We recently engaged with a client to develop and test multiple versions of landing pages for their Google PPC traffic. After running these tests for a little over 2 weeks, we discovered a page that performed over 140% better than their default landing page for an important group of AdWords traffic.

As you might guess we couldn't wait to share these results with the client and thought that they, in turn, would share our enthusiasm. Well… yes and no. They were pleased with the results, but felt the winning page was “ugly."

“Ugly??” we responded. “Doesn’t 140% lift trump ugly?”

It turned out 140% did trump “ugly," and they kept the page, which has affectionately come to be called “Ugly Betty” by members of their team.

Still, the situation begs the question, “Should ‘ugly’ always win?”

To clarify, the client felt the page was ugly because it didn’t completely fit within their brand guidelines. So we must consider what about the page caused it to perform well. After reviewing the page, we’ve come away with 3 key principles that helped this page perform so well:

1) Messaging should grab the visitor’s attention…subtly

This means that while it’s important for the key messaging on your page to stand out, it’s equally important that it doesn’t stand out to the point of being a distraction. With the increasing use of RIAs on sites, this can be a challenge. RIAs can be extremely valuable when used effectively, but we’ve all experienced sites where the overuse of RIAs (like Flash) can be a distraction.

However, burying your important messaging within the other elements on your site can be equally damaging. Make sure your important messages are crisp, clear and easy to see. The page we developed for our client had 3 clear messages of 4 words or less. Together, the messages were one of the most prominent elements on the page.

2) Where’s the call-to-action?

It’s amazing how often a page leaves us unclear on what we're meant to do. The call-to-action is the one thing you cannot allow your visitor to miss.

The page we developed for our client had a large red button with a clear call-to-action that was the most prominent element on the page.

How do you know if your call-to-action is too bold, too obnoxious? See below…

3) Test it

Did we have any idea that “Ugly Betty” was going to perform 140% better than the original? Nope. In fact, we may not have even tried this page if we had decided purely on looks. As marketers, it’s easy to get caught in the traditional way of doing things. “This is how we do it,” and, “This is our branding,” are statements we hear a lot.

We would ask a different question, “How do your customers want you to do it?” Trust us, they’ll tell you. That’s why we test. The winning page was one of 4 versions we tested against the original page. All pages performed well, but only one produced 140% lift.

We’re not telling you to build a page that is completely against your brand. How your brand fits into design is an entirely different topic. We’re simply hoping the principles we saw working from our experience with “Ugly Betty” will help you get more out of your landing pages.

Who knows, maybe you can build your own “ugly” page that performs 140% better than your original.

Would that be so bad?

Posted by Joel Hall