Not a designer? Not a developer? Not an issue.
You may make candy trying touchdown pages that work. All you want is the willingness to strive, a trash can for all of your excuses, and these 5 superior free instruments which might be just like the swiss military knife for entrepreneurial hackers. Oh ya, you’ll want an account on unbounce.com. (Editor’s observe: umm thanks! 🙂
Earlier than I get into the small print of the useful little swiss military knife of instruments, let me put within the caveat that I’m not a designer, I’m not a developer, nor am I an expert marketer. I’m not a Mac or PC devotee. I don’t have PhotoShop or some other paid or licensed design software program whether or not on my desktop or cloud-based. Nor do I understand how to write down CSS. I do know sufficient HTML to be harmful and may dig via CSS to search out kinds if I must, nevertheless it hasn’t slowed me down.
I’m an entrepreneur who wants to have the ability to do every part. Oh certain, I can rent individuals to do all the above duties however that’s costly and time consuming, particularly on the early levels of the shopper discovery and validation part when the ROI is wildly unknown.
With out additional ado, within the spirit of agility, working lean, and a just-f*&kin-do-it (JFDI) angle let me introduce to you to the toolset.
Instrument #1 – RoundedCornr.com
This gem of an internet site is useful for making buttons, tabs, backgrounds, and possibly extra. When you’ve ever tried scooping buttons and different little parts from different web sites, it’s an actual ache within the butt (and never that moral both). The buttons should not large enough, the textual content can’t be modified, making them clear might be robust, and generally, it sucks.
With this software, you’ll be making hawt little buttons and tabs very quickly. After I first began utilizing Unbounce, I made sq. buttons and backgrounds that have been barely ok.
Okay effective, they sucked. However now, with this little software, my pages have zip.
My favourite function is the flexibility so as to add gradients that mechanically provides you avenue cred as a designer, at the least I feel it does. To provide you an instance, try the little screenshots I’ve supplied beneath. Discover the rounded corners on the prime however not the underside. Additionally discover the darkish gray to gentle gray gradient. However better of all, as a result of the web page seems so good, I upped the value and am making extra money.
Instrument #2 – ColorZilla, Firefox Extension
I’m red-green shade blind so in relation to including colours to designs, I’m like a fish out of water and may use all the assistance I can get. There’s nothing extra painful than attempting to choose a shade from a palette of 1 bajillion colours. The preview field is small after which once you see the colour in full, it seems hideous. That is significantly true for neon colours.
Enter ColorZilla. It’s like a floatation gadget in a sea of colours.
Writer’s observe: When you use Chrome, Safari, or heaven forbid IE, you possibly can most likely discover an add-on or extension that’s the similar as ColorZilla. Simply do a seek for “shade picker” within the add-on market.
After I begin designing a web page, I normally discover an current web site that I can use as a information. For instance, I used to be just lately growing a web page whose solely colours are crimson, white and black. Naturally most textual content shall be black, the background shall be white, and every part else must be crimson. You guessed it, I opted for crimson on crimson navigation. Have you learnt how one can decide two reds which might be complementary? I don’t however CNN.com does.
I am going to CNN.com, whip out ColorZilla, click on on one shade of crimson, copy the HEX code, and paste it to a useful textual content editor (TextEdit on a Mac or NotePad on PC – each are bonus free instruments that you need to already be utilizing) for future use. Repeat for the opposite shade of crimson and I’m off to the races. look beneath to see my instance of crimson on crimson. It’s not earth shattering nevertheless it’s additional polish that provides the web page extra life. You get bonus factors for those who observed the roundedcornr’s.
Instrument #3 – Google Types or JotForm.com
Along with making touchdown pages look good, it helps to have some performance, particularly varieties to gather data from prospects. For instance, I created a really fundamental unbounce lead gen web page. Nice, I discover out the purchasers electronic mail, title, and get permission to name them again. However why cease there?
My thanks web page affords a 5-minute wants evaluation survey which delivers worth and strengthens the model. The most effective half is that the survey took me a matter of minutes to create and embed right into a web page branded with my brand.
How did I create and embed the survey, you ask? Simple, Google Types or JotForm.com. I’ve used each and I favor JotForm’s customizability higher than Google’s. Google Docs doesn’t provide the thanks web page customization that I need. It additionally has Google branding on it which sucks as a result of I don’t need them taking credit score for my work.
JotForm, in the meantime, is white labeled and as a bonus, they make it very easy to gather cash with quasi-shopping cart performance. When you’re promoting an e book or different digital items, this can be a nice choice to strive. Sadly, it t is barely free as much as a sure variety of kind submissions.
Weighing all of the choices, the potential price of JotForm is value it. Alone, the customizable thanks web page makes it attainable to trace ends in Google Analytics and Google Adwords, which is important for measuring your outcomes.
I might go into far more element to create a how-to information for creating and utilizing varieties however that’s for one more weblog publish. I hope I’ve at the least conveyed sufficient data so that you can simply begin utilizing one among these kind builders.
Instrument #4 – FreshBadge.com
If RoundedCornr.com is nice for creating backgrounds and buttons then FreshBadge is nice for creating spherical badges that can be utilized to focus on a part of your providing with one thing that rapidly grabs the attention’s consideration.
For instance, I needed to focus on amount reductions. I created a “$15 Off” badge and a “Amount Reductions” badge. I ended up creating one utilizing FreshBadge.com and one in RoundedCornr.com so I didn’t appear to be a one-trick pony. See the instance beneath.
There are two or three different badge mills however I discovered FreshBadge.com to be probably the most versatile, albeit gradual at producing the badge. I feel it’s gradual on objective so that you’ll spend extra time studying the advertisements on the web page. However hey, once you’re low-cost, err, I imply frugal, like me, you set up with these minor inconveniences.
Others to check out are:
Instrument #5 – Paintbrush or MS Paint
Final however not least, you want a picture editor of some kind. My design expertise, or lack thereof, actually don’t justify a licensed copy of PhotoShop. Nor do I care to learn to use it. I’ve settled for the light-weight and free possibility.
When you’re on a Mac, seize PaintBrush and for those who’re on a PC, Microsoft Paint will do the trick. I appear to recall putting in PaintBrush on my Mac however MS Paint is native to Home windows. Simply do a seek for it in your Equipment folder.
Each are ok for easy modifying equivalent to cropping or resizing. I’ve expertise utilizing Corel PaintShopPro and whereas it affords extra performance, I haven’t discovered the necessity to use it for any of my touchdown pages now that I’ve been utilizing all the opposite instruments above.
Abstract
So there you have got it. 5 free instruments: 1) RoundedCornr.com 2) ColorZilla 3) Google Docs / Jotform.com 4) FreshBadge.com 5. Paintbrush / Paint. I hope you soar proper in and begin making touchdown pages straight away.
Am I lacking any free instruments? Please add your feedback beneath.