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Here's Why You Need To Use Landing Pages
By Mats Lonnstrom

When you're learning about something new, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of relevant information available. This informative article should help you focus on the central points.

All the products that you want to sell online are ready. You have already signed up with the Google Adsense program or with other affiliate marketing programs and you have already prepared the ad you want to post on your affi!iates site. Your mind is now set to being the next most successful online businessman. But is there anything else that you might have forgotten to prepare? Maybe none. But how about your landing pages? Are they all set for your business?

Landing pages are simply web pages where visitors are directed to whenever they click a result in a web search or whenever they click a web ad. For affi!iate marketing, landing pages would refer to the web page where you, as a merchant, would want your potential customer to be directed after clicking your ad on your affi!iates website. Landing pages are, at most times, nothing really different from other web pages in a particular website, especially if the said website is an e-commerce site. Some online businessmen would even use the homepage of their websites as the landing page for their ads. Are these businessmen making a big mistake? Or should you follow their method in creating landing pages for their ads?

Well, you can always follow what most online retailers do, directing their potential customers to the homepages of their websites. But if you want to achieve something more from your online business, and if you want to earn a lot of profits, you better create a special landing page for your web ads. Why?

Here are a few reasons why you need to use landing pages for your web ads. And take note, it would do you a lot better if you create a great landing page than a so-so one.

Reason no. 1: It is the only way you earn conversions in an affi!iate marketing program.

There are a variety of affi!iate marketing programs today, but most of these programs let the merchant pay the affi!iate in a pay per click basis. Basically, all you have to do is sign up with the program and submit your ad. The program owner would then distribute your ad to various affi!iates who would then place your ad on their websites. Whenever your ad is c!icked, a visitor would be directed to your landing page and you would have to pay the affi!iate for his service.

As a merchant, you earn in an affiliate program through conversionsthat is whenever a visitor that is directed to your site actually buys a product on your site. Without these conversions, you actually earn nothing from the program. Also, the more visitors that your affiliates have directed to your site, the larger would your expense be. And the only way that you can recover from these expenses is through conversions.

I trust that what you've read so far has been informative. The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that may remain.

Now, you sure won't get any conversion if you have posted an ad on your affiliate's site without an actual landing page for the potential customer to be redirected into. It's just like advertising a product without actually having a store to sell your product. Your advertisement may be enticing enough to encourage people to purchase a product, but without the landing page, how will they know how to purchase the product

It is therefore important to have landing pages for your ads because it is the only way for you to earn something in an affiliate program. Without landing pages, all you do is spend money paying your affiliates without actually getting anything in return.

Reason no. 2: Other web pages may just not be enough.

Many people make the mistake of making their website's homepage as the landing page for their ads. The same is true for those who make use of other pages like a "contact us" page or a product page. Homepages are often designed to serve multiple users and contains a lot of links to other pages or to other websites. The same is with the other two pages mentioned. If you want to be successful in an affiliate program, we're sure that you don't want your landing page to cater to the needs of various people, most of which may not be really interested with your product.

When choosing a landing page, you must always have the customer directed into that page in mind. Therefore, your landing page must be relevant to the keywords and the contents you placed on your ad. It is also important that the landing page can induce your visitor to take actionthat is to purchase your product or at least provide leads for potential customers.

Final Word

You probably entered into an affiliate marketing program with these things in mind: to save on advertising expenses and to gain more profit. But if you get into an affiliate marketing program without actually having a landing page, you'll end up paying too much without getting anything in return. So if you still don't have a landing page for your ads, you better start creating one now. And don't get us wrong; it isn't enough for you to have just a landing pageit should be a great landing page!

That's the latest from the landing pages authorities. Once you're familiar with these ideas, you'll be ready to move to the next level.

In order to build your opt in list and generate sales you need targeted leads. The primary goal of a squeeze page is to collect the name and email address of each visitor.

With a highly optimized squeeze page its possible to achieve conversion rates as high as 50% or more (meaning 50% of the visitors to the squeeze page submitted their name and email address).

A squeeze page consists of a headline, bullet points, and a subscription form. You can also add testimonials and audio or video messages to increase your conversion rates.

Use a clear and precise headline that clearly explains what you are offering. You have just five to ten seconds to grab the attention of your prospects with your headline or they will leave your squeeze page instantly. Try to answer the question "What's In It For Me?" as this is what your visitors will be asking themselves when they first see your squeeze page.

Use bullet points to list all of the benefits that you are offering the prospect. You are trying to convince each visitor that what you are offering can solve their problems and improve their business.

Use a subscription form to collect the name and email address of each visitor to your squeeze page. All you need is the HTML code for the subscription form that is provided to you by the auto responder service you are using (such as Aweber). Just copy and paste the code into your squeeze page where you want the subscription form to be.

Make sure that you use a call of action phrase such as "get your free report now" or "get free instant access" to encourage visitors to submit their name and email address. You can also use call of action phrases such as "send my free report now" or "give me free instant access" for the text in the submit button of your subscription form.

