How to Generate More Leads With a Squeeze Page

By: Donna Gunter
A squeeze page is a stand-alone page that is typically used as a lead generation or landing page for a special offer or marketing campaign. It offers the visitor access to some piece of information in exchange for the visitor's name and primary email address. This contact information has been "squeezed" out of the visitor, hence the name of the page. A squeeze page typically consists of an attractive graphic, compelling headline, a short list of benefits that the visitor will receive from your free information, and a form for the visitor to complete to receive the information.

Two key things to remember as you create your squeeze page:

1. Don't use a squeeze page as the home page of your website. I've seen numerous service professionals do this, much to their detriment. A squeeze page provides little content for search engine spiders to index and may block the indexing of the remainder of your site, so you hurt your chances of using SEO to rank high in the search engines.

In addition, requiring contact info to enter your website will turn repeat visitors away. The best-selling feature on my website is the sheer volume of information that I provide. I've had some clients tell me that they camp out on my site for a week and absorb what I've written before they decide to hire me. Now, if they were forced to enter their contact information every single time they visited my site, I'm sure that they would become annoyed and simply leave and find someone else to help them. And, who wants to be hijacked in order to shop on your website and potentially give you money?

2. Don't distract your visitor. Your squeeze page should be a single page with no other links to distract visitors from your primary call to action -- exchanging their contact information for the free giveaway that you're providing.

Here's what you need to get started with your squeeze page:

1. A domain name. The domain name for your squeeze page should mirror or closely resemble the name of your giveaway or a prominent feature of your product. So, for example, if you are a hypnotherapist and you're making available a podcast on how to use self-hypnosis to lose weight, then you'd want to try and get a domain name like LoseWeightFast.com. Try and get the .com version of your domain name if possible, but if that's not available, seek out the hyphenated version of the .com domain name.

2. Your give-away. You have two goals for your squeeze page: obtain the contact info from your visitors and get them into your marketing funnel to eventually convert them into paying customers. The best way to obtain contact info from a visitor is to create an information product (ebook, electronic tips booklet, special report, podcast or other audio file, ecourse, video, etc.) that will be valuable because it provides the answer to a major challenge faced by the visitor. Upon realizing that she can get some free information to dim the pain of her problem, the visitor gladly parts with her name and primary email address to obtain the free giveaway.

3. Attractive graphics. To make your product more appealing, you need to create a graphic representation of your giveaway . The graphic image may be in the form of an book cover, spiral bound report, CD/DVD cover, podcast album art, etc. There are a number of graphic artists who create these images, and there are several pieces of software you can purchase to create your own. A good graphic designer can help you with an attractive banner to place at the top of your page, as well.

3. Compelling headline and benefits listing. Your squeeze page will be rather short, but it needs to contain enough information so that the visitor has a clear understanding of how your giveway will help him solve a problem. To accomplish this, create a compelling headline and an attractive listing of benefits that the visitor will experience upon receiving your information. For help with your headline, download the free 3 Minute Headline Creator, http://www.3minuteheadlinecreator.com, which I've found to be an amazing tool to help me develop my headlines.

4. Form Creator/Contact Manager. You can simply create a web submission form within your web design software to collect the contact information from you visitors, or you can use a more full-featured service that help you create the form on the squeeze page, collect the information, and offer email broadcasting and followup autoresponders.

5. Thank You Page. This is the page you'll create with instructions for obtaining the free giveaway. After thanking the visitor for his request and providing the download information, you can also use the real estate on your thank you page to up sell the visitor to one of your products, point him to a resource on your primary website, or engage him by asking him a few questions in a survey.

6. Follow-up autoresponders. The ability to continue to reach out and "touch" your prospective customers is key in developing a relationship with them so that they move from a prospective customer to a purchasing customer. I create a series of 6-10 or so autoresponders that are sent out over the 3 weeks following a download to check in with the visitor, or to introduce the visitor in another item. The shopping cart service I use has autoresponders built in. Other reliable autoresponder services include Aweber.com and GetResponse.com.

A stand-alone squeeze page can serve as a lead generating machine for your business. With a little forethought, you can have your page created in as little as one hour.