
I don't think I've used the word "gimmick" in a sentence in years. Yet now it's playing in my head and I'm wondering why I'm having second thoughts.
Removing the word "Gimmicks" resulted in a 25% lift in conversions!
Be careful how you supplement your CTAs, and please, please, please, test any changes to avoid an unexpected dip in conversions. I've been there and it sucks trying to figure out why your business is suddenly experiencing a negative reaction to something you can't explain.
Chapter 5: Design theory in 3 minutes
Remember little Johnny from the intro? Don't get me wrong, I like unicorns and rainbows as much as the next guy - especially double ones. But they have their place.
When people think that design is just pretty pictures. It twangs my sciatic nerve.
As the bloke who's seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet, I've seen my fair share of design trainwrecks. Designs that are so offensive that for some sadistic reason, I love them more than the good ones.
I love critiquing landing pages because it engages my altruistic side. It's the design equivalent of puppy rescue or freeing Willies.
Oh, right, I said 3 minutes. Okay, let me give you some Conversion Centered Design theory in 150 seconds. Go.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, design is all about attention.
Your ad captures attention, your headline maintains attention, and your page design focuses attention. As such, your goal with design is to draw attention to the most important element(s) on the page.
Read faster dammit!
Principle #1 - Directional cues
There's no doubting the power of the image below. It's an iconic example of the power of directional cues. Uncle Sam is not only staring right into your soul, but he's pointing at you to reinforce the word "YOU". Or "Me" from a more user-centric perspective.
Here's another example, this time from the UFC:
And an example from a brick-and-mortar business:
And an example on a landing page (remember why we're here, Oliver).
As you can see, they leave you in no doubt as to what the purpose of the page is.
The secret is to *combine* design elements so that once you've shown people the way via directional cues, the place where you're pointing also has clarity of communication.
There's no point in having the president of your chess club invite people over for a game of Monopoly. The carpet doesn't match the drapes.
Principle #2 - Encapsulation
You can think of encapsulation as creating a window on your landing page where your CTA is the view. It's most effective when used to highlight a form #formlove!
Check out the landing page below. What stands out? The form. How hard was that? Pretty damn hard if you look at most people's lead gen pages.
It's easy. Just wrap it up...
"If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it" -- Beyonce Knowle
Principle #3 - Contrasting colours (Hey, I'm Canadian, we use u's)
Unless you live in a hole, you'll have read about a boat load of button colour A/B tests. Red is best, green is for go, orange is inviting. Horse excrement. All of it.
It's as easy as this: Look for the dominant hue of your page, and pick its complement for your CTA. You can see it applied twice in the previous example, where the form container is in very stark contrast to the page and the button then contrasts with that.
If you need help with contrasting colours, check out this colour wheel from Tiger Color Lab:
Find your dominant hue and look opposite.
The photo below - which I took on the summit of a barren hill during a lightning storm in Yellowstone - illustrates the power of contrast to suck in your vision.
In the interest of bringing Canada and the U.S. even closer together, here's the word "colour" written as "color". #borderlove
Principle #4 - White space
Space things out. And because you can use any colour you like, not just white, it's not as racist a name as it seems. Maybe we should say add gaps. There you go. Gaps.
Look at the photo below:
Your eye is free to wander, floating over the image, until it rests on the subject. The Elk in the lower right corner. And then you go "Ahhhhh."
In landing page terms, I like the next one for it's clarity (but it suffers from terrible attention ratio).
Two Columns, a smiley face and lots of gappage. You always need content, but that doesn't mean you can't space it out.
And now this:
"You found it!"
Yes I did. By searching for "worst landing page ever." #truestory
Add some gaps, people.
What I mean by that is that by applying these Conversion Centered Design principles, you are focusing attention on your call-to-action. This makes it easier to spot how strong or weak your CTA copy really is. After all, there's no point in drawing attention to something that's inherently lame.
Chapter 6: Please, Internet, I want more conversions
Get this. I'm at a wedding in London in the 70s. I'm 4. My mother turns to the person next to her after noticing I'd wandered away from the table. "I should go grab him!" she says. "Let him play" is the reply.
A moment later, another lady at the table says, "Look at that boy on the stage!" - pointing at a kid standing up there, hands held out in front of him in a bowl shape - "he should be called Oliver."
"He is!!!" my Mother replies looking horrified.
That actually happened. No word of a lie. I'll give you my mum's phone number.
Told you there would be charming anecdotes.
What's my point? Isn't it enough that you're all like "I'm listening to Oliver Twist's life story!"?
I'll make it easy for you. You should behave like you are Oliver Twist (me), and ask for something more after every conversion.
When you acquire a lead - when someone fills in your form - the results you can get by asking for more will blow your mind. Or refill your bowl of gruel.
Your marketing doesn't end with a conversion. Where there is intent there is opportunity.
Post-Conversion Marketing (PCM)
The act of asking for - and getting - more from your leads, is known as post-conversion marketing. It's the process of continuing the conversation with your new lead on the confirmation page they see after filling out your form.
PCM in action - What should you do?
Imagine this scenario in your head brain.
Dude fills out your form to download an ebook about snowboard designs. You say, "Thanks dude! If you like that ebook about snowboard design, you should come watch our live demonstration of 3D printing snowboard design transfers!"
That scenario can be applied to almost any online business model. You establish interest, then you prompt for a subsequent interaction.
How to use confirmation pages to double your lead gen potential
Here's a quick and easy case study for you that you can copy to give an instant boost to your lead gen numbers.
We changed the thank-you page for our webinar registration landing pages from asking for a social share, to asking people to subscribe to our blog newsletter.
Here's the confirmation page in question:
2,500 people registered for the webinar, and of those 40% subscribed to the blog! That's 1,100 extra blog subscribers just by adding a CTA to the confirmation page of a webinar lead gen form.
Here's another example of a great confirmation page. In this example, Derek Halpern engages in a conversation and asks people to do 1 or 2 optional tasks. Remember, all you need to do is ask, and you will get some post-conversion conversions.
That's smart post-conversion marketing! Go do it yourself.
