WordPress Sales Pages, Squeeze Pages and Landing Pages [VIDEO] – WPCP: 019

*Disclaimer* I am an affiliate for all 3 tools I mention in this episode and will receive a commission if you buy through one of my links*

This is  kind of a big topic that I haven’t written about or addressed on my site in a long time (I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I’d written about sales pages, squeeze pages or landing pages).  There are two different elements I’m going to focus on for this episode:

1. The copy, reasoning and importance of these