I was recently introduced to Drop Box , an online service which allows you to share data between devices seamlessly.  In keeping with their simple product, their website is amazingly intelligent and simple.

A clever video describes in detail how DropBox makes the user’s life easy.  And a large download button drives conversions.  Really all it is lacking is a tag line that accurately speaks to the purpose and value proposition of Drop Box (“Easily Share Data Between All Your Devices”, maybe?) and some text for search engine optimization.

Creating a simplified download page is critical to minimizing site leakage and abandonment.  While DropBox doesn’t hit a home run on all best practices, it does exemplify some of them.

The complete list (well, at least to date …  I’m reserving the right to add more in the future) is here:

• Keep the download page simple.  Simple simple simple.
• Make sure that the download page is compatible with all major browser types.
• Utilize geo-locational technologies to deliver local language versions of your download page.
• Don’t make it difficult to actually download the software.  Create a large clickable area around the “download now” button.
• Prepare for the worst.  If someone has trouble downloading the software, what are you going to do ?  Give users step by step installation instructions during the download.  Don’t forget to customize those instructions based upon the user’s browser type!
• Include web analytics code to track not only how many people visit the download page  and where those downloads are being referred from, but also how many people are actually installing the software.
• Capture user information before the download … so that you can start marketing to the user often and frequently.