Introduction To Creating Landing Pages That Pull! Series Part 2
Technical Support Guide
by Al Sims
What You Need Before Getting Started
Before you get started building your landing page, you will need a number of things to a) make your offer actually have a point; and b) facilitate the creation of your landing page.
One thing you absolutely must have before you get started is an auto responder. Without any auto responder, you are tossing potential bags of money in the garbage. Rather than creating a relationship with customers and potential customers - and giving yourself the opportunity to attempt future up-sales -- you're allowing them to leave and never return.
In addition to an auto responder, you will need to have an actual offer that people want to buy. You may want to develop a product, such as an E-Book or a piece of software.
If you don't have the skills to do either, you can always hire a professional to do it for you through Elance.com or Guru.com. You will then either want to sell this product and attempt to get subscribers from your thank you page - or you will want to get subscribers by offering the product for free (which is what many Internet marketers now do).
Another thing you absolutely must have before you get started is a check out service. You may want to consider Paypal, Click Bank, or 2 Check Out. All of these services will allow you to make transactions quickly.
Another thing you must have before you get started is a set of graphics, which usually includes a graphic header, a check out button, background wallpaper, and a half-decent picture of yourself. You can probably provide the picture of yourself, but you might want to hire a professional to do the rest.
Another thing you will need before you can get started on your landing page is some way in which to create a realistic signature. http://www.vletter.com is probably your best bet; but, if you're on a budget, you may want to opt for simply using a word processing program.
Planning Your Landing Page Theme
Perhaps the most important part of creating a landing page is planning your landing page theme. How you select your theme, of course, will all depend on how you plan to generate traffic.
If you decide to generate traffic through search engine optimization, planning your landing page theme will entail finding phrases within your niche which have a high demand (aggregate search value) and a low supply (small amount of competing sites) and then creating multiple landing pages, each which is optimized around a different phrase.
If, on the other hand, you decide to generate traffic through pay per click (PPC) programs, such as Adwords, planning your landing page theme will again entail tuning a number of different pages to fit the keywords you are purchasing.
This is actually where most people fail when they create a landing page: they don't tune it to fit a specific audience. For instance, in the case of a squeeze page for a newsletter, they might start a newsletter about toys, but they only create one landing page and send all traffic to it. This is a big mistake.
Chances are, if you create a quality product or newsletter, it can benefit a number of people. So why not communicate the exact benefits they will derive from subscribing or buying?
If, for instance, you have a newsletter about Legos and toy blocks, so you group it under the loose heading of "toys," a visitor who is looking specifically for information about either Legos or toy blocks will click off your page if they don't see the direct connection to the exact topic for which they were searching.
Instead, you will want to setup a page centered around Legos and a page centered around toy blocks. On each page, you will want to communicate the specific benefits to joining the list for each of those groups of visitors.
Going one step further, in addition to planning your landing page theme, if you are creating a landing page for a newsletter, you may also want to segment your list, so you can send information specifically about Legos to those who request it - and information about blocks to those who request it.
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Stay tuned for Part 3 where we will focus on "How To Create A Landing Page That Works!"
Al Sims is a successful Full-Time Internet Entrepreneur and Author. Al Sims is the founder of Rich LifeStyles Network, a community of Home Based Money Makers, Bosses and Entrepreneurs. Contact Al Sims at http://richlifestyles.com
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