Designing landing pages that convert is vital for any internet marketer that is serious about building a successful business.
The most important aspect of internet marketing is building a list, and to build a list you need to use landing pages that basically suck in leads all day long.
You can either design the pages yourself, or you can outsource them to a professional. If you do it yourself you are paying for it with time, but if you outsource you pay with money. The choice here is yours.
But whether you are designing landing pages yourself or paying someone else to do it, it is vital that you understand what makes or breaks a landing page.
Here are seven tips that will most definitely help you to get on track :
1. Only capture the email address.
I have seen many lead capture pages that ask for the email address, name and phone number of the prospect (and some ask for more than that).
This is serious overkill and puts people off from opting in. The more things that you ask for from a prospect, the less likely they are to give you their information.
I don't see much point in asking for a phone number because most people don't want strangers ringing them up and trying to sell them things. In my opinion you should keep it simple and only ask for an email address, and that way you will get a lot more opt ins.
2. Make sure the opt in form is above the fold
Obviously your headline is going to be at the top and will be above the fold, but I have seen many landing pages where you need to scroll down to find where to opt in.
By putting the opt in form above the fold the prospect can see it immediately when they open the page. It is also a great idea to use flashing arrows (.gif files) that are pointing to the opt in form so that the prospect can't possibly miss it.
It is important to make it as easy as possible to opt in to maximise your conversions.
3. Offer something of value on your landing page, don't just promote your network marketing business
This is a very common rookie mistake that I have been guilty of in the past.
Replicated company pages very rarely convert, as people join people not companies. Many network marketing companies will give you replicated pages that thousands or millions of other people are using.
Obviously a lot of these replicated pages get seen many times by the same person and if this is the case you have no chance of them wanting to opt in.
The smart marketers are setting up personalised capture pages that give away something of value in return for their email address. They brand themselves as leaders, not annoying telemarketers begging you to buy their stuff.
4. Keep it short, simple and straight to the point
Remember the sole purpose of your landing page is to motivate people to give you their contact details. You don't want to distract them or put them off with 5,000 words of text, or videos that go for 10 minutes. This just puts people to sleep.
Peoples attention spans on the internet are very short and they get bored easily. You can go into more detail about yourself and your products on your thank you page, and in your follow up messages that get sent out.
Keep the message on your landing page as short and compelling as possible. Use clever language that hypnotises the reader into taking action.
Words such as "discover", "amazing", "shocking" and "imagine" are good examples of words that are hypnotic.
I would recommend reading books from Joe Vitale, Joe Sugarman and Dan Kennedy on copywriting to learn how the professionals use words to make people take action.
5. Make sure the landing page is congruent with the advertisements or banners that you use to drive traffic to them.
If you are writing advertisements or creating banners to drive traffic to your landing page, it is vital that they are congruent.
There is no point offering a free book in a banner, then sending them to a landing page that introduces them to a business opportunity. This is going to murder your conversions
One idea is to use your exact headline on the landing page as the text in your advertisement (or banner). You can not get any more congruent than that, and you will know that the prospect will get exactly what they expected when they reach your page.
6. Only use pages that look professional
Not many people are going to opt into a landing page that is ugly and unprofessional – I know that I wouldn't.
If you struggle to get the page looking crisp and clean, then it is best to pay a professional to do it for you. It should not cost much to get one page built for you.
If you want to do it yourself then without doubt the best software available is a program called Optimize Press. You will see just how easy it is set up up professional lead capture pages with Optimize Press. I personally use Optimize Press and recommend it highly.
You will find that most people that get to a landing page will make up their mind within 10 seconds whether they are going to opt in or not. First impressions are extremely important, and an ugly landing page will do you no justice.
7. Once they have opted in, send them to a customized thank you page
After they have opted in make sure you forward them to your thank you page. Otherwise they will just land on a generic page from Aweber (or whoever you use for email marketing).
On your thank you page you should include a short video (either yourself on camera, or a slide show presentation) introducing yourself and explaining how you can help them.
You can also ask them to purchase something from you on the thank you page, but it is best to make the initial pitch on a product that is less than $50. This could be described as your front end offer. There is little point in offering products that are expensive right from the start.
Some people prefer to wait a few days before they start offering products to their leads, as they want to provide plenty of value up front to get them onside.
Here is an example of a professional lead capture page from internet marketing legend Frank Kern.
Once you have mastered designing landing pages you can then concentrate on converting the leads into sales.
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