Chapter 7: The art critic - 4 honest landing page critiques
Now that you're a pro landing page optimizer, I'm going to rip into a few bad landing pages so you can see where people are going wrong. To be helpful, I'll also make suggestions for how to make them more effective.
Here's a B2C example search that most of you will be familiar with:
The ad is a great match for the search query so we're firmly on a positive scent trail. Now take a look at the resulting landing page:
Wow. What a train wreck! We have three magic words here. "next", "day", "delivery". Take a look around. The word "next" only appears once on the page and it's so hidden (top-right corner) that the chances of you finding it are absurdly low.
Attention ratio: Over 120:1
Conversion coupling: "Next day flower delivery" >> "Flowers, Plants and Gifts." Zero message match.
If you decide to stay on this site you're going to have to do a lot of work to find what you want.
So how would we go about fixing this broken experience? Take a look at the wireframe below:
Now that's a simple landing experience. You're probably wondering why there are 5 CTAs giving an attention ratio of 5:1. Why am I breaking my own rules?
I'm using this example because ecommerce presents a different type of problem and the solution needs to be altered to address this particular circumstance.
The reason why this is a good approach is that there is still a single goal on the page - each CTA represents exactly the same action. The difference here is that you are now segmenting by category while maintaining the goal of the page - to get next day flower delivery.
Breaking down the page, you can see that the search scent is maintained as the headline matches the search query and ad copy perfectly, creating great Conversion coupling. As soon as you arrive on this page, you know you are in the right place.
The subhead backs up the value proposition of the headline, and the question above the flower categories explains the purpose of the CTAs. Once you've selected your category you would be pushed through to the category page on the website so you can select the flowers you want to order.
Isn't that a delightful experience? And it's so bloody simple there's no reason not to deliver a page like this to the people who click on your ads.
This can translate to virtually any ecommerce situation.
How about a search for "iPad keyboards"?
If you look at the display URL you can probably guess what's about to happen. #ISmellHomepage
OMFG shoot me now! Why would you do that?! That is the epitome of disrespecting my click and my time.
Fixing this is just as easy as it was last time. Have a headline that says "Ipad Keyboards" and then have a selection of thumbs for the top selling keyboards that click through to a shopping cart page.
Remember, ecommerce landing pages are one of a few exceptions for attention ratio if and only if you maintain a single goal - to buy/order one of a selection of the same thing.
How about an organic search result?
Consider the following search and resulting organic result:
The first goes to a blog post which is helpful, but you need to read or scroll through the post to find a link to the guide, and it suffers from attention ratio problems due to main and secondary navigation.
The second result points to a landing page as shown below:
That's a perfect landing experience. Fine, it's a page that I put together but you can see why it would be effective.
I'm showing this page to demonstrate another scenario where you'd use more than one CTA. The goal of both is the same - to download the ebook. However, the content marketing strategy here is designed to allow alternative social currencies with which to pay for the ebook . First there is the standard email approach which gathers a lead for you. The second is to pay with a tweet.
The purpose of the pay with a tweet option is to let people who are wary of giving up their email get the ebook. At the same time, the goal for the author of the book is to create momentum for the campaign.
Every time a tweet goes out you have the potential to get more people coming back to the page - creating a momentum loop. Clever right?
What isn't clever is that I neglected to include any social proof on this page. For an ebook, you'll want to do a search on your social networks to see if anyone tweeted about the ebook. You can then either use that as a testimonial or reach out to the person directly to ask for a more in depth one.
Here's a search for "SEO research tools":
The corresponding landing page looks like this:
At first glance it looks like a good landing page. However, breaking it down you can see that:
- The message match is pretty terrible. It doesn't repeat the ad at all.
- The goal of the page is to download an ebook which wasn't what I was looking for.
- The attention ratio is pretty great. I'd ditch the social share buttons at the bottom as most people will not give a crap about sharing the page at this point. You should ask them to do that on the form confirmation page as we discussed in part 6. Note that for paid search landing pages, it's often important to include a link to your privacy policy (in the footer) as a trust signal to the ad bots. It can sometimes give your Quality Score a boost.
- The CTA is bloody horrible. "Submit" is the single worst CTA copy you can have. It tells you nothing about what is going to happen when you click it. In this case it should be something like "Download my free Searchlight SEO platform product sheet".
- Ideally you'd be using a feature such as dynamic keyword insertion to pass the search keywords through to the page. You could change the headline to read something like this for a better match: "Out of the leading SEO research tools, leading marketers are making Searchlight their SEO platform of choice."
- For the form subhead, the request to fill in the form has zero value to your visitors. As we learned in part 3, you need to tell a story with your form design (as if it were the only element on the page). This subhead content could be used to add an extra benefit statement about what you'll get from reading this product sheet.
And, we're done! Feel smarter?
Thanks for reading all the way to the end! I hope you found this guide helpful and entertaining. Learning should be fun after all.
To recap what we've learned:
- As attention ratio goes down, conversion rates go up.
- The stronger the coupling between ad (or any link really) and the landing page it takes you to, the more likely your visitor will be to understand they are in the right place and stick around as a result.
- Context is one of the most powerful ways to create an experience that will convert your visitors into customers. Start a conversation before the click and continue it after the click in a personal way.
- If you need to show an image/photo of your offering, try to show it being used in practice to show context of use.
- For lead gen landing pages, you can design the form as a standalone unit by ensuring it has 6 elements that tell a complete story around your offering. And form love can be a real thing.
- The copy on your page is essential to the success of your campaigns, and you should focus the majority of your time on crafting a compelling headline and an actionable CTA that inspires a click.
- Remove incongruent words from your page. Particularly when placed close to your CTA. Words like "spam", "gimmicks" can be detrimental to your conversion rates.
- Design is more than the visual treatment of your landing page, it's about creating an experience that focuses attention on the goal of your page.
- Persuasive design will illuminate your failings as a copywriter, which is a good thing.
- Always ask for a second conversion on your confirmation pages.
- It's okay to have multiples CTAs only when the page goal is exactly the same for each.
- Take a walk through your own ad to landing page experiences and give yourself an honest critique.
Phewf! I'll leave you with a short story to round out our time together.
I was walking down St. Catherine Street in Montreal (my new home) a few weeks ago, when a man came running up to me, sweating and out of breath.