Its possible to create a high quality squeeze page that is small enough to fit into the browser window (without needing to scroll down). You can do this by creating a wide page (about 800 pixels wide) and placing the headline with bullet points on the left and the subscription form on the right.

To increase your conversion rates you can also offer a free bonus gift such as a report or ebook. This works best if you create a unique bonus yourself, related to what your offering, that is of great value to the prospect (making you different from everyone else).

Here is a great example of an effective squeeze page that uses the strategies explained above to produce a high conversion rate collecting leads: http://www.marketingoasis.com/su/

Once you have set up your squeeze page and follow up messages you will need to start sending visitors to your website. Submitting content to article directories and writing press releases are the most effective ways of generating unlimited free targeted traffic.

by Willie Crawford
Butterfly Marketing
http://ButterflyMarketing.net

Most people in the Internet marketing arena know what a squeeze page is. However, most marketers that I've seen try to implement one do a terrible job. Therefore they get less than desirable results.

For the uninitiated, here's a quick definition. A squeeze page is a webpage that, when the visitor "lands" on it, he is asked to opt-in to some type of list in order to proceed further. On some squeeze pages, your only options are to opt-in or leave. On others, you are given a method to continue exploring the site without opting in. Purist would argue that the second type isn't a real squeeze page.

The rationale behind using a squeeze page is that most Internet marketers realize that the vast majority of visitor will not buy from a site on the first visit. So, these marketers make list building their top priority. If they can just collect the email address, along with permission to follow-up, then they'll get other opportunities to make the sale later.

A squeeze page, generally, has some enticing bullets on it, and does a thorough job of describing what you'll be able to access after you enter your data. The enticing offer on the squeeze page, that has the visitor salivating to get at what's behind that "door," is essential.

The most effective squeeze pages that I've seen, used enticing emails to drive traffic to the sites. These emails were either emailed by joint venture partners, or by the product owner who was introducing a new product.

That email that drove traffic to the squeeze page, sent them there already READY to sign up. That email, if it did its job, thoroughly described what was waiting on the site, and so the squeeze page was only a slight inconvenience. It was not enough of an inconvenience to be noticeably objectionable to those who were already thoroughly sold on the product concept.

The enticing email that does the pre-sell is a step many less- savvy marketers skip. Because their visitors aren't pre-sold, their conversion rates are much lower than they would otherwise be.

Squeeze pages often experience "leakage" because many visitors knows how to view the page's html source code, and locate the url of the follow-on webpage. So they can just enter that url to access what's behind the door.

A good way to prevent this type of leakage (if you want to) is to encrypt the url for that follow-on webpage. Another way to do this is to EMAIL what was promised on the squeeze page. So, if the visitor doesn't provide an email address (or provides a bogus email address) they don't get to enjoy what was promised on the squeeze page.

If you'd like to see an example of one of the most effective squeeze pages that I've seen lately, check out http://ButterflyMarketing.net

On the page above, notice that if you try to circumvent the squeeze page, you CANNOT just access the information. Instead, you are simply given another chance to opt-in. This is a brilliant implementation of a squeeze page.

By the way, you should go ahead and opt-in at http://ButterflyMarketing.net That way you can study the rest of the process being used. You need to see the full picture in order to set up your COMPLETE process correctly!

One other nice implementation of a squeeze page that I've seen is one that passes information from the squeeze page on to the next page. So, the next page that you get to after filling in the form may have your name, or some other personal data, right in the copy on the page.

An example of the above might be a site selling pet toys. The form might ask what type of pet you have and your pet's name. On the next page, as you read through the copy you might see your pet's name scattered throughout the page, or you might see mention of the specific type of pet that you have.

The type of squeeze page described above can be very powerful if done correctly. If it's not too blatant, your visitor may not even consciously notice that the page is personalized and specifically targeting him. For example, if that page only mentions the type of pet that you have, or some other seemingly innocuous fact, the personalization will still make the copy talk to YOU more. However it won't be as "in your face" as when the copy uses your name.

There is actually a piece of software that will generate this type of squeeze page for you. That way, you don't have to understand how to set up coding that tells the page how to pass variables from one page to the next. This software is called Squeeze Page Generator. You find it at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/squeezepage.html

When you visit the page above, enter your name and email address, and the demo will show YOU what your visitors will see when you use this software on your site.

I've tested Squeeze Page Generator on some of my sites, and it DOES increase conversions. I prefer using it where it's less "in your face" as I've described above ;-)

When you use Squeeze Page Generator that way, your visitors feel more connected to you and your copy, but they don't really know why. I think that makes it more effective.

Many online marketers do use squeeze pages, because, while they may irritate a small percentage of your visitors, they have been proven to increase your signup percentages. If they don't opt-in to your list, then there's no way for you to follow-up with those who don't buy on that first visit. Consider adding squeeze pages to your marketing arsenal today.

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About the Author:

Willie Crawford has been marketing on the Internet for over 9 years. Many consider him, and his millionaire mentors, the top online marketers. Learn more of the proven "butterfly marketing methods" Willie and many of his mentors use at: http://ButterflyMarketing.net

Copyright © 2006 Willie Crawford