Creating Great Landing Pages...
In creating a site and driving traffic to it you want to create what is called "landing pages." These are pages where a person will come to first before entering the main site. The advantage of a landing page is it provides a great introduction to a web site without blasting a person with an overkill of information.
When you come to a landing page your first impression should be the best. It is like a resume that gives a brief glance of why you want to hire a person. The better the page the better you have of inviting a person to your site making him welcome, having him return, invite friends, and hopefully boost sales. Also if you have a large site like mine plan on making all pages landing pages. This increases the chance of gaining traffic. The higher the number of topics the greater the chances of being found. Plan on learning HTML and using the advance HTML page as well as Meta Tags and fill a great description out and more.
The harsh reality of internet web sites is it costs so much money it takes a lot just to keep it maintained. Once you have a great site you need to invite the customers. Having a great site is like preparing a party or wedding that you forget to send out invitations.
Though my main product is salvation through Jesus Christ I soon learned not every one loves Jesus the way I do. Not only that the best way to get someone into something is to give away freebees and build trust in them.
When you create a web site you need to realize there is a lot of competition that you are competing with. I came to the harsh realization that the chances of getting found are real low since when looking up a key word or key word phrase often millions of sites come up in that field. Your chances of competing are one in 1 million or whatever the number is. Let's say I want to sell health products. I have to first have a nitch market. I have to have something that differentiates myself from the competition. If I use key words such as "health products" my chance of being found by one person is about the same chances of me getting rich from an internet money scam, that or winning the lottery.
You have to find somewhere to fit in:
Consider the internet like a huge puzzle. You are just one piece of that puzzle. The more the pieces the harder it is of being found. If you are a piece of another puzzle you won't fit in at all. Internet marketing involves rules. You can't just make up your own set of rules and just get lucky. I mean maybe some do, or have in the past but the harsh reality is often money talks and what is left walks.
Forcing a nitch market:
If you have the money and a lot of it at your disposal you can force your way ahead of the game with what is called Pay Per Click traffic. It works but you have to be careful. I once ran a pay per click campaign with great success. I used one key word, even one with a lot of traffic, and I recieved 66 hits in one day. That is a tremendous success. There are things to look for when using pay per clicks. The higher the click rate the more traffic you will recieve. The more traffic you recieve the quicker those clicks add up. Soon your bill will be so high, if you are not careful Jesus is going to start seeing bills pile up on his throne room floor. Let's just say this; I have read horror stories about pay per click advertisment and how quickly the bill racks up. You can litterally have bills up to $10,000 or more in a few hours depending on your cost per click. Keep in mind some high ranking sites have paid clicks into the multiple dollar bills. In other words those sites you click on cost the company several dollars every time you enter their site. Please bookmark their sites to avoid further costs.
On my site I am very very very poor due to a number of wicked people and horrible events. I was going to hire out my site to get it search engine optimized however I ran out of cash and I decided to take on the project myself. Interestingly enough my ranks are improving and chances of being found are increasing. Perhaps I will get a paying customer or two. I certainly hope so.
Viral Marketing:
Viral marketing is where you hope to gain traffic by friends telling friends, who in return tell more friends, inviting everyone and their brother to your site. Plan things out so people can quickly and easily tell others about your site. For example us things such as "Tell a friend" on pages which others can tell friends easily about your site. However, you don't want to overdo it either. Too many flashing banners, (I blew it too at one time) and things to tell a person just how desperate you really are, will often look bad and will have the opposite results. In this case I will give you an example of some things to add to a site.
Text like the above can let a person know that the site is up to date. Not only that, it gives a customer the impression that the site is continually updated keeping with the times.
Know this web site take lots of money to run so make sure to use things like Google Adsense given below.
Things to keep in mind?
Content is king. Have a key word rich page, (see some of my free books if you don't understand what key word rich is) which contains plenty of relavant words to what the key words are. Spiders will crawl your site to gain information, or free information in my case, to index what the site is all about. If you use a lot of audio content, or video or other content such as pictuures spiders do not see what is there and therefore they will not know how to index a site. Make sure to use that content to your advantage in gaining more traffic. Ignoring what I have said in other areas you can gain traffic without pay per clicks however, you have to really use strategy to gain that traffic.
