Hey Kevin,

You didn't mention what your conversion rate currently is, I'd be curious.

While I'm not personally all that tapped into the Symphonic Metal genre, I did a bit of quick research and think I have a handle on things. Though you would certainly be more tapped into the subtitles than I am.

I can spot quite a few things right off the bat...

1. The headline does do a good job of making it clear that your music is Symphonic Metal, but that's about it. Ideally you really want to tap into the conversation taking place in the average fans mind. Ironically, you said it in your Forum post... "especially tapping into a dissatisfaction with the way genre founders like Nightwish have gone downhill in the last decade". I'm sure that could be distilled into a headline along the lines of "Dissatisfied with the fact that Symphonic Metal has gone down hill in recent years? "Mute Prophet is more faithful to the genre than even the bands who created the Genre..." Or something along those lines. This is assuming that truly does capture a common attitude amoungst SM fans.

2. The image looks squashed and not overly on point for the genre. From what I can tell, this is a very image centric genre. It looks as though you've taken my general advice about using casual, smiling images. That works for most, but you would have also heard me say that there are exceptions to every rule and what is most important is that you stay on brand. I expect to see classic dark, epic, metal images. I would look at 4 or 5 of the best selling artists in your genre and then use imagery, fonts, and colours that are similar to those sites. Those little subtle cues will help your audience instantly see that you are exactly the thing they clicked to learn more about.

3. You could maybe play with the font case for the quotes. It looks a little intense in this setting. I know I use all caps in many of my examples. But it may just be because the font is a bit large here. It has the effect of shouting in this instance.

4. Your support copy is missing many elements. I would go back to MMM for guidance on this. But in short, there should be four paragraphs. the first paragraph tells them who you are (your biggest accomplishments and bragging points). Your second paragrpah tells them what he music sounds like. Your third paragraph tells them what they will get. Your fourth paragraph tells them what to do next and wraps up.

Targeting is also incredibly important and may be part of the reason things are not converting, but I would start by making the changes to the squeeze page.

Happy to help.

If I'm to be honest, I think the blue and the yellow on the dark grey is a bit intense and messes with the eyes. But perhaps you have a reason for that? 

The image also looks squished again. It's hard for me to see and looks like something is wrong with the page. Are you seeing that? I've attached a screen shot. 

When I google symphonic metal there and look at Google images there is a pretty consistent vibe. I see a lot of epic, dark fairy tale landscapes with storm clouds and lightning. Colours seem to either be black with grey hues or black with blue hues. 

I would probably review the "customize your theme" bonus lesson in MMM 4 and see if you can't bring some of that epic quality to your site. You could use a background image like this (or any of the similar ones): https://pixabay.com/en/lightni.....er-768801/. Keep in mind that was just from a 10 second search. I'm sure you can do better.

I don't normally advise artists to make a lot of fancy tweaks to the theme, but so much of what you do seems to be about the world that the music transports the listener to that I think it's important that they see that in every aspect of your brand.

It's usually as simple as setting a custom background image, using a slightly transparent main content area, and setting the appropriate font style and colour. The lesson I mentioned shows you how to do all of that.

Those dimensions are the ideal dimensions to make everything look similar to the example, but you are not limited to them. To make the dimensions match I would crop rather than just adjust the aspect ration. You can also just drag the corner of the image in the editor. But by manually adjusting both fields of the aspect ratio you will mess up the image. The colors you have on the squeeze page are far righter and more intense than what you have in your site.

I didn't realize you already had a site up. I would just take your existing background image and other elements and use them to style your MMM site. It's fairly simple to do. You can see how to do it in the "customizing your theme" lesson in MMM 4.0.

I think overt branding is important with your genre.

Ah, of course. I just looked at the design and didn't even pay attention to the band name. 

I can see what you were going for, but I think the tones of the colors on that site are much more subtle. I think the images play a big part in the feel of that site as well. But I think you're right to play with familiar ideas.

If design is just not your thing and you need to hire a designer, let me know. I can make a referral. But that bonus lesson I mentioned should be able to get you there.

I think you're on the right track. 

There are still a few design steps I would take, which are outlined in the MMM 4 lesson I mentioned, such as fading the background image on the sides to match the background colour, so it looks good on big screens.

I would also set your main content area to be slightly transparent. Not too much, just a little. It gives the site a very slick look. Here's an example: http://www.janivamagness.com. i"m not overly crazy about the design, but you can see what the transparency adds. But you'll have to play with it.

And yeah, if you can fix the tiling on that image it will really help. You can buy background images for a few bucks on sites like istok (I use Fotolia because it's cheaper), or you can find free images on Pixabay.com.

I still personally think the blue in your text is a bit bright. I would play with that a bit more as well.

The image of the band looks much better. It's still not my favorite because your faces are all quite small and it's a bit hard to get a sense of who you are, but it works.

Just to balance all of my advice, I do want to stress that design is normally the least important step in this process, and normally I don't recommend people mess with it that much. I'm just operating off of a contradictory hunch that it is important for your genre. But we don't want to obsess so much that we slow down your progress.

Yeah, I was saying that the arrow and the text should be made a bit more subtle. Maybe more like that original blue you were referencing with that other site. That lesson I referenced shows you how to change the arrow color. But again, I'm no designer. I just feel like there is an upbeat tone to that blue, and from what I've seen of symphonic metal there is a very consistent epic, melancholy, sometimes viking-esque tone. Because you are making a bold claim that you are more true to the genre than the biggest artists in the genre, I think it's important that what people see when they land on your page, is consistent with that. Production value seems to be important with this genre. Just my impression.

It's a more attractive blue, but a bit hard to read. But that may just be because it looks so dark next to the arrow. Maybe split the difference? I'd also be sure to set a transparency for the background. That's going to change the look again. I really do need to stress that I am not a web designer.

My biggest word of caution is to try and avoid getting too bogged down by design. I think it's important here. but not as important as just getting out there and running traffic. I would do the best you can as quickly as possible, Keep your budgets low (maybe just $5/day) while you test and start getting some data. That's my attitude anyway.

Kevin Goetz said
Hey John, sorry for not getting back sooner. I've been in the thick of split-testing a ton of different metrics after taking your Copywriting course, and I actually hit a 3x ROI on my funnel last week (though this week it seems like it might turn out less than that).

Hey Kevin, that's fantastic. Congrats.

I saw you reiterate these same comments on my blog post I submitted, and I wanted to update you and maybe explain a couple of the decisions. This iteration is converting at 35% consistently, sometimes spiking up to 40% and never dropping below 30%. 
http://www.muteprophetband.com/freemusic

Those are excellent numbers. Well done.

The interesting thing is, both variables (a transparency on the background or a different shade of blue) seem to decrease my conversion rates, especially the transparency. That kicked it back down to around 20%, and it went straight back up to 35% after returning everything to solid textures. 

That is interesting. I would have expected the opposite, but it goes to show how important it is to test. The results are all that matter. Good stuff.

Thank you so much for your help! I might be on the verge of being ready to start scaling up, which I'm absolutely thrilled about.  

That's really great to hear. Keep us posted.