J.R. Farr - Keep it real.

Hey everyone!

It’s been quite some time since my last post but hey, rather than dwelling on what’s already in the past, it’s time to get back to the grind.

Anyway, I wanted to reflect on the past 6 months of what I’ve been working on non-stop. Aside from the fact that I’m still learning how to handle my 2 1/2 year old son and my twin girls, MOJO Themes has been at the top of my list.  I wanted to share what my experience has been like thus far. On top of that, I want to give you some advice that I used first hand with my marketplace.

My Advice to You:

Launch now!

If you’re reading this right now and you’re working on a project that you just can’t wait to launch until you get it perfect. Then it’s time to stop being a perfectionist and get that bad boy launched.

Rewind MOJO Themes 6 Months Ago…

If ever read the 37 Signals blog or their books, Getting Real & ReWork you’ll know what philosophies they use to build their apps. I love it and used a lot of their ideas for motivation and guidance for this venture. Agile development, boot-strapping, less is more, getting into the trenches and grinding ALL DAY LONG.

Speaking of Agile Development, we took the idea to the next level. No joke, just days before launching out of BETA, we knocked off big parts of what we wanted/intended to launch with.

Let me give one of the reasons why I’m telling you to Launch Now.

You don’t know everything.

6 months ago, there are things I never even thought of nor would I ever have considered if I didn’t launch the MOJO Themes Marketplace when I did. On top of that, there was a huge, long list of items that we’re set to be complete before launch. Scratch those items of the launch list.

2 of the biggest items we DIDN’T launch with:

• Affiliate Program
• Forum

Leaving these out of the launch list was difficult but looking back, I’m glad we waited. It gave us time to really plan out the right way to setup the MOJO affiliate program.

On top of that, we found a gap within this niche that needed to be filled. Instead of finishing out the launch items right away, we put them in the back seat to unveil a new feature within our marketplace. Let me explain why…

All of our sellers have different skill sets. Some are rockstar designers and others are programming ninjas. With that being said, we realized sellers we’re in need of way to collaborate with one another. If we could create a solution for our sellers to focus on their skills the items they upload would be top notch.

From there, we created and launched the very first collaboration program called JOINT FORCES. It finally unites designers and developers. As sellers upload items, they input their team members details and “Join Forces” on the item their uploading. From there, our system takes care of all the logistics for a seamless allocation of their commissions. It’s cool because it gives our sellers a chance to focus on what they do best and leave us to take care of the details.

Quick look at some of my favorite themes

FolioStudio Business & Portfolio WordPress Theme – VIEW DETAILS ($50)

I love this business wordpress theme because it’s one of the very first themes I’ve seen released that utilizes all the features of WordPress 3.0. Everything from the new menus/nav feature to the custom post types. It uses 3 different custom post types that allow you to manage specific types of content. (Slider, Portfolio & Team Members).

Photobox Photography WordPress Theme – VIEW DETAILS ($35)

Easily one of the best sellers on our marketplace so far. I think one of the reasons is because of all the different layouts you can use with this theme. Seeing that it’s geared towards photographers, it seems to suit all their needs.

Altered Perspective Tumblr Theme – VIEW DETAILS ($12)

It’s amazing to me that MOJO Themes is one of the first to enter the “Premium Tumblr Theme” market along side some good company. Altered Perspective, in my opinion, set’s the bar pretty high in terms of innovation. All the content scrolls horizontally and the design couldn’t be sexier.

MOJO Today:

I couldn’t be happier with how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. We only opened our doors to Buyers & Sellers at the first of April. Just shy of 3 months, we’re gaining some serious momentum and I can’t even imagine where we’ll be in another 3 months.

I feel like our success thus far is a combination of having a passion for what you do everyday, not being afraid to shy away from the gameplan and ALWAYS looking for ways to be the leader and innovate on what’s already out there.

There’s still items on our launch list that we’ve yet to complete but I think we’ll continue to keep things agile. We’ll use our experience so far and take the feedback from our users to help guide us on what is higher priority over another.

As I keep working through this venture, I’ll do my best to keep my site updated and start sharing more details about what’s going on behind scenes with MOJO!

Yes, I know. I haven’t posted in quite some time but I thought this was worth sharing.

This is how I spent my Tuesday evening. As a kid I loved Teen Wolf and somehow I ended up drawing a juiced up teen wolf. Sort of odd but at the same time pretty cool…

Let me explain.

I’ve been busy as of late. In the coming weeks I’m about to unveil a project I’ve put all my passion, heart and straight up hard work into.

Getting up around 5AM to ensure all of the minute details are figured out to working late until 2AM making sure our website launch is pixel perfect. I only have time in the early mornings or late nights to mold my masterpiece to perfection.

In other words—I’m exhausted. We’re exhausted.

Say Hello to  MOJO Marketplaces

That’s right. We’re launching MOJO marketplaces and we’re hoping the “good ‘ol interwebs” won’t know what hit ‘em.

So here’s the scoop.

MOJO Marketplaces will be home to several types of niche marketplaces that sell digital goods. We bring together the most talented people across the globe and create a market for their work. Our marketplaces showcase their work to qualified buyers. We present it all in a user-friendly and meaningful way.

We’ll be Launching Initially with MOJO themes

MOJO themes is a marketplace for themes & templates. At MOJO themes you can buy and sell website templates as well as themes for some of the most popular CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. We’ve created a place where everyone can find value or use. From your everyday bloggers to savvy web developers looking to purchase themes or templates for their client projects

The pricing range was created to offer an affordable solution for everyone. Items start at just $5 bucks (the cost of lunch) and go up to $100. Items are priced on the complexity, quality and use of the file.

It should be noted that each MOJO marketplace is run by one of the famous MOJO Monsters. In the case of MOJO themes, it’s run by none other then “Mo Joe—The monster with the mostest.” He wears an eye patch because he thinks it’s cool and makes him look more sophisticated. Whatever floats his boat. This whole thing was sort of his big idea so we just roll with it.

Last but not least. A nice teaser of what’s to come.

You didn’t think I’d let you bounce out of here without giving you a little taste did you?

I’ll be updating you more shortly but just really quick, we’re just wrapping up all of the design and development is underway. We’ve just got to make sure everything is in place for our BETA test launch just around the corner.

Done with the boring stuff. Here’s a quick teaser showing you the look and feel MOJO themes will bring.

It’s not me it’s you.

No but seriously, it’s you. It’s your fault. You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’.

Since Twitter went mainstream, I can’t seem to figure out if I LOVE or HATE Twitter. The value for me is fading. I get so tired of going through the crap trying to be shoved down my throat, not to mention the always pleasant automated DM’s.

Don’t get me wrong, Twitter has it perks but it also has it’s downs.

If you’re reading this, how are you using Twitter currently?

Is it valuable?

Or becoming annoying?

There are a few things that can be your best friend or biggest nemesis in about 3.8 seconds and one of those thingamajigs is… well, landing pages.

Welcome to my quick 2 minute version of “Landing Pages for Dummies.”

Landing pages play a huge role in the success of your online marketing efforts. Specifically your paid search campaigns.

I’ve had several clients or business owners seeking advice on whether they should close down their paid search accounts because their campaigns aren’t performing.

My first question is usually:

What’s your current conversion rate?

The answer back is usually:

“I don’t know”.

Whether your spending money via paid search or putting in hours of time writing quality content to get traffic to your site, you should know this simple metric. Rather than investing more money into your paid search budget, why not invest in your landing page instead?

Let’s start off by having me show you the “world’s greatest landing page”. Anyone want to take a guess? Well if you cheated and looked, which I’m sure you did, it’s Google.

All joking aside, Googles landing page is fantastic. It’s straight to the point, clean and it’s gotten the job done for the past 10+ years.

What’s makes a landing page convert?

When you ask it that way there are so many elements that come into play. Here are just a few to consider:

• Design - Is your site design user-friendly?
• Copy – Does your copy do a good job of promoting your offer to your visitors?
• Layout – When I get to your landing page is the layout clean and concise?
• CTA (Call to Action) - Are you telling your visitors what to do?
• Leaks – Do you have extra links that will leak out your visitors?

If you have a current landing page, are you covering these areas? If so, where do you see improvement?

TIP: Rather than guessing what areas to improve on or to test, use your site analytics to determine where the bottlenecks are.

In my opinion, it’s not JUST having the sexiest design or the most persuasive copy. Remember to tie every element together. Also, having consistency from your paid search ad to your even your thank you page will never leave a bad taste in your customers mouth.

How hard is your current landing page working for you?

Ultimately, it also depends on what the goal of your landing page is.

• Are generating leads or selling a products?
• Is your lead gen page a simple lead form or do you require a credit card?
• If you’re selling products, do you have a low price point or high price point?

When you consider these types of things, you begin to understand your potential customer. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you fill out your lead form? What differentiates yourself from your competitors?

My Formula to Highly Converting Landing Page

Here’s a quick landing page “check list” of things you should consider with your landing page.

1. Competitive Analysis — Research your competition. See if there are any gaps currently not being filled. Find out what they’re offering.  Bottom line though, research your competitors BUT don’t let your competition dictate what you do.

2. What’s your Offer? — From FREE Trials, FREE Shipping to Buy 1 Get 1 FREE, know what your offer is and stick to it. Don’t have a landing page that has multiple offers. It’s just straight up confusing.

3. Design/Creative — Let’s face it, we’re all not as talented as we’d like to think when it comes to pushing pixels. Just accept it and hire a freelancer to do it. Or if you have your in-house creative team let them tell you what looks best. There are 101 different landing page layouts. Avoid the design by committee and let the designer lay it out with what they think looks best. After you start collecting enough data you can test new layouts.

4. Development – Keep it simple stupid… for the user of course. Quick example, if you’re selling a product, be clear & concise. Your product should be displayed professionally with high-res images, wth a clear description and smooth checkout process.

5. Testing – Yes of course test your page for any bugs, but the testing I’m referring to is conversion testing. Consistent testing is crucial. From an entirely different layout to the color of your call to action button, testing will help you achieve a highr converting page.

6. Consistency – From start to finish. Same message. Same look and feel. Same offer. You get the point.

7. Miscellaneous Items – Here’s a few other random things in no particular order.

• Privacy Policy: You’d be surprised how many landing pages don’t let their visitors know what they do with their information and if it’s safe.
• Phone Number: I understand this can sometimes be a leak or you don’t have the luxury of a phone number but this allows your visitors the option of filling out your form or picking up the phone.
• Guarantee: 30 Day or Money-Back. Can you give your visitors a guarantee with your offer?

So there you have it. Short and sweet. If you’ve read this far I’m hoping it was valuable. If you have any additional ways to improve landings or anything worthy I can add to this post, let me know by leaving a comment.

As always, be sure to Subscribe to my RSS Feed or Follow @jrfarr on Twitter and I’ll catch you on the flip side.