Hi Arun,

I might describe the difference best by using an analogy.

Let's say you want to spend $600 on a suit. There are three shops next to each other in the shopping mall. All are selling suits of similar quality and price (although you don't know that yet because you're just walking passed).

One shop is really scruffy looking - it's basic. They haven't spent any money on signwriting, and the interior looks a bit bare. However, when you step inside, you find that they have guarantees on their suits and the owner is there who makes the guarantees himself. The next shop is somewhat more elegant - the exterior invites you in, and once in you feel relaxed. The sales staff offer you various options at various prices. You are made to feel welcome. The third store has all of the attributes of the first two. All stores are selling suits of similar quality and at similar prices.

Which one do you buy from?

My opinion is that if your strorefront doesn't look inviting (aka the above the fold part of your website), then no amount of guarantees, signatures, testimonials or whatever will make any difference because people won't come in. I don't go into grotty shops unless I want something cheap for my flat like a dustbin or some plastic storage boxes.

Or they will come in, but they'll be looking for a bargain. If you want to charge big, then you have to look expensive.

In my opinion, a nice, clean, original webdesign is 10 times better than these cookie-cutter looking sales pages - yawn and yak. As soon as I see one, I know I'm going to be sold to and that there won't be any useful content on the site. I can't be the only person in the universe who has seen enough to have grown wise to them.

I also think the whole signature thing is a totally irrelevant. To my mind it proves nothing, except that you are copying the cookie-cutter format. Sorry to be blunt, but that's how I feel about it. And it can't be authentic anyway, because you'd have to be silly to put your real signature on a webpage in case people used it for forgery.

Bottom line for me is that I'm far more likely to buy from a site that creates credibility in my mind, before it tries to sell me something. For me, this involves a reasonable level of webdesign, and not a copy-cat, cookie-cutter sales page.

However, if this works for you, then who am I to say that it doesn't? I personally wouldn't recommend anyone to adopt that style, but then I'm working in a UK market of highly sceptical people. These types of people don't buy into all that kind of stuff on the whole - it brings up the barriers too quickly. And I personally hate it.