Mile long pages with calls to action

[ChristopherGlaeser]

I'm sure there are many that are spam, but the ones with which I am most familiar are not.  The DA is not great, but all the incoming links are legit.  They sell instructional DVDs and gross about $10K per month.  Most of the traffic is email driven.  There is zero Adsense and ad revenue.  The one web pages goes on for pages and pages of scrolling with one purpose--to sell the DVDs, or failing that, to get an email address so they can sell the DVDs next month.

Anyway, that format can work.  Sure are ugly, though.

Best,
Christopher

[RyanKent]

In that case, John and I can partner up and start opening up a dozen of these sites and quit our day jobs.

[ChristopherGlaeser]

All that was needed was a compelling set of training DVDs and perhaps three or four years to accumulate the email addresses.  Then, to keep it going, put a new series of training DVDs.  The topic can be just about anything, but various types of sports training are quite common.  Most probably don't do much, but a few do really well.

Best,
Christopher

[AdeLewis]

Hi Christopher,

I suspect that there are a huge amount of these types of sites that aren't spam but the point that I was trying to make is that because a large proportion of them are spam, my perception is that I instantly don't trust the credibility of any site using the same format.

This is an observation on my perception of the sites and not a reflection on all of them.

[vishalkhialani]

me to. I still keep on getting  them

[firstconversion]

They always look like spam to me but I have seen that viperchill uses them and I know he tests continuously

edit: Shoemoney does this same tactic with his videos.

[MarieHaynes]

When I first got interested in marketing online I read a lot of tutorials on how to best do affiliate marketing.  They all suggest a huge long page of copy like this.  The funny thing is, most of these pages that I see are selling books teaching other people how to do affiliate marketing!

These always look like spam to me.  I expect that when I go to leave the page I'm going to get javascript saying, "Do you really want to go?"

Personally I would never buy a product from a page like this.

[flowsimple]

Weird, I just sent this blog post link to another person with the same question.

Long scrolling narrow pages have always irked me. The design goes against every design sensibility and principal. It's the kind of feeling you know in your bones. But lots of A/B testing has shown that it works. And I couldn't find a designer that challenged this incumbent with a better design. Until NOW.

Check out 37Signal's post on their tests to see what performed BETTER:http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-ab-testing-part-3-finaltheir previous posts part 2 and part go into more detail.But wow, do the results surprise you? They made me happy and relieved all at the same time.

[RyanKent]

What a nice article. I LOVE case studies which are well presented like this one. Thanks for sharing!

[john4math]

Thanks for the answers everyone!  It's still crazy to me that these pages actually work.