Statement of the obvious: landing page optimization is important. Online marketing 101, right? You’d think so, but apparently not if you’re Yahoo.

I was blatantly reminded of this yesterday when I clicked through on a Yahoo email trying to get me to sign up for their daily deals email. The email itself wasn’t that horrible (see figure 1 below). It’s got a clear value prop and a clear call-to-action. But take a look at the landing page (figure 2 below). I felt like I just hopped into my DeLorean time machine and traveled back in time to 1996. Seriously WTF? As a former Yahoo employee I’m rooting for the company to succeed, but seeing stuff like this is unbearable. It makes me sad. Who in their right mind thought this was acceptable? It’s tough to stay relevant in the rapidly changing tech sector when you’ve got employees that don’t care.

Side note: if you’re an online marketer that cares, I recommend checking out ABtests.com. It’s a treasure chest of real world landing page insights. Curious about how YouTube increased their account creation conversion 15.7% from their home page by adjusting their messaging and call-to-action placement? They’ve got it.

figure 1: 

figure 2: