Why did I take so long? That’s what I have been asking myself over the last 2 weeks. It took me a long time to finally get around to organizing a new design for www.MembershipSiteAdvisor.com As soon as I launched the new design new member sign-ups increased by a massive 140%. That means more sales, without any extra advertising costs. The new design below has more than paid for itself already.
To be fair, the sample data on this hasn’t even been a month yet, so it will probably change (could go higher or lower) but as of now that’s an instant increase in membership site subscriptions – simply by changing the design.
I first designed MembershipSiteAdvisor.com about 6 years ago. As you can probably tell, I’m a pretty bad web designer. I was still learning how to put together websites back then. Not much has changed 
…. at least from the design viewpoint . I always planned on having a designer create a new site. Unfortunately other projects kept coming up and I always put the new design on the backburner. The funny thing is, it only took about a day to implement the new design from our web design team, and that included our new blog. Here’s what it cost and some tips for working with outsourced designers.
Before and After shots….
So what do you think? I’m kinda embarrassed when I look at the old design now. My wife had been telling me to “update that ugly thing” for years now.
Break down steps
Step 1: Hired logo designer to create the website logo. Most of the time I will just have the website designer create the top banner of the site, but if you want it to look a little more professional, create the logo first and then have the site designer match the site design to your logo design.
Step 2: Gave the new logo to the website designer and they built the template for us. They provided about 3 or 4 different mock-ups. Always get several mock-ups.
Step 3: Because we rank very high in the search engines we instructed the designer to keep our text the same, and to not replace any text with an image of text (it had to be kept as actual text).
Tip: To help improve conversion rates we also had the designer allow for a “Video of the Week” to be placed on the right hand side of the site. Videos increase conversion rates.
Logo cost: $80
Website design: $150 (It’s not normally this cheap. We had a number of other sites designed, which brought down the overall cost. A good designer might charge around $250).
TOTAL MAKE-OVER: $230
We outsourced the work via Elance.com
Bottom line is that a better design almost always means more sales. It’s worth the small investment to have it professionally designed or use a professional template.
Talk soon,
Ansel
September 14th, 2009 at 1:36 am
Great job. The new design is much better. Makes me want to do a make-over on my site now. Although I did have a designer create it the first time.
I need to add video to my homepage.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Tried to post a message on here earlier, but it wouldn’t work. Looks like the problem is fixed, which is good.
Do I need to worry about “text as images”, if the sites currently not optimized for the search engines?
Thanks.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Thanks for sharing this. I have to admit that the new design is 100% better. I think that the headers with groups of people or single people holding cash up etc. are very dated now.
I am in the process of setting my membership site up and will take your design points into consideration.. Lets face it, anything that increases memberships is the only a positive action to take!
Nigel
Ps I like the logo.. Very cool!
September 14th, 2009 at 1:52 am
Halo76, you won’t need to worry about “text as images” if you haven’t already optimized your site. We had already done all of our SEO and rank very high in the search engines, so we didn’t want to mess with our keywords.
If you haven’t optimized your site yet, you won’t need to worry about that.
- Ansel
September 14th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Thanks Nigel. I appreciate the feedback. Images of people holding cash etc. is very out dated, and I believe it actually lowers conversion rates.
Talk soon,
Ansel
September 14th, 2009 at 4:27 am
Ok, thanks for clearing that up.
September 14th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Nice clean design, I think it shows your a serious site and not some flash in the pan. The video of the week is very good attention grabber that can create enough interest in a visitor that has stumbled onto your site to stop and give your message some thought, perhaps even sign up for your newsletter below. Thanks for sharing.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Ansel what are your thoughts on the direct sales letter style membership site? optinpage to main page sales letter style? What been your experience with that?
Also for membership conversion business models what have you seen to work the best? I’m seeing a lot of people use the ‘free cd/dvd’ method. (kinda forced continuity) I hear that selling memberships straight up is the worst way to do it (oops
Tony
September 15th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Thanks for your post Tony.
I’ve found both work well. We’ve tested a lot of different options and it really depends on your market.
I use both the opt-in method (which is like a 2 step marketing approach) and also directly from the homepage.
“Forced continuity” is a live and thriving. I don’t like the term too much, because it’s not really forced. A member can sign up for a month and then cancel immediately – paying just a once off fee.
With that said, I have tested both and for some of my membership sites I have a once off payment, there is no recurring billing. I did this simply because I tested. On the other sites, I found recurring billing wasn’t a problem. Once again, it depends on your market and your offer.
The best option is to test it for yourself. You can also offer a choice of payment plans. We’ve also found this to work well. One of our sites has a recurring billing option or a once off payment. The once off payment is a lot higher priced.
I would test the following….
1. Opt-in landing page Vs Selling directly from the homepage
2. Test once off payments (usually at a much higher price) Vs recurring billing.
3. Offer payment plans. Limit it to no more than 3 options.
The bottom line is that “forced continuity” still sells well. If it didn’t there would be some major companies going out of business. WaterFront Media only uses forced continuity for all of their membership sites, and they turn over millionaires of dollars a year.
Talk soon,
Ansel
April 16th, 2010 at 6:36 am
You have a new fan! I love your stuff here and will be back again.