Counter-take: The Best SAAS Landing Page has a Gaping Hole
Fellow page optimizer @olly posted this review of Memberstack.io. He likes it a lot and recommends it to others as one of the best SAAS landing pages
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-best-saas-landing-page-ive-seen-this-year-60f7c77575
I've got a counter-take. It might be optimized to be friction-free, but in my view it has a gaping hole. Specifically, for those who come to the site initiated by the struggle of creating too much content for free and aspiring to start making money from their audience, the page implies you'll sign up without helping through the mental journey of connecting what they've got to where they'd like to go. The site might be friction-free, but it lacks just a little hand-holding. "Friction removers" like "No credit card required", for those people, creates a reaction of cynicism. "I'm not even there yet, come on."
So here's my counter-take with a couple suggestions on how it can fix that problem.
https://sharpen.page/jtbd/landing-page-remove-friction-or-help-make-progress/
Pushback? Let's hear it. Better to remove any and all friction? Or maybe there's a better thing to optimize your landing page for?
This is awesome! Thanks so much for taking the time to share this feedback — while we appreciate positive feedback, we also love getting critical feedback to work on.
Love the ideas you mentioned and we'll take them into account as we make incremental changes to the website. Appreciate you taking the time to share it. 🙏🏼 💯
Glad to see these issues coming up. I've been wrestling with the idea of magic links vs. a modestly onerous sign up for a free/premium tool in SMB market. This debate helps expand my thinking. Kudos.
Tell me more about these two options you have? Magic links and onerous sign-up?
If I understand them correctly, magic links is authenticating users with only an email. Otherwise, your sign-up can be an exercises in collecting multiple pieces of data. The common belief seems to be keep the friction very low.
Right, yeah I see what you mean.
I see how if that's the only choice you have to address possible friction, maybe there's a bigger picture about the Forces of Progress, the intensity of the struggle of the people coming to your site, and their determination to make progress... sometimes a little friction from an extra couple form fields won't be what deters sign up. Unless of course, people come neither with momentum nor a strong sense of urgency.
I first read their page, and then came back to your article. Interestingly, I agree wholeheartedly. They don't tell you what it integrates with, how it integrates with it, or if it's going to cost more, or where the paid content gets stored. All of these are my pain points, and if I can't find them with one click, I'm gone.
Heya — from the Memberstack team here. I'd love to take this feedback and address your concerns through some iterations on our website. Just to make sure we're on the same page — could you elaborate on what you're referring to as integrations and how Memberstack works with them?
Made some copy changes around where content is hosted/stored :)
Sure! What I mean is, for example, I am most familiar with WordPress, and it either uses its own internal users or if one has a membership system, it uses the membership plugin's membership system. Your 1-2-3 instructions sound easy, but I know nothing is ever easy. For step 3, do you mean "sign up members" in my system? Do you provide a separate membership system? If so do they integrate? Do you provide a native WP plugin?
Three clicks (Resources, Help Center, Integrations) shows the only possibly applicable integrations, webhooks or Zapier, which could potentially affect load time and responsiveness for pages.
These are just my first thoughts as I pour over the home page and Integrations.
Hope this helps!
cheers
Ah gotcha! Thanks so much for sharing 🙏🏼 We'll improve the messaging more here and work on clarifying for Wordpress users specifically.
Appreciate it!
Oh awesome! I'll take a look at this and let you know what I think :)