First off, Miguel, great idea for a site! I wish you phenomenal success!

Secondly, I'm so glad I found this site tonight as I'm pulling my hair out here

I run the site http://bmindful.com/ - a positive affirmation community. It is a great site and I get nothing but positive feedback from the people that use it, however, I have recently added a few advanced features and decided to charge a once off $21 fee for them in an attempt to make a little bit of money out of this - I literally spend all day every day on this site!

Anyway, I have had a few people pay for the advanced features, literally a few, but I have only just introduced it and everyone that has signed up so far has gotten all the other new features for free so I didn't expect them to open up their wallet right away.

So anyway, I have started with autoresponders and I know it's a great product so I doing some PPC advertising to try and get some new signups hooked on the emails.

Disclaimer, if you're not into affirmations thats fine, but I can only assume that the people who click on my add are at least interested, here is the text of my ad:

Affirmations Work
Thousands of Quality Affirmations
Free signup, instant gratification!
bmindful.com/special

So anyway, they get to this page here http://bmindful.com/special/ - the reason I am sending them here instead of the front page is that I think people are getting distracted on the main site when they arrive, rather than signing up.

But here is what is killing me, I am not selling anything to them on the page, I just want them to sign up and use the site if they are interested in affirmations! Yet my conversion rate is below 10% and dropping!

If anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear them! I am considering adding testimonials and somehow highlighting the form, but I want to keep the page as short and sweet as possible. I would have thought that short copy was more than appropriate for something you're giving away!

Thanks very much for any replies! I look forward to hearing your advice!

I took my own advice and added testimonials. I also added another signup form with an animated arrow to the side of it. Finally, I added a picture of the site that you get access too. I'll let you know how I go...

Personally, I preferred the previous page but hey, I'm a minimalist and most people aren't. If my conversion rate goes up I'm all for it!

helloo muzzi.

Beautiful site. I don't see anything wrong that grabs me.
You've done a fabulous job. I would say the special page
you are referring surfers to is quite wonderful.

What I don't see is any mention of a charge becoming
possible at any time. Did I miss that? I did not sign up
(yet, but might) as I adore affirmations. They are spirit
lifting, happy mental notes to start of any day on the
correct path of positive thinking.

I will look again, when I have more time. Surely, there is
something I could suggest. I just did not happen to see
anything, this time around.

Overall rating - five stars!

Great work, you should be very proud of YOU.

Verb

Hi.

First of all, let me congratulate you on having a beautiful website.
I loved the layout, the colors scheme you used and the overall
look and feel. I'm sure that with a few simple tweaks you'll be
able to monetize it quite well.

The site is a bit too complex to do an overall critique, so I will
focus my comments and suggestions to the page in question:
http://bmindful.com/special/

That page also has a good layout and colors... but it is missing a
few key elements that I feel could dramatically improve your
visitors to subscribers conversion ratio. Here we go:

Problem:
People by nature are egocentric and when they visit a website
they want to know "What's in it for me?". The headline, sub-head
and the bullets should answer this question upfront or they will leave
without reading any further.

When I -as a potential subscriber- reach your page, I don't care that
you are ranked #1 in search engines, I don't care that you were
featured on ZDnet and I don't care that you have thousands of other
members... I want to know what you can do for ME. (Sorry to sound
so harsh, but that's the way people really feel).

Possible solution:
Use a few of the headline formulas in this blog post to express the
exact benefits that a visitor will get from signing up on your site. Use
the most compelling one as a headline and a few of your other
favorites for the bullet points and throughout the copy.


Problem:
The screen shots you are using next to the bullet points are too generic
and don't really tell me anything.

Possible solution:
Try using a different graphic. I would, for example, test the page with a
photo of a person smiling directly at the camera... or a few smiling people
that represent your happy members. Always remember that people are
drawn to other people... especially in a topic that is so human as living
a richer and fuller life through positive affirmations.


Problem:
There are no action elements above the fold.

Possible solution:
Many people are on a rush and will sign up after reading your headline
and bullet points. I would add a third signup form directly below the bullet
points to increase readership.


Problem:
Page may be a bit too generic.