He stopped and said, "Can you help me!?"
"Sure, what do you need?"
"Do you know ANYWHERE I can get really good chicken right now?!"
Definitely one of the more bizarre requests I've had.
If you think about it, this is the real world equivalent of a search query. Now it was up to me to provide a landing experience that solved his problem. I could do this in one of two ways:
"If you go three blocks that way (pointing), then go up 4 and a half blocks, you'll see a Portuguese place on the right side of the street which has the absolute best chicken in the city."
That's a delightful experience, and most likely a customer for life.
"There's a KFC about 9 miles across town. But it's closed."
That's utterly useless. First I didn't give him specific enough directions to be helpful, and I ignored a crucial part of his search query. Urgency. Sending someone to a result that can't result in a conversion is a waste of their time. If I can't get immediate access to chicken (akin to same-day flower delivery), then I'm going to leave.
Alrighty, if you've followed along closely, I'll see you on the other side of more delightful and high-converting landing page experiences. If you feel like sharing some examples from your own marketing in the comments I'd love to discuss them.


text:
Dab on the face with cotton swabs or a face cloth, especially the forehead and sides of the nose where most oils gather. The remaining tea can be refrigerated for later use for 2 to 3 days. Allow to come to room temperature again before using.
A traditional Japanese and Macrobiotic home remedy. The astringent alkaline qualities of kukicha tea cleanses the pores. Do several times per week until the condition improves.
- 1 teaspoon Eden Kukicha Twig Tea - Loose Tea
- 1 cup cold water
Place the tea in a tea ball or directly into a tea pot with the water. Bring to a boil. Reduce the flame to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes. The tea needs to be fairly strong and dark. Allow to cool to room temperature.
The preceding recipe(s) for traditional home remedies have not been scientifically researched or clinically tested as a formula for any condition, and we make no claims as to their effectiveness. These statements have not been evaluated or approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Please review the complete disclaimer before using any of our Home Beauty Recipes.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
InterDry Fabric, 10"x18", 1/pack
with FourFold Technology™
InterDry Fabric is a moisture-wicking antimicrobial fabric specially designed to manage moisture, odor and inflammation in skin folds and other skin-to-skin contact areas. A knitted polyester textile dressing with silver complex, InterDry Fabric provides effective antimicrobial action for up to five days and significantly improves the symptoms associated with intertrigo, maceration, denudement, inflammation, itching, erythema and satellite lesions. The fabric functions by wicking moisture away to keep skin dry and provides a friction reducing surface to reduce the risk of skin tears and pressure ulcers. InterDry is latex-free and has a 2-year shelf life.
How to use InterDry:
- Wash skin gently. Pat dry, do not rub.
- Cut the appropriate size of fabric with clean scissors, allowing a minimum of 2 inches of the fabric exposed outside the skin fold for moisture evaporation.
- Lay a single layer of fabric in the skin fold, placing one edge of the fabric into the base of the fold. Gently smooth the rest of the fabric over the skin, keeping it flat. Leave at least 2 inches of the fabric exposed outside the skin fold.
- Secure the fabric in one of several ways; with the skin fold, with a small amount of tape, or tucked under clothing.
Each piece of InterDry may be used up to 5 days, depending on fabric soiling, odor, amount of moisture and general skin condition.
Remove the fabric before bathing and reuse when finished. When removing the fabric from skin folds, gently separate the skin fold and lift away fabric.
Creams or ointments may reduce InterDry's moisture-wicking ability. Leave at least two inches of fabric beyond the skin fold. Average treatment time is five days.
InterDry fabric is not a wound dressing and should not be placed directly onto an open wound. Should not be used by people with a known sensitivity to silver.


text:
Testosterone is hot. It gets lead story status in big-name international newsmagazines like Time, and it's been making the rounds on both national and local news programs. Everybody, it seems, is suddenly intrigued by it. And moreover, everybody seems to want it.
It's quite a hormonal role reversal, considering that only a year ago, wearing a Testosterone T-shirt would grant you automatic pariah status on any street you happened to walk down. Likewise, asking the average physician about it would get you a raised eyebrow and a lecture – delivered in the requisite condescending tone – about the evils of steroids.
We're happy that the lay public "discovered" Testosterone and the concept of Testosterone replacement. It gives us delicious "I-told-you-so" status.
The trouble is, for every favorable report you hear about our favorite hormone, the news organization delivering it feels compelled to offer the "dark side," or "the bad news" about Testosterone.
Unfortunately, in almost 99% of the cases, they've got their heads up their collective asses.
The goal of this article is to help dispel most of the mythology concerning Testosterone, steroids, or prohormones, just in case you're considering getting your hands on some and your loved ones or peers have been eating up some or all of the media propaganda.
Myth #1. "Testosterone? Sure, that's fine, I guess. But steroids? That's a whole other subject!"
Most of the bobos in the news organizations think that Testosterone is somehow distinct from steroids. They think that Testosterone, while risky, is something worth looking at, but the very mention of the word steroid is enough to make them clamp shut their minds with the rapidity of a clam that just heard the seafood chef come into the kitchen.
The truth is, Testosterone is a steroid. It was first isolated in crystalline form by Laqueur in 1935 and was synthesized shortly thereafter. Once that happened, chemists around the world started synthesizing different versions of the drug.
Their hope was to somehow dissociate the masculinizing properties from the anabolic, or growth promoting, properties. No one is yet sure whether that's possible because it seems that the anabolic and androgenic (masculinizing) properties work through the same receptor complex.
Regardless, these synthetics, along with Testosterone, are all steroids.
Myth #2. Testosterone injections will give you liver cancer.
The truth is none of the Testosterone preparations currently used for Testosterone replacement in the United States have any negative effects on the liver.
Why then the age-old rumor? Most of the oral steroids (those that appear in pill form) have, in chemical terms, an alkyl group in the 17-alpha position. It doesn't matter if you know what this means. What does matter is that ordinarily, regular old Testosterone, taken orally, gets metabolized and inactivated by the liver before it reaches its target organs.
That means that you'd have to swallow a lot of it to have any noticeable effect at all. That's why all Testosterone esters are injectables.
