Before you get started building your landing page, you will need a number of things to a) make your offer actually have a point; and b) facilitate the creation of your landing page.

One thing you absolutely must have before you get started is an auto responder. Without any auto responder, you are tossing potential bags of money in the garbage. Rather than creating a relationship with customers and potential customers – and giving yourself the opportunity to attempt future up-sales --  you're allowing them to leave and never return.

 In addition to an auto responder, you will need to have an actual offer that people want to buy. You may want to develop a product, such as an E-Book or a piece of software.

 If you don't have the skills to do either, you can always hire a professional to do it for you through Elance.com or Guru.com. You will then either want to sell this product and attempt to get subscribers from your thank you page – or you will want to get subscribers by offering the product for free (which is what many Internet marketers now do).

Another thing you absolutely must have before you get started is a check out service. You may want to consider Paypal, Click Bank, or 2 Check Out. All of these services will allow you to make transactions quickly.

Another thing you must have before you get started is a set of graphics, which usually includes a graphic header, a check out button, background wallpaper, and a half-decent picture of yourself. You can probably provide the picture of yourself, but you might want to hire a professional to do the rest.

Another thing you will need before you can get started on your landing page is some way in which to create a realistic signature. http://www.vletter.com is probably your best bet; but, if you're on a budget, you may want to opt for simply using a word processing program.

Planning Your Landing Page Theme

Perhaps the most important part of creating a landing page is planning your landing page theme. How you select your theme, of course, will all depend on how you plan to generate traffic.

 If you decide to generate traffic through search engine optimization, planning your landing page theme will entail finding phrases within your niche which have a high demand (aggregate search value) and a low supply (small amount of competing sites) and then creating multiple landing pages, each which is optimized around a different phrase.

If, on the other hand, you decide to generate traffic through pay per click (PPC) programs, such as Adwords, planning your landing page theme will again entail tuning a number of different pages to fit the keywords you are purchasing.

 This is actually where most people fail when they create a landing page: they don't tune it to fit a specific audience. For instance, in the case of a squeeze page for a newsletter, they might start a newsletter about toys, but they only create one landing page and send all traffic to it. This is a big mistake.

Chances are, if you create a quality product or newsletter, it can benefit a number of people. So why not communicate the exact benefits they will derive from subscribing or buying?

If, for instance, you have a newsletter about Legos and toy blocks, so you group it under the loose heading of “toys,” a visitor who is looking specifically for information about either Legos or toy blocks will click off your page if they don't see the direct connection to the exact topic for which they were searching.

Instead, you will want to setup a page centered around Legos and a page centered around toy blocks. On each page, you will want to communicate the specific benefits to joining the list for each of those groups of visitors.

Going one step further, in addition to planning your landing page theme, if you are creating a landing page for a newsletter, you may also want to segment your list, so you can send information specifically about Legos to those who request it – and information about blocks to those who request it.

How to Write a Landing Page that Converts

Most people have no (or simply the slightest) idea how to write a landing page that converts. Instead, they slop together elements that they have seen used in other landing pages – but usually do not put them together in the same way the owner of the successful landing page did.

One major problem is copy. And that's fine. Not everyone is going to be an excellent writer – never mind a copywriter. But as someone selling a product or trying to build a list, it is important that you know your strengths and weaknesses – and that you either spend the time to overcome them or hire someone else to do it for you.

With copywriting, for instance, it is important to use a mix of compelling sales points with powerful psychological triggers. Most people who create a sales page miss either one or both of those elements.

For instance, they might concentrate so much on building hype that they don't actually explain what solution they are providing – and for whom they are providing it. If I don't have a specific problem that your product solves, why would I buy it? I wouldn't.

Now, if they fail to sprinkle in psychological triggers, such as “scientifically proven,” “guaranteed,” and “shocking,” no one will feel compelled to continue reading, as the benefits will have a low or average perceived value.

In addition to these two problems, some sales pages lack coherency and direction. The copy looks amateurish and it doesn't slowly grind forward, breaking down the visitor's resistance to the sale – and compelling him or her to buy more and more at each sales point.

Additionally, if there aren't multiple calls to action – another form of psychological trigger – then a potential visitor might never feel compelled enough to pull out his or her credit card on the spot and make the purchase.

In addition to careful copywriting, there are other important things you must take into consideration when writing a landing page that converts. For instance, it is important to build a compelling case for a time-bound offer.

Now, this doesn't mean you have to invent fake deadlines and constantly revise them each week. This is a good way to guarantee your complete loss of credibility in the shortest amount of time possible.

However, when planning your copy, you will want to make sure that you constantly urge the reader to act immediately by inserting a number of “calls to action,” as I've mentioned previously.

You may want to consider using fly-ins or pop-ups to create more urgency – or to make a time-bound offer. Perhaps you can use a countdown to build urgency (i.e., when someone arrives at your landing page, they have five minutes to purchase the product at the lowest price).

Now, if you're creating a squeeze page, you might want to employ slightly different tactics. Rather than building a compelling case with multiple triggers and calls to action over the course of 1000 words, you may want to simply condense that all into a compelling headline and one paragraph of “benefits.”

For a completely free-to-join squeeze page, you more than likely wont have a considerable amount of resistance to joining, unless the visitor:

1. a) Doesn't see any benefits; and
2. b) Suspects that you will sell their email address to spammers.

Both of these problems are relatively easy to overcome. In your headline, simply state the exact benefits they will receive for joining – as always, mixing in psychological triggers.

In your first paragraph of copy, give them a compelling reason to join now (i.e., the price might go up, the list might become private, you'll get this amazing report).

Now, to overcome the second problems, simply include a short line under your opt-in form that explains that you will not – under any circumstances – spam them or sell or give away their email address and name.

Tips on Increasing Your Landing Page Conversion Rate

There are three major ways in which you can create your landing page conversion rate. All landing pages created by professionals usually include these three elements at a few others.

The first way in which you can increase your conversion rate is through personalization. This is usually done in two ways: the first way is by providing a photo of yourself. The second way is by adding your signature to the bottom of your landing page.

This radically increases visitors' trust. Most people who resist buying products online do so because they're weary of getting scammed by a faceless liar, who wont be around when they need help or when they need to return the product.

Tip: By adding your picture and signature, you can significantly increase a gain in your visitors' trust. 

Another way in which you can increase your landing page conversion rate is by using black text or a white layout. Regardless of what anyone tells you, this is one of the easiest ways in which to make your page look professional, rather than pathetic or desperate.

The third way in which you can gain trust is by offering something for free. This is generally what you will do if you're using a squeeze page to generate leads: you'll offer a free report or five-day course – and then use that to generate leads, which you will later up-sell or generate revenue from via affiliate sales. Why is this technique so effective?

Quite simply because it allows them to judge your work and ideas before they actually have to pay for them. Additionally, it builds trust.

In addition to these three general ways in which to increase your conversion rate, you should always guarantee a product. If you sell through Click Bank, you actually won't have a choice.

But if you're using Paypal or some other check out (Credit Card processing) program, you will want to make sure you clearly state that customers can return your product for any reason within a given period of time after the purchase.

Follow all of these steps and you will significantly increase your landing page conversion rate.

Regardless of how you structure your squeeze page, you need to thoroughly test what works and how you can improve it. 

In the next chapter, I will show you exactly how to set up a simple split testing system so that you can tweak and improve your squeeze page conversion rates.

Live Squeeze Page Example.

Best regards

Pete

Six Figure Online Business 

P.S. Tired of all the Hype & Lies