Possible solution:
The beauty of having a website is that you may add new pages and test
them at no extra cost to you (except the time involved in creating them).
I would create a few variations of your page targeting different audiences
and have different headlines, bullets and photos for each of them. I would
then write a few extra PPC ads for each audience leading to the matching
page you created for them.


I think that's about it... remember that these are only suggestions and I
can't offer any guarantees that they will increase your conversions. But if
you do decide to try them out, please share your results with us.

All the best!
Miguel Alvarez
Copywriting.com

On the one hand, I'm not all that comfortable offering critique because any copywriting I'm doing is the result of a "spin-off" writing, rather than receiving impressive formal training. (and yet I went to your site to see what folks were talking about)

In any case, one thing struck me when I got to your site: It seemed to me that the whole tone and style may be too "ad-sy" for the type of people who would want to sign up. What I mean by that is, I think people who are thinking about business success are accustomed to a more upscale look to things; and I think people interested in "just life" success would be drawn to something softer. Before I went to your site I was expecting a more "dreamy-looking" site, and when I got there there was the bold, black and white, "newpaper-y", kind of copy with references to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

To me, the page looks like a "Make-A-Million-Dollars-in-an-Hour" kind of ad. It just strikes me that there is some middle ground between the bold black-and-white "yelling" kind of thing and rainbows and daiseys on a baby blue background.

Again, I don't claim to know anything, but if I had your site I'd probably use some kind of cream background with lots of forest green and/or leaves. A different approach I may use would be using lots of blue (but not baby blue or heavy, dark, blues). I know your point is "succeed", so I know you don't want a whole watercolors-and-unicorns type of thing, but I think the greens or blues could do the same job if used correctly.

Also, I noticed that it isn't all that clear "what's in it for me" until the reader gets down to the smaller print. You lost me on the big type.

This is the first time I looked at your site, so I don't know what changes you've made so far. But I can see what Lisa meant with the coloring issue. However, your little picture of what the site actually looks like seems very attractive. Maybe you could do this landing page in that style?

@ Muzzi

The home page actually looks better than the landing page. I'm only a regular guy and like most ordinary netizens, I've been deluged with hundreds of pages trying to sell something that has no particular relevance to what I need or want. Maybe that's how people react to your landing page. It's a shame though, 'cause your real site is really worth taking a look, if they can only see it at first click.

The special page is edging closely to the area area you probably want to stay away from. As soon as the page is loaded the big, bold header just shouts out to me "Marketing!" It's not a nice feeling and I can tell just by that header that the body is going to be banal and rhetoric. Trying to sell me something (Or at least try and snap up my important contact information for further direct marketing) that I really do not require.

On the other hand, a nice friendly site would be much better. You will gain a lot more trust from your users who do enter their contact details. The home-page looks fantastic - although maybe inject some colours to give it some spice, but other than that, it's clear, concise and easy on the eyes. I firmly believe you should continue on the good style you have on the front-page. Give your visitors a sense of trust - but do not con them into anything. As I know for a fact that you will be doing marketing on the back of those contact details you obtain. Your site will get a bad name in the eyes of many people when you begin doing that. They will simply resent you.

So be very careful. Think about the direction you want to take your website and craft it around that vision.

@ wildhoney

You hit it right on the head. Trust, that's what most surfers look for. As a regular surfer, I don't think that landing page looks out for my welfare. The site can actually sell itself already. Regarding monetization, there are other options and models that can be added to the current paid subscription.

Getting people to pay for a service they can have for free has been giving webmasters huge migraines.

I think the affirmation page is wonderful to begin. The only real problem I see has already been noted. People can get those affirmations for free on your site. Try offering something special for the money or ask for donations like on Wikipedia. That may get you more money than charging a set fee!

I think your going in the right direction with a landing page . A persons landing page makes every bit of difference between a customer's attention being held for the crucial buy time(first 15 seconds) for the client to make up his mind to make a purchase. I heard that there is a person on the wickedfire forum that offers awesome landing pages for 45 dollars. Usually sellers lower their prices after a while for landing pages but this guy has increased his price from 35 dollars to 45. If its as good as everyone says it is, it's a bargain because i have seen great landing pages going for up to 500 dollars.