The Squeeze Page and Opt In Email Lists

It's no mystery anymore. Actually it never has been. There's an excellent reason why you keep hearing "the money is in the list." Squeeze page may be a weird name, but you'll see them everywhere. Building an opt in email list can be a daunting prospect for a new marketer, but squeeze pages are the way to do it.

Why squeeze page as a name? I believe the name comes out of a perception that getting an email address - a sign up to an opt in email list, is like squeezing blood from a stone. But, it isn't really that hard, if you're doing what you should. To get you have to give. Why should someone give up their email address to you except in anticipation of getting valuable information? Ultimately, the squeeze is that they also have to give to receive. This basic principle often gets overlooked by marketers once they get a list. A list isn't a cash machine. It's a collection of real people with real needs and real goals and as a marketer your job is to help them fulfill those needs. Not to just bash them for cash.

Sure you can pound a list with endless emails pimping the product of the day, but you aren't going to have very many happy recipients. The may not unsubscribe, but if you treat them that way they will get colder and colder. And treating them right begins with what you offer in return for their email address. Something of real value, even something as simple as a preview or sample chapters from your info product. Or an add-on bonus that increases the value of the affiliate product you're promoting.

But that's really another article so let's move back to some of the complexities of the squeeze page. Squeeze pages are actually a specific type of landing page. And, oddly enough, a landing page is the first page a visitor lands on after clicking on a link to your site. It might be from an article, another site, a PPC ad or whatever. The specific purpose of squeeze page landing pages is to collect names and email addresses. They are opt in email list builders.

How they are constructed overall can range from remarkably simple to quite complex. A simple one page site can collect email addresses for you - if you have an intriguing offer which is only obtainable through a sign up. This type of squeeze page may do quite well if you have traffic sources that are not based on organic search engine traffic (unless you have a lot of targeted backlinks) or on PPC such as Google AdWords.

More complex squeeze pages include real content pages related to your "intriguing" offer and to the product you are selling or promoting. For organic traffic you need something a little more sophisticated than one page focused on a sign-up. And, particularly for PPC with Google AdWords, you have to have to have sufficient related content to achieve a decent quality score and keep your costs at a rational level. Paying 5 to 10 dollars a click looks a lot like the fast track to working for the man forever.

Combining a sophisticated squeeze page site using content and an on site multi-part report with an affiliate offer can set you up nicely for both PPC and organic traffic. And it's not as complicated as it may sound if you have a decent blueprint to follow.

Linking your site together so it's accessible to SE spiders while protecting your multi-part report sequence so it's only available, one section at a time, to subscribers who have joined your opt in email list can do some very nice things for your bottom line.

One mistake many people make is to offer a multi-part report as a squeeze page sign-up bonus but then email the reports to their subscribers. Hey, it's a waste of good content. With a little care and some intelligent site construction and linking, you can get a lot more mileage out of that content. After all, you do want to bring them back to your site, right? You see how that can give you multiple opportunities to present your affiliate or product link, right?

As long as you're going to the trouble of setting up a squeeze page, building an opt in email list and creating valuable reports, you might as well put in a little extra effort and build a site that can not only pick up organic traffic but also get an decent quality score to keep your PPC bid prices as low as possible.

You can learn much more about how to build high quality squeeze pages by visiting Squeeze Pages Demystified as well as discover a system for maximizing the value of any squeeze page you set up.