Squeeze Pages and Branding Sites

Now that we have established our target market and know who it is that we are wanting to attract to our site we now need to make a decision on the type of site that we are wanting to use. Squeeze pages and branding sites are different, but both are necessary tools for the internet marketer. As with any other topic, you will get different opinions when it comes to Squeeze Pages or Branding sites. Personally, I would do both.
There are marketing techniques that I use only my squeeze page on and others where I only use my branding site. The squeeze page is the most important page you are going to create. It is the first page you should create in your marketing campaign and the fastest way to collect business partners and leads. A squeeze page is a mini sales page. Squeeze pages are also called opt in pages, splash pages, and flycatcher pages.
Squeeze pages are short, to the point, and designed to get the customer to give you their contact information. The information on your squeeze page should grab the person's attention and get them to give you at least a first name and an email address. A basic squeeze page outline has an eye-grabbing headline, four to six bulleted points, an obvious opt-in, and a tempting giveaway. Squeeze pages are named for their goal of squeezing information out of the person. The goal of the squeeze page is to get your customer's interest piqued so high that they have to find out what else you have to say.
This is why the squeeze page is the most important page that you will be creating in your marketing campaign. It's the best way to get a lot of leads coming through the door.
Designing Your Squeeze Page
The headline at the top should be red or maroon and should create interest. The bullets should be nice and bright. They are enticing. They are meant to pique the reader's interest, not give them the full information. They should tease them and get them to the next page. They should hint at what they will find out after they opt in.
The call to action is exactly what it says. It calls your customer to take action. It gets them to fill in the form and opt in. It says, "Do this to get this." What are they going to get by filling in their name and email address? "Fill in your name and primary email address to get this free newsletter...free video...free audio." There should be something you give away that is a call to action to get them to go further on.
A squeeze page cuts through all the junk that is ongoing in your customer's life and gets their attention. You are a problem solver with your squeeze page. Your squeeze page is wrapped around your product or service. You have to know your customers wants needs and desires before creating your squeeze page. There are no short cuts for this.
When a squeeze page is put together the right way, it can attract an enormous amount of leads. The best squeeze pages:
o Invoke curiosity. They have an intriguing story that compels people to opt in. They capture the lead. Building your list is one of the most important things you can do with your squeeze page, because your list is a group you can always market to.
o Have a hook. They contain a promise to insider information or secrets that have never been revealed before. They offer something you can hook your customer with to get them to sign up.
o Have a motivating call to action. They offer something of value in exchange for the contact information you request. A good squeeze page will make your customers feel like they are missing something if they don't sign up.
Example Squeeze Page
The headline should invoke curiosity:
"AMAZING FREE DVD REVEALS THE INSIDER SECRETS GUIDE TO EVALUATING HOME BUSINESS. Piggy back off the success of top industry leaders by learning to avoid the scams and capitalize on the legitimate opportunities..."
The bullet points should pique curiosity without giving away too much information:
o 10 Ways to Discover a Scam
o How to Make the Most of Your Investment
The call to action tells the customer what they must do NOW:
You better hurry - we can only give away a limited number of DVDs for free!

At the bottom, there might even be a better hook, like a free 30-minute coaching call if they act now.

Creating Your Squeeze Page Headline
A great way to really get out there and learn how to create your own headline for your squeeze page is to start with typing in keywords for your industry. Go to your competitors' pages. Find headlines that fit your market. Take them, copy them, then reword them to fit your business. I don't mean steal someone else's headline. I mean analyze the headlines, read what other people are doing, and implement some of the trigger words that they are using.
You will have to test multiple headlines. If you're not getting the results you want, test another headline. You will find that you will need to test over and over. Some headlines you think will work won't; some that you wouldn't think would will. Your headlines should be in quotes. Some proven headline templates include:
o "Who else wants to ..."
o "You're about to learn the secrets that most ..."
o "Do you make these ... mistakes?"
Bullet Points
Bullets allow your potential customer to skim through what you're offering. They're a way for you to entice the customer to opt in by teasing them with enough information to make them want more.
You can swipe bullets, too, just like you do headlines. Use the trigger words that you see having success, and rewrite them to suit your industry and your product. Numbered bullets, secret bullets, how to bullets...all of these grab the reader and pique their curiosity. Successful templates for bullet points include:
o Number Bullets
o 10 things you should know about...
o Huge Benefit Bullets
o In less than 7 days you can...
o Secret Bullets
o Insider secrets to...
o Exclusive Bullets
o This unique, patented formula...
o How To Bullets
o A new way to...
Fill in the blank with your product or service. Remember, you should have four to six bullet points on your squeeze page. They should be highlights of what they are going to get if they opt in. They should invoke curiosity.
Call to Action
The call to action is down at the bottom, close to where your customer will fill in their information. The call to action is very important. It tells your customers exactly what they need to do.
A good call to action should say, "Enter your name and primary email address to...
o receive your free gift
o get your free dvd
o get a free 30-minute coaching call
o get your free report on...
Giving away something will increase your opt ins dramatically. You can't just give away anything; it has to be something of value if you want them to become a buying customer. You can even tell your customers how much the free item is worth (for example, a 30-minute coaching call might be worth $200). Always include a message at the bottom of your squeeze page that you will not sell or rent their information to anyone else.
Branding Sites
Branding sites are designed to brand YOU. For branding sites, I use WordPress sites. Google likes WordPress. I recommend outsourcing the development and writing of your WordPress site, since your time can be better spent developing your products and services.
WordPress sites are great for branding. WordPress sites have a home page. The home page allows you to provide more information and detail than a squeeze page. The branding site is meant to give people information - lots of information about you, your product, and your services.
Lay out your branding site with a home page about your product and service. The "about me" tab should be all about you...your story, your history, your information. It gives your customers a connection to you before you even call or email them.
You can also add more tabs, including a blog. A blog is a great way to add content to your website. As you add content, Google comes and crawls your site and sees the new information on your branding site. That's why Google likes these WordPress sites so much - because the content can change all the time.
On your branding site, the minimum information you will have is a home page, an about me page, and a blog. You should blog three or four times a week about the subject, service or product (the blogging can also be outsourced, particularly if you're not a good writer). You can add additional tabs as well. For example, if your site is a golf product, you can expand your tabs and have golf tips, golf coaching, a section on putting and a section on driving. As you can see, your branding site can really expand on what and who you are.
From your branding site, you can have links to your social networking sites. You will also have on your branding site an opt-in form with the same free giveaway from your squeeze page. Your ultimate goal, even with the branding site, is still to generate leads. Give your site visitors something of value to get their contact information.
Driving Traffic to Your Sites
There are multiple ways to drive traffic to your squeeze page and your branding site. While most traffic driving tools are appropriate for both, pay-per-click ad campaigns should only be used to drive traffic to your squeeze page. They are expensive to use, so don't waste time with anything less than the best leads.
In addition to pay per click, you can drive traffic to your sites by:
o Natural ranking. The more information you have on your website and the more you blog and write articles on your site, the more your natural rank will increase.
o SEO. Search-engine optimized writing can drive traffic to both your squeeze page and your branding site. While it is easier to drive traffic to your branding site with SEO, you can rank a squeeze page by using well-placed keywords and content.
o Banner and texts ads. You can drive traffic from banner and text ads to either your squeeze page or your branding site.
o Offline marketing. Again, you can drive traffic to either site.
o Email marketing. While you can drive email traffic to either site, you will probably generate more leads if you drive the traffic to your squeeze page.
o Traffic exchange also works for either, but I don't do a lot of traffic exchange.
o Co-registration. I do not currently use co-registration, but when I did, I sent them to my squeeze page.
o Web 2.0 (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc). I link to both my branding site and my squeeze page.
o Article marking. I do drive some to my squeeze page, but I primarily send them to my branding site.
o Blogging. I drive traffic to both my branding site and my squeeze page with my blog.
o Press releases. Especially paid press releases submitted through PR Web I use to drive traffic to both sites.
***
Squeeze pages and branding sites both have their purpose, but if you're just launching, the squeeze page should be the priority. Squeeze pages are short, to the point, and meant to grab leads. Put your squeeze page to work for you NOW. While you're driving traffic to the squeeze page, you can start building your branding site and blogging to generate more traffic. A branding site is meant to brand you as a leader in your industry. You can combine the two by having a call to action and offering your free giveaway on your branding site.

Lehman Hailey has an extensive background in real estate and is considered one of the leading experts in internet marketing and direct sales techniques. Lehman has proven himself to be a very innovative and successful entrepreneur in these as well as other areas. Lehman believes that there has never been a better time to become involved with internet marketing than now. "It's time for people to take their lives into their own hands, stop relying on companies or the government to allow them to eek out a living...." When someone decides to become involved with my team, they learn exact processes and programs, the complete system to allow them to become hugely successful. Lehman Hailey www.lehmanhailey.com Creator of: The DNA of Internet Marketing www.dnamarketingbootcamp.com

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