How Hard Should a Squeeze Page Squeeze?

Squeeze pages; Everyone uses them. You almost have to in order to maximize your on-line sales. But there are two distinctly different ways to employ them. In this article we will explore the benefits of each technique and help you decide which best suits your needs for selling ebooks on your site.

Just in case you're relatively new to the business, let's first explain what we mean by a squeeze page. When selling ebooks you have two objectives at your web site: to actually sell your product, and to collect names and e-mail addresses from your visitors.

You must collect information from visitors so that you can follow up with them by e-mail to encourage them to revisit your site and buy your product. And, it is likely that somewhere between 96-99% of your visitors will not buy your product--at least not on their first visit to your site! You've probably paid, in some way, to get visitors to your site--so the people who don't buy on their first visit represent a tremendous asset if you work things properly.

Most people selling ebooks on-line will offer either a free PDF report, a newsletter, or a mini-course to visitors in exchange for their name and e-mail address. That's why you call these things a squeeze page: They squeeze information out from the visitors.

There are two ways to do this. Most people selling ebooks will incorporate some kind of pop-up device to appear on their sales page which offers a bonus when people subscribe to a newsletter or mini-course. This is effective, but it to some degree it can distract visitors from your main pitch.

The other technique, (which I find more effective) is to direct traffic to a web page which serves only one purpose: to force them to give up their name and e-mail info before they can get to your main sales page. To be effective, you must offer a super bonus to give away to visitors who sign up. When they enter their info and click "submit," your auto responder asks them to confirm their subscription or desire to receive your information. Your auto responder then should send them a "thank you" page with a link back to your main pitch page.

The second technique will lose some visitors who don't want to submit their information. But these curiosity seekers wouldn't buy anyway, so this process weeds them out and the mailing list you generate will contain a higher percentage of prospective buyers than you would generate with the first technique.