Step One - Create a High Converting Squeeze Page

Here is where you are going to step up and become a real Internet marketer. The first step is definitely the most important of all. You are going to be setting up a squeeze page, which is also known as a landing page.

The point of this page is to capture the names and e-mail addresses of your visitors.

You will be capturing their names and e-mail addresses by offering them something of value. The best way to get their information is to offer them something with a lot of value at no cost.

This is a page that will say something like "Sign Up Below To Receive My Totally Free Report Showing You How To Start Your Own Blog" or something similar to that.

Now, you will start to see how these things fit together because after you capture their name and e-mail address, you'll be directing them to a one time offer. On this page, you'll give them one chance to purchase something of great value that will go along with what they have just received for free.

If they decline your one time offer, that's no problem because you can make money from them later on.

If there's one thing that I want you to understand it is this - the entire point of your squeeze page is to get visitors to opt-in to your list. It is meant to capture e-mail addresses and names.

What will you be offering on your squeeze page?

There are tons of different products that you could offer people on your squeeze page. You need to think about who your audience is. I would personally suggest that you think about offering something in the area of Internet Marketing.

People are always looking for ways to make money on the Internet, so if you offer them something that isn't usually available for free, a report or an eBook, they will be willing to share their e-mail address and name with you.

The easiest thing to offer

In my opinion, the easiest thing to offer someone on your squeeze page is a compiled list of resources. All you need to do is think of a type of service that Internet marketers use, and compile a list of those services in a Word document.

For instance, find as many high quality article writing services as you can and write a little review of each one. Or, find a bunch of link building services and write a little bit about each service.

You could actually create a small report over each service. Talk about the good points of each one and the bad points of each one. Give a little bit of information about how to contact the people involved with that service and how to get started. Tell your readers about the offers that they have or maybe how they can get some of the services for free.

Here's the deal - if you are offering something useful, people will give you their name and email address!

Believe me when I tell you that this works like a gem. I have opted into lists like this myself, you have most likely done it as well. I have been online for several years and I have opted in to numerous lists because they were offering me something good for free. If their offer looks like it will be valuable, I will be happy to opt-in to their list.

Furthermore, if you give them something that they really like, they will be hungry for more. That means that they will be waiting for you to contact them again, because you have already established that you know what you're talking about and that you can offer them something of value.

Creating your squeeze page

When it comes time to actually create your squeeze page, you have two options. The first option is to create it yourself - for this to work, you'll need to have just a little bit of basic HTML knowledge. You also have to have somewhere to host your squeeze page. If you want to learn a little bit about hosting, check out the section about hosting under "Flipping A Blog" a little earlier in this manual.

The second option is to use an automatically generated squeeze page so the work is done for you. There are a lot of squeeze page generators out there, but most of them will cost you.

So, I'm going to recommend that you just take about 2 hours to learn a little bit about HTML and create a squeeze page yourself. In the end, this will help you immensely because you'll be able to create something much more personalized when you do it yourself. Plus, basic HTML knowledge is something that you will probably need eventually if you plan on working online.

However, this is not an HTML course, this is an overview of a method to earn you income. I would definitely recommend checking out a few of these resources to learn more about HTML and creating your own squeeze page.

Resource: HTML and Squeeze Page Information

http://www.w3schools.com/html/

http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/

http://www.pagetutor.com/html_tutor/index.html

http://www.squidoo.com/howtomakeasqueezepage

http://www.codrutturcanu.com/13-best-squeeze-page-examples/

Creating an effective squeeze page

So you know what a squeeze page is and you understand its purpose, but it's important that you create an effective squeeze page that has all of the right elements in place so you can maximize your efforts.

Heading

When you first see a squeeze page, your eyes will go directly to the heading. It is the message that grabs your audience's attention. You need a headline that will compel them to continue reading. It has to clearly present some kind of benefit or solution.

Try to use benefit driven words so your visitors know that they will get something out of reading the rest of the page.

The body

The body text of your squeeze page is where you are going to compel your visitors to sign up to your list. Use the body text to reveal how your free product or offer is going to give them what they're looking for.

All you really need is a small paragraph and a few bullet points. Use the paragraph to quickly give an overview of what your product is about. Then, use the bullet points to highlight the features and exactly what someone will learn from your free report or product.

The body text shouldn't be very long and it shouldn't be very wordy. In fact, some people say that your squeeze page should fit completely inside the browser window so someone could read it without scrolling down. I disagree a bit, because I always feel like my free reports give a lot of value and need a little bit more room to be fully explained. But, I try to keep my squeeze pages very short.

Image

No matter what report or product you're giving away, you need to have an image of it. You can either create an image yourself or you can have one made for you on a freelancing website or even on fiverr.com for a few dollars.

If you are giving away a product which you have resell rights to, a product image may have already been made for it.

Your opt-in form

This is the form where your visitors will enter their name and e-mail address. The code for your form will be given to you by your auto-responder service.

An auto-responder is a service which allows you to automatically send e-mail messages to people on your list. I would definitely suggest that you check out a service called Mail Chimp at www.mailchimp.com. They offer a free membership level that allows you to send out tons of messages without paying anything. More about auto-responders a bit later!

Resource: www.mailchimp.com

Creating your opt-in form with Mail Chimp is very easy. You just use their auto generator and you'll be given the code so you can put it into your squeeze page. They have very helpful articles to help you out!