However, in order to protect Testosterone from being broken down, chemists have put the aforementioned alkyl group in the 17-alpha position, thus making oral steroids a viable possibility.
Although this chemical juggling makes it an effective steroid, the liver suffers the consequences, sometimes leading to an increase in liver enzymes, cholestasis, and/or peliosis.
Whether or not these complications will lead to liver cancer is debatable. Although one study found an association between long-term treatment with methyltestosterone (a 17-alpha alkylated steroid) and liver tumors, another study found the association to be "incidental."(1,2)
Regardless, no doctors in the U.S. use any 17-alpha akylated steroids for T replacement. All use injectable versions.
Myth #3. Testosterone replacement will make your testicles shrink and you'll be sterile.
There's an element of truth to this "myth." If you introduce additional Testosterone into your body, your own supply is suppressed and the clearance rate increases. As a result, the testicles may take a vacation and actually shrink.
Simultaneously, the production of sperm cells will slow or stop. This is why the World Health Organization was thinking about recommending the use of steroids as a male contraceptive a few years back.
What the fear mongers don't tell you, however, is that these side effects are temporary and that the testicles almost always rebound within a few weeks. There are thousands of steroid users who have sired healthy babies.
One more point: this shutdown of the testes, however temporary, can usually be alleviated by the concurrent use of drugs like Clomid, HCG, and in some cases, a supplement like Tribex-500.
Myth #4. Testosterone replacement will make you grow lovely breasts.
Estrogen is the yin to Testosterone's yang. Let me explain. The body converts some of every male's Testosterone into the "female hormone" estrogen. Without this reaction, Testosterone wouldn't exert all its effects.
The trouble begins when the ratio of E to T is high. As a result, the excess estrogen binds to receptor sites on male breast tissue and initiates protein transcription; i.e. the male grows breasts.
Ironically, gynecomastia may also be a result of low T levels. Men who are hypogonadal (suffer from low levels of T) may, as a result, have high E/T ratios. Often, with the initiation of Testosterone replacement, the gyno can subside.
Most of the Testosterone preparations used for T replacement, with the exception of Testosterone Enanthate (and only in sensitive individuals), don't cause estrogen levels to increase too dramatically. In these "sensitive" patients, the solution is to either lower the dosage or switch to a different Testosterone preparation.
Additionally, there are various prescription estrogen "blockers" on the market. One of the newest and best is called Arimidex. Some innovative doctors might be persuaded to prescribe the drug concurrently with Testosterone replacement.
So yes, it's possible for Testosterone replacement to make you grow lovely breasts, but it isn't likely.
Myth #5. A high level of Testosterone automatically makes you a sex machine.
Taking additional T doesn't always result in automatic horniness. There's often a latency period between T administration and increase in sexual desire (at least in hypogonadal men) that takes from days to several weeks.
Besides, just how much T you need to sexually function as a male is debatable. The normal physiologic range is a lot higher than you need to maintain normal sexual functions.
Additionally, while extra T will presumably, sooner or later, lead to increased sexual desire, increased sexual frequency, and possibly stiffer erections, it won't cure premature ejaculation or necessarily make you a better lover. If you're currently a dud in bed, extra T will make you a hornier dud.
Myth #6. Testosterone replacement will automatically turn you into a behemoth.
Not necessarily true. The effect of steroids on muscles varies tremendously from individual to individual. It has a lot to do with the age of the patient, existing T levels (primarily existing levels of free Testosterone), exercise stimulus, nutritional factors, growth hormone, and various muscle growth factors.
However, taking amounts of Testosterone above and beyond that which a man might need for the purposes of T replacement will generally lead to additional muscle mass, even without exercising. The landmark study of 1996 by Bashin and associates found that 600 mg of Test, given weekly over a course of several weeks, resulted in muscle mass gains that generally exceeded those of an average weight trainer who was working out regularly but who wasn't taking steroids.(3)
Even so, having high levels of T generally makes it easier to put on muscle mass than for individuals with lower T. Still, even that's uncertain because men differ on how their bodies process the stuff. Some men may have more testosterone receptors, which would probably improve responsiveness. Others might have a higher clearance rate of Testosterone, which would probably decrease responsiveness. And, another group might have very high levels of bound T, but very low levels of free T (the stuff that's biologically available for growing muscle and the rest of the stuff associated with T).
Myth #7. Testosterone replacement will automatically cause your hair to fall out in tufts.
Take a look at almost any young boy or any woman – you'll notice that their hairlines go straight across their foreheads. However, once these boys start to produce T, their hairlines start to recede at the temples. And, if the genetic predisposition exists, they'll eventually go bald.
Therefore, it is true that T replacement – taken to normal or slightly supra-normal levels – can lead to hair loss, if the patient has a genetic predisposition to androgen-related hair loss.
Looking at case histories of castrates easily proves this. They don't suffer from baldness, but once you start giving them T, they can develop male pattern baldness.
Why does Testosterone sometimes cause varying degrees of baldness? Well, when a portion of the testosterone produced or introduced into the body gets converted into another form of T known as Dihydrotestostesterone, or DHT. Some of this DHT binds to intracellular androgen receptors – cellular parking spots, really – and prevents hair from developing normally.
DHT-bound follicles gradually produce thinner and thinner hair, along with the shortening of the anagen phase (the hair's life span) and lengthening of the telogen phase (the dormant, or rest phase). This can then culminate in the connective tissue sheath of the hair becoming chronically inflamed and long-term baldness is the result.
Still, the hair-loss phenomenon varies from individual to individual. As mentioned above, the genetic predisposition for hair loss must be present. Additionally, some men may convert Testosterone to DHT at a higher rate.
In any event, raising T levels to mid-range normal or high normal in itself won't necessarily cause your hair to fall out. And, if it is a potential problem, the drug finasteride will block DHT from binding to the hair follicle, thus usually preventing further hair loss.
Now, some steroids don't convert to DHT (or estrogen), but because of this, they won't exhibit the full spectrum of activities associated with T, so that makes them an undesirable candidate for T replacement.
As we learn more and more about steroids, scientists might soon be able to develop drugs for specific purposes. So we might eventually have steroids that don't cause hair loss. As an example the steroid 7-alpha-methyl-19-nortestosterone is experiencing a kind of renaissance because its highly androgenic but has little effect on the prostate, which brings us to Myth #8.
Myth #8. Testosterone replacement causes prostate cancer.
Your average physician is convinced that the main problem associated with Testosterone replacement (or steroid or prohormone use in general) is prostate growth.
It is true that the prostate is a haven for DHT receptors, and elevated T generally leads to elevated DHT levels. Consequently, the DHT parks on the prostate receptor, eventually initiates protein transcription, and presumably causes the prostate to grow.
Why does mere growth potentially lead to cancer? Who knows, maybe the additional cell divisions prompted by the DHT are especially prone to mutations that lead to cancer.
Anyhow, the association between T and prostate cancer isn't clear at all. For the most part, T therapy hasn't caused any prostate-related problems.
For instance, Testosterone therapy has been shown to increase the prostate size of hypogonadal men, but only to the size of age-matched controls. That means that low T had caused their prostates to shrink while replacement caused the prostate to "catch up" to normal.
A recent study at the University of Iowa showed that men who had received T therapy for four years showed only mild increases in prostate specific antigen (PSA).(4) (PSA is generally regarded as a good indicator of prostate health.)
Another study done in Poland tracked 30 men who had all received T therapy for between 1.5 and 6 years, with the average duration being 3.35 years.(5) Although the average PSA doubled from 0.65 ng/dl to 1.35 ng/dl, this level was well within desired ranges (anything under 4.0 is considered acceptable).
It is true, however, that patients with existing prostate cancer should not get T replacement as it could make matters worse. (Medically speaking, this is practically the one pre-existing medical condition, along with breast cancer, where the use of steroids is contraindicated.)
Interestingly enough, scientists are beginning to think that estrogen also plays a role in the hormonal regulation of the prostate.(6) If that's true, it could explain a lot. Prostate cancer is almost epidemic in this country, but so are levels of environmental and dietary estrogens.
Given that the relationship – as shown by the many studies – between T therapy and prostate cancer is unclear, it makes the supposition of estrogen involvement especially interesting.
Myth #9. Testosterone replacement will cause your heart to stop.
Out of 30 studies looking at the relationship between coronary disease and T, 18 found an inverse relationship (meaning that low T positively correlated with heart disease), 11 found no association, and only 1 found a positive association.
Another case-control study of 50 men who were matched up by age and ethnic background – but differed only by T levels – found that low levels of Testosterone were associated with a higher BMI (body mass index, i.e., they were fatter), higher waist-to-hip ratio, higher systolic blood pressure, higher fasting and 2-hour glucose and insulin levels, higher levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, in addition to a lower HDL-C (good cholesterol).(7)
In other words, although these men hadn't suffered heart attacks yet, low T made them ideal candidates for coronary problems.
Now, it is true that supplemental T can lead to supraphysiological levels of hemoglobin, erythrocytes, and hematocrit, which can possibly lead to stroke or a coronary event, but any conscientious doctor will monitor such parameters through routine blood tests.
If indeed there's evidence of the aforementioned problems, he may actually drain some of the "excess" blood. An adjustment of dosage may also be in order.
It's this reporter's humble opinion that many of the cardiac problems associated with T or steroids in general results from using either extremely high doses, or in lousy dietary habits that often come part-and-parcel with steroid use.
The user, despite eating "bad" foods, sees his body fat continue to drop. With this perception of body fat invulnerability playing a role in his decision making, he begins to eat all the foods he shouldn't be eating, including those that contain large amounts of saturated fat or trans fatty acids. The end result is poor coronary health.
Myth #10. Testosterone replacement will cause you to kill your parents, or any man, woman, flower or bug that gets in your way.
Generally speaking, hormones don't cause personality changes per se; they only alter the probability that a particular behavior will pop up in the presence of a particular stimulus.
Now it is true that violent offenders often have higher T levels, but there's some evidence to suggest that, at least in animals, previous experiences in aggression can sometimes be more important than T levels in determining aggressiveness. That means that if a kid was beaten and abused, he might well grow up to be a felon, regardless of T levels.
Dr. Christina Wang of UCLA found that men with low T were more likely to be aggressive and ill humored than men who had high T. However, once these aggressive men received T replacement, their anger disappeared.(8)
Another study conducted in 1992, found that high T levels correlated with emotional well being.(x)
How then, do we explain the "roid rage" behavior that's part of bodybuilding legend? One explanation is that these men take enormous amounts of steroids and once a certain threshold is passed, all bets are off. Another explanation might be that the same impulses that caused them to be risk takers and aggressive might play a part in their decision to abuse steroids. Thus, the steroids only increase the probability that they're going to act aggressively.
There is no evidence that the judicious, sane use of Testosterone or steroids in general is life shortening. Of course, there's not a whole lot of evidence (yet) that T will lengthen life. There is, however, plenty of evidence that they can improve the quality of life.
1. Lancet 1975; (I):430-2
3. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1997;(82):407-13
4. Pharmacotherapy, 1999 Aug;19(8):951-6
5. Pol Arch Med 1998 Sep;100(3):212-21
6. J Androl 1994;(15):97-99
7. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1997;(82):682-85
8. Time Magazine, 2000 April 24: p. 64
9. J Androl 1992 (13):297-304


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A 76-year-old military veteran killed himself outside a Long Island Veteran Affairs facility Sunday after being denied treatment. He was reportedly seeking help for mental health issues at the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center but was turned away, an unfortunately common experience plaguing veterans seeking healthcare in recent years.
According to the New York Times, two people connected to the hospital spoke about the incident on the condition of anonymity. They explained "he had been frustrated that he was unable to see an emergency-room physician for reasons related to his mental health," the Times reported.
"He went to the E.R. and was denied service," one anonymous source said. "And then he went to his car and shot himself."
Peter A. Kaisen of Islip, New York, committed suicide in the parking lot of the Northport facility, where he had been a patient. He was in the parking lot outside Building 92, the facility's nursing home, when he shot himself.
One of the Times' anonymous sources questioned why Kaisen had not been referred to Building 64, the mental health center at Northport.
"The staff member said that while there was normally no psychologist at the ready in the E.R., one was always on call, and that the mental health building was open '24/7,'" the Times reported.
"Someone dropped the ball. They should not have turned him away," the source said.
Christopher Goodman, a spokesman for the hospital, said there "was no indication that he presented to the E.R. prior to the incident," and the Times was unable to determine whether there was an official record of his visit to the VA on Sunday.
The Northport center has faced heightened scrutiny since the Times reported on mismanagement at the facility in 2014, but the problems at Northport are problems of the entire system.
Just last month, an Iowa military veteran suffering from PTSD and substance abuse killed himself after being denied treatment by the VA. He reportedly made an appointment seeking treatment but eventually posted on social media that he was turned away "even though he requested it and explained to a doctor that he felt his safety and health were in jeopardy,"KWQC, a local news outlet reported.
One veteran who drove to a Seattle VA last year with a broken foot was denied assistance walking from his car to the hospital entrance, a distance of a few feet. He was told to call 911, instead. One gun-wielding veteran with PTSD was shot and killed by police in Maricopa County, Arizona, last year after he was turned away from the VA hospital when he sought treatment for a mental health emergency. He had routinely called suicide hotlines for help but never received the full attention he needed.
Veteran suicides in the United States are a chronic problem. Though some argue the relatively recent figure from the VA that 22 veterans kill themselves per day is inflated, veterans still face a suicide risk higher than the rest of the American population. As USA Today has noted:
"In 2014, veterans accounted for 18% of all suicides in the United States, but made up only 8.5% of the population. In 2010, veterans accounted for 22% of U.S. suicides and 9.7% of the population."
Further, a more recent analysis by the VA found that in 2014, 20 veterans killed themselves per day. Politifact, an independent fact-checker, has confirmed this figure. While rates of veteran suicides appear to be declining, the figures are still troubling.
Even absent mental health issues like depression and PTSD, veterans are dying waiting for regular health care. A VA whistleblower revealed last year that 238,000 out of 847,000 veterans died after submitting requests for treatment they never received. An audit in 2014 found 57,000 veterans were waiting more than 90 days for an appointment with the VA.
The United States government, politicians, and the media often express compassion and gratitude for veterans. To their credit, some lawmakers recently attempted to allow veterans to use cannabis as an alternative treatment in an amendment to a budget bill — a move Congress ultimately blocked.
But in spite of failed and often unwieldy efforts to reform veterans' health care, the VA's systemic failures continue to leave veterans feeling ignored and abandoned by the very institutions that still claim to value them.


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Starting today, residents in Westwood, Westwood Hills, Mission Woods and Roeland Park can start signing up for Google Fiber. To see whether your home is in one of these areas, go to our website at google.com/fiber and enter your address. If you're eligible in this round of sign-ups, you'll be able to select which Fiber package you want. Remember, you'll only be able to sign-up for a limited time — from now until September 12th — so make sure you choose your plan sooner rather than later. This will help us to get installations started as quickly as possible.
We're also giving residents in our original group of qualified fiberhoods — in Kansas City, Kan. and Central Kansas City, Mo. — another chance to sign-up for service. Between now and August 7th, you can go to our website and select your Fiber package.
Of course, as always, we'll be out and about in the community to answer your questions and help you sign up for service. Over the next few weeks, we hope to see you at one of our events:
Summer Block Party - Join us for some family fun in the sun outside the Fiber Space. From face painting to cotton candy, we'll have something for everyone.
Saturday, July 12, 1pm-5pm @ The Google Fiber Space
Happy hour with Google Fiber - Enjoy a drink or two on us, plus appetizers and live music by Heather Thornton as we toast to gigabit speeds and summertime fun.
Thursday, July 17, 6pm-8pm @ The Legendary Rooftop (located on 2nd floor of garage)
Google Fiber Birthday Celebration - Google Fiber is turning 2, and we want to celebrate with you! Bring your family for face painting, cotton candy, cupcakes, tunes by DJ Robert DeGeorge, and more.
Saturday, July 26, 12pm-4pm @ The Google Fiber Space
Fiber Space Saturday - We're kicking off the weekend with activities for the whole family at the Fiber Space. From face painting to music by DJ Shaun Flo, we'll have something for everyone.
Saturday, August 2, 12pm-4pm @ The Google Fiber Space
Happy Hour with Google Fiber Wednesday, August 6, 6pm-8pm @ The Cashew


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Gamers who love to be frightened, rejoice! This is an excellent time for horror games — after the disappointing transition of many our favorite classic horror-survival games to a more action-adventure feel (*cough*RE6*cough*), many indie developers are stepping up and showing us what it means again to be truly terrified. Here are ten horror games we're looking forward to playing:
Amnesia- A Machine for Pigs (Frictional Games)- PC, Mac, Linux
The new survival horror game from the sociopaths who brought you Amnesia: The Dark Descent looks incredibly promising. Though the game is set in the same terrifying (and, as the screen shots have been proving, ridiculously dark) universe, it will feature several changes to the behavior of the AI, the environment, and a startling lack of inventory in order to keep fans of the game on their toes and their underwear continually soiled.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxwAGB6Tos0&w=615&h=346]
Slender: The Arrival (Blue Isle Studios)- PC, Mac
One of the few games on this list thatâs actually out already, the folks at Blue Isle have expanded on the anxiety attack that was Slender: The Eight Pages and turned it into a full blown game with five chapters. That doesnât mean you get anything more than the paltry flashlight and ability to jog, though, so if you like your survival horror with an emphasis on survival, this is going to be one to play through.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tenpLSKU-9U&w=615&h=346]
The Evil Within (Bethesda)- PC, PS3, PS4, XBOX 360
Bethesdaâs newest monstrosity, created by Resident Evil mastermind Shinji Mikami, is one of the most anticipated horror games expected to be out in the next year. Mikami is seemingly returning to his roots on this one and really punching up the horror aspect, as the last few Resident Evil games left a lot to be desired in that department. The main character in The Evil Within is a detective thrown into a world of gruesome monsters, and instead of the standard guns/bazooka/melee that youâd expect in a game like this, youâll be relying on using traps and your surroundings to defeat enemies.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvR7-pZh_0M&w=615&h=346]
Outlast (Red Barrels)- PC
New studio Red Barrels has cited Amnesia as part of its inspiration for the game Outlast, a primarily stealth-driven first-person which aims to put you in the shoes of one very doomed independent journalist armed only with his camera. Taking cues from Fatal Frame and Rec, Outlast stands by the sentiment that monsters always look creepiest behind the dim glow of a camera screen.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GPf3MdVOKI&w=615&h=346]
Daylight (Zombie Studios)- PC
From indie developers Zombie Studios comes Daylight, a game thatâs meant to be played in 30 minutes or less but has endless replay value due to randomly generated settings and AI. You play as a female protagonist who wakes up in an abandoned institution riddled with phantoms and must use the messages that show up on her phone to decipher the criminal past of the hospital and attempt an escape.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw-9qJLqx_g&w=615&h=346]
Asylum (Senscape)- PC, Mac, Linux
Senscapeâs Kickstarter-funded Asylum is a psychological point-and-click adventure thriller that takes place in (where else but) an insane asylum with a mysterious ghoul infestation. Itâs the playerâs job to navigate corridors and rooms filled with Lovecraftian creatures, and, judging by the teasers and screenshots that have been released, the graphics look pretty stellar. Unfortunately, thereâs not a lot of content to be seen as of yet, but if youâre looking to get a fix, you can always head over to the website and check out the demo.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjktiKFLkxg&w=615&h=346]
Dreadout (Digital Happiness)- PC, Mac, Linux
Another Fatal Frame-inspired survival horror, the teen lead in this third-person ghost story utilizes her modern tech gadgets to capture ghosts. What makes Dreadout unique is the Indonesian twist on the setting and mythical haunts, and if you canât wait to see what the folks at Digital Happiness have in store for the full version, you can check out the demo on the web site.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzwfUT3KCgk&w=615&h=346]
Memory of a Broken Dimension (XRA)- PC, Mac
Easily the most avant garde game on the list, Memory of a Broken Dimension is an atmospheric assault on the senses brought to you by Ezra Hansen-White. Though itâs only in demo mode right now, you can play it for free and it comes highly recommended; Â the static and glitch world is so disorienting it feels like a whole different kind of horror game.
Until Dawn (Sony Computer Entertainment) PS3
Fans of the teen slasher genre will get a kick out of this raunchy horror adventure, which cleverly utilizes the PlayStation move as a flashlight. In the classic horror setting of adolescents in the woods just trying to get it on, PS3 gamers will be able to dodge fearsome killers in whatâs sure to be a fun game to play with friends.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOiSosEiNyE&w=615&h=346]
Routine (Lunar Software)- PC
Separate from monsters, ghosts, zombies and murderers, Routine sets out to capture a different kind of fear- the kind you experience while alone in space. Players explore an abandoned moon base in this first-person sci fi horror in order to discover the dismal fate of the rest of the shipâs crew. Thereâs a real emphasis on the environment in Routine, as traps and hazards are frequent and randomized — oh, and thereâs a little thing called âperma death,â which means no health packs, no extra lives, and the story reboots if you happen to die. Talk about high tension.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnhYRaotzdg&w=615&h=346]
Did we miss any horror games youâre looking forward to in the coming year? Let us know in the comments below!


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The United States issued a global travel alert Friday, citing an al-Qaeda threat that also caused the State Department to close its embassies Sunday around the Muslim world.
The State Department warned American citizens of the potential for terrorism particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring or coming from the Arabian Peninsula.
"Current information suggests that al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August," the statement said.
Paul J. Richards | AFP | Getty Images
The alert asks American travelers to take extra precautions when traveling overseas and suggests they sign up for State Department alerts and register with consulates or embassies in the countries they are visiting.
The alert was posted a day after the U.S. announced it would close diplomatic facilities on Sunday because of an unspecified threat. Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the department acted out of an "abundance of caution" and that some missions may stay closed for longer than a day. Sunday is a business day in Muslim countries.
Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Friday the embassy threat was linked to al-Qaida and focused on the Middle East and Central Asia.
"We've had a series of threats," Royce told reporters. "In this instance, we can take a step to better protect our personnel and, out of an abundance of caution, we should."
Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, also supported the department's decision to go public with its concerns.
"The most important thing we have to do is protect American lives," he said, describing the threat as "not the regular chit chat" picked up from would-be militants on the Internet or elsewhere.
The State Department issued a major warning last year informing American diplomatic facilities across the Muslim world about potential violence connected to the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Dozens of American installations were besieged by protests over an anti-Islam video made by an American resident.
In Benghazi, Libya, the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed when militants assaulted a diplomatic post, but the administration no longer says that attack was related to the demonstrations.
Friday's alert warned that al-Qaeda or its allies may target U.S. government or private American interests. It cited dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists, noting that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats.
"U.S. citizens should take every precaution to be aware of their surroundings and to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect themselves when traveling," the department said. It recommended that American traveling overseas register with consular authorities on a travel registration website. The alert expires on Aug. 31.
Ruppersberger said the U.S. has invested greatly in research and protection system for U.S. embassies and citizens since the Benghazi attack.
"Intelligence is probably the best defense against terrorist attacks," he said. "Intelligence isn't always an exact science, but you have to react and you have to prepare. So we put people on notice and we also put the other side on notice."
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, another Democrat on House intelligence, said he was briefed on the matter this week and called the State Department's decision to close embassies a "prudent" step.
"I hope it will be of short duration," he said.
—By The Associated Press.


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text:
This text was first published in September-October 2014, in The Lifted Brow 24 – The Medicine Issue.
1. in which we do not talk about politics
The first time the Critic saw a theatre work was in a squatted factory at sixteen, in Croatia. It was turn of the millennium, the wars had only just finished. A generation of young people was trying to say something about what had just happened, find its bearings, stop being children caught up in crossfire. And so the young people squatted one of the many, many, many defunct factories that littered Croatian cities, factories that had collapsed through disinvestment, bombing, road blockades, diminished purchasing power, and rampant corruption, the extent of which would only become apparent in the peace years to come. There was art in every one of the big, empty, barely cleaned rooms of the huge building. There was beer sold straight from the back of a van. There were punk concerts, there were vegan cooperatives, and there was a small performance, in the central courtyard, for free, on one of the nights. A group of drama students doing Biljana Srbljanović's 1994 play Family Stories, or 'Porodične priče.'
Srbljanović was a Serbian playwright, the most famous to emerge from the Balkans in the 1990s, but her work, like any other Serbian art, was unofficially banned in Croatia at that time. The Critic, who was not yet a critic, had never heard of her before. (The unofficial ban persisted for years, and Serbian writing, dramatic or otherwise, remained impossible to obtain in Croatia, even though Croatian and Serbian languages are as similar as the American and British variants of English. In 2010, scouring a bookshop for Srbljanović's plays, the Critic was told that 'they were not yet translated'. The shop assistant said that with a sad smile that indicated that even she was, perhaps, aware of the absurdity of what she was saying.)
Family Stories is a sophisticated, non-naturalistic dramatic text, in which a group of children, played by adult actors, meets on the playground to play house. Through eleven games, they enact eleven domestic scenarios rife with bullying, oppression, sexual assault, verbal and physical violence. The father tortures the mother, the mother tortures the children, and the children usually kill them by the end; and then they rise again, play another house, accumulating realistic wounds from previous deaths. The world of the play is a sort of hell, in which the same patterns of violence are endlessly repeated without respite, not even after death. It shows violence as a compulsion, and trauma as a self-perpetuating, senseless force.
The Critic read many learned analyses of Family Stories in the years to come, all of them sound and accurate, but not one had been necessary to understand the play that evening, in the courtyard of the squatted factory, performed rather simply, without a set or props. The effect it had on the sixteen year old girl who would become the Critic was immense.
For the first time, the Critic had seen a work of art that cut through the over-detailed confusion of real life, and had given her an understandable explanation of reality. Life itself was condensed into this play, life as she knew it – her bullying schoolmates, their violent parents, her unhappy friends, her unhappy parents, the crooked shadow of the recent war hanging over them all, neither near nor far—all the more clear for its abstraction, for its condensed metaphor. It felt like someone had finally found words to describe the world that the girl had experienced, but did not quite understand, like her first textbook explaining electricity. That her life would be so accurately rendered by a Serbian artist, considered practically an enemy in the war that had caused so much of that depicted trauma, added another layer of revelation. The closeness of experience had been uncanny.
Dusk turned to night as the performance finished. Afterwards, she and her bestest friends had stood around a fire, shaken and quiet, looking at each other like they were seeing one another for the first time, trying to say something more than: "It's like that, isn't it?," but failing, returning again to this simple statement. It is like that. They were a gang, close in the way only sixteen year-olds can be, practically formative of one another: the girl who would become the Critic; Sasha, the boy who would become gay; Luka, the boy who would become a performance artist; and Helena, the girl who would become a heroin addict. For a long time, these would be the coordinates of her universe.
The Critic saw the same play at Griffin Theatre in Sydney in 2008, in a totally decent translation by Serbian-born Australian theatre-maker Bojana Novakovic. The production, by RideOn Theatre, was probably an improvement on the makeshift sketch she had seen at sixteen. However, in trying to stage faithfully a play understood merely as an important European contemporary work, the staging ended up being both naturalistically boring, and extremely haughty. It didn't bother trying to make connections with Australia – if such a thing were possible, which it perhaps was not. Family Stories, however layered and metaphorical a text, was immediately recognisable as reality. This production was not. Continue reading


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It is obvious by now that the Christians in the Middle East are an "endangered species."
Christians in Arab countries are no longer being persecuted; they are now being slaughtered and driven out of their homes and lands.
Those who for many years turned a blind eye to complaints about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East now owe the victims an apology. Now it is clear to all that these complaints were not "Jewish propaganda."
The war of genocide against Christians in the Middle East can no longer be treated as an "internal affair" of Iraq or Egypt or the Palestinians. What the West needs to understand is that radical Islam has declared jihad not only against Jews, but also against Christians.
In Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian territories, Christians are being targeted almost on a daily basis by Muslim fundamentalists and secular dictators.
Dozens of Arab Christians in Iraq have been killed in recent months in what seems to be well-planned campaign to drive them out of the country. Many Christian families have already begun fleeing Iraq out of fear for their lives.
Some have chosen to start new lives in Jordan, while many others are expressing hope that they could be resettled in North America or Europe.
In Egypt, the plight of the Coptic Christian minority appears to be worsening. Just this week, the Egyptian security forces killed a Coptic Christian man and wounded scores of others who were protesting against the government's intention to demolish a Christian-owned structure.
Hardly a day passes without reports of violence against members of the Coptic Christian community in various parts of Egypt. Most of the attacks are carried out by Muslim fundamentalists.
According to the Barnabas Fund, an advocacy and charitable organization based in the United Kingdom, "Fears for the safety of Egyptian Christians are growing after a series of false allegations, violent threats and mass demonstrations against Christians in Egypt."
Muslim anger was ignited by unfounded accusations that Egyptian Christians were aligned with Israel and stockpiling weapons in preparation for war against Muslims.
The Barnabas Fund noted that Egyptian authorities have been accused of complicity for political reasons in the escalating sectarian crisis.
Palestinian Christians have also been feeling the heat, although they their conditions remain much better than those of their brothers and sisters in Iraq and Egypt.
Last week, the Western-funded Palestinian Authority in the West Bank arrested a Christian journalist who reported about differences between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and senior Fatah operative Mohammed Dahlan. The journalist, George Qanawati, manager of Radio Bethlehem 2000, was freed five days later.
In the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, the tiny Christian community is also living in fear following a spate of attacks by radical Islamic groups.
The failure of the international community to pay enough attention to the dangers facing the Christians encouraged radical Muslims and corrupt dictatorships to step up their assaults on Christian individuals and institutions.
When Muslim fanatics cannot kill Christian soldiers or civilians in the mountains of Afghanistan or on the streets of New York, they choose an easy prey: their Arab Christian neighbors.