Landing pages are mostly thought of as B2B capture pages, places relationship SaaS sellers gather names to convert later. A product page is another name for a B2C landing page and tools on this list can help B2C or B2B teams create better (i.e. higher converting) landing pages.  

The Free Ecom Revolution Is Coming To A Store Near You
Can you create a web marketing business and ecommerce site with NO money for websites or blogs? Yes is the answer to that question. By using free tools such as Google Drive, Scoop.it and Blogger or WordPress you could create a business without paying anything to web development. 

You might find that business is limited in scale, but so what. Your cost is  limited to your sweat equity. Once you create a revenue stream THEN you can buy the website improvements needed to go to the next level. I just build a MagentoGo store (Story of Cancer Store: http://storyofcancer.gostorego.com/ ) and the same thing is ALMOST true for Ecom.

Between Storify, Volusion and Magento you can create a store for sweat equity + $500 (give or take). My little store has already made $130 inside of its first month so well on its way to paying for its serving costs. 

The ultimate lesson of crowdfunding, crowdsourcing Free Revolution is DO NOTHING until it is worth the investment to do so :). 

Here is the trick I discovered last night that prompted thoughts on The Free Revolution and crowdsourcing: 

Found A Cool Use for Scoop.it's new Newsletter feature. It is easy to create a content landing page and host it free with Google Drive. 

Here's How...

1. Create a newsletter using the Manage > Create A Newsletter

2. Download as a Zip file. Open the Zip file.

3. Upload the HTML file to your Google drive into a public folder.

4. Click on the HTML file. A window pops up, click on OPEN in lower right corner. 

5. Click on preview. Copy the URL that appears in the browser window:

https://googledrive.com/host/0B0eG3a8zValDQjl6aldwQlJMNDg/email%203.html 

Next figuring out how to add a Call To Action and subscription code.  BTW, Unbounce charges $700 a year to host landing pages :). 

Also works on DropBox. 

Never Forget The ScentTrail

Arriving at the linked category page showing iPhone 5 accessories from this Tweet:
 

@seidioseidio

We're excited to announce the most exciting #iPhone5 accessory of the year - OBEX. http://bit.ly/iPhone5OBEX  #waterproof

feels like a bait and switch. Baiting and switching online is when you set one hook, The Most Exciting iPhone 5 Accessory and deliver another a simple product dump page generated by a search query (note the top of the page).

Don't get me wrong, as a former Ecommerce Director, I used search query generated landing pages all the time. The problem here, the "MUST AVOID" is the lack of scent trail on the landing page. 

When you set such a great hook as the most exciting X, then greet me with a repeat of the hook. The irony is THEY THINK THEY DID THIS. 

Seidio thinks they created scent trail with OBEX and #waterproof. Not so much. I don't know the brand OBEX and I only connect waterproof to the "most exciting" claim NOW. The hook was so great I wanted to see the answer on the landing page. 

Easy to solve this problem through repetition and a graphic. When you make a claim and an award such as "most exciting" that is best communicated graphically.

If Seidio wanted to create scent trail without changing anything about the way they are generating this landing page all they needed to do was badge the product images with a "MOST EXCITING 2012" graphic.  

Conversion is hurt when you forget the scent tail. One of the most damaging things ecommerce merchants do is to make great claims and then NOT sufficiently explain the claim.

I've been in the 4Q tornado and know what happened. Seidio looked at this idea and thought we could get it BECAUSE they got it. Ah if that were the way it worked (lol). 

When your ecom team creates a great hook like MOST EXCITING make sure they don't drop the ball on the goal line by not including a support scent trail.