Bonus sales letter or classical HomePage?

I'm guessing that you just have trouble asking for the order. It's a common problem, but it's YOUR problem. A potential customer would rather be presented the offer in a straight-forward manner, and given the option to purchase.

The "Classical Homepage" is fine for an info site (a blog, etc), but if someone is interested in your product and gets presented an "About Me" page... they'll never get to your actual offer.

A visitor off the street i.e. with a passing interest, is unlikely to buy at a first visit
because, as you say they don't know you.

So even a brilliantly written sales type page would be ineffective.

So it's usually not much use using that type of landing page if the traffic is stone cold and/or not
pre-qualified.

A shorter [vsp?] will work with highly qualified visitors.

A squeeze page will allow you to engage with partly qualified or partly warm visitors.

So the big question is:

Where's the traffic from?

Highly engaged, interested visitor?

Or fairly cold [early in the cycle] visitors?

Different landing pages for different visitors.

Thanks for you answers.

In fact I should have been clearer about what that sales page is about :
There is absolutely no product being sold. It's a sales letter page to get the person sign up for the freebie nothing else.

So in one case : long page with all the benefits of the freebie

In other hand : a classical homepage.

So which one would someone go for?

Thanks

What is the purpose of your home page? Have you ever stopped to think about what you're trying to accomplish? Shouldn't that goal drive what your home page looks like and what it is designed to do?

Most of the "sales letter" type home page designs I've seen are used where there is a single product to be sold from the web site. The one and only purpose of the site is simple, straight-forward, and quite obvious. I believe this is what Sid was referring to above (correct me Sid, if I'm wrong).

What you are calling the "classical home page" is usually found on larger, more diverse web sites which have a different purpose. They aren't necessarily after a single sale of a product. They are there to introduce the viewer to a range of products, services, information, or something other than a single product sale.

So the answer to your question ... which type of home page do you prefer ... IMO, should be driven by what your purpose for the site happens to be. Let the purpose drive the type of home page you offer.

BTW, there are many more than 2 types of home page designs. But regardless of what you choose, their are, as they say, "horses for courses."

The best to you,

Steve

Thank you very much for your valuable inputs. They make sense.

In fact I forgot that there will be indeed few people that will comme directly to the homepage by typing the URL directly into the web browser. If they do, I'd prefer them to know more about the business I'm launching, the blog's purpose etc.

So indeed if I intend to increase the number of subscribers I would create a Landing page with all the benefits of the freebie etc.

So the key phrase here is except in some specific cases "we chose where to drive traffic and for what goal".

Thanks a lot.

Actually, you're selling a freebie... I know, seems like an oxymoron, but people pass on freebies all the time, unless you sell them on the idea that they should get it.

So, sale page that sells the freebie.