Target your traffic:
If you are using pay per clicks you will want to lazer target your traffic to paying customers. If you don't do this you may recieve a ton of traffic that doesn't result in sales.
Using alternate places:
Creating an easy and good site:
Make sure your site can be easy to navigate. That was a rule I broke right off the bat. Nothing was organized and what I would hear is this person is convoluded. Create something easy to get through and ask for feedback or comments. Pay attention to the way people feel about your site. Don't be too proud to take advice from others and accept their comments. On the other hand I have recieved harsh criticism and it hurt and I know the person and they meant to hurt me. Keep in mind the person commenting on your site and take it as a grain of salt if you must. Just remember, God is the victor and He will ultimately make or break a site. Please God and the success will follow. AMEN...
Introduction to Landing Pages
Before you begin the attempt to build a successful list or create a powerful salespage, you will want to start with a rigorous introduction to landing pages. In stark contrast to undifferentiated, unfocused home pages, landing pages focus specifically on capturing leads for a newsletter or making sales for a specific product – and make no attempt to give visitors a different option.
Another word which is used for a landing page when it functions for the specific purpose of capturing leads is “squeeze page.” A squeeze page is a page designed to get names and email addresses. Usually, however, a squeeze page is usually a smaller type of landing page, which usually has an opt-in form in sight when the page loads.
So what is important to learn in an introduction to landing pages? First, it is important to recognize that all successful marketers use these. If you plan to sell a product over the Internet, you will want to use one, too, rather than relying on sidebar opt-in forms and unfocused pages that do not convey a single point and a single call to action.
Another important thing you will want to take away from this introduction to landing pages is that every landing page contains the same parts and is focused on a SINGLE goal – getting the visitor to become a subscriber or buyer.
These parts are as follows: an opt-in form (or sales prompt), a brief or lengthy introduction, a picture of the list/product owner, the signature of the list owner, and a call to action (or multiple calls to action).
Determining which model will work best for you can simply only be done through testing. While many boast a conversion and attribute it to the shortness of their introduction (many will be one short paragraph), otherwise will boast a high conversion rate because they use lengthy, thorough, and compelling copy. Jimmy D. Brown's list and traffic, for instance, has an unbelievably high opt-in rate, but he uses lengthy copy.
If there is anything you absolutely must take away from an introduction to landing pages, it is that you cannot create a landing page or squeeze page that isn't focused.
Finest Examples of Landing Pages
When you are constructing a landing page, it is always a good idea to refer to a number of other successful landing pages for ideas. The following are three examples of landing pages that convert well:
What works well with this page? The first thing to note is the header, which is red. Generally, one of two colors (other than black) are employed in a header: red or blue. Blue relaxes people and red creates urgency. Another thing that boosts the credibility of this landing page is the graphic.
Another good point about this landing page is the picture and signature of the product owner. This, again, boosts trust and increases conversion rates. Another important and notable part of this landing page's success are the testimonials, which also increase trust.
Let's check out another successful landing page:
What works well with this landing page? Again, the red font creates a sense of urgency. In addition to that, all benefits and costs are quantified to the penny and exact percentage. This increases the perceived value of the product, which is important, as people purchase perceived value, not value. If your product is good, you have to create perceived value to match the real value.
Another effective method employed in this landing page is the auto-updating time stamp. When a visitor sees the time stamp, they feel that the product or service was released or updated that exact day – or at least that someone is maintaining it on a daily basis.
Another powerful element that makes this landing page successful are the repeated psychological triggers. “Smoking HOT products,” “insane profits,” “instant access” -- all of these phrases create urgency, increase perceived value, and induce action.
And there you have it: being successful with landing pages really is a repetitive process. If you follow the tips outlined and use good examples, you should have no problem constantly increasing your conversion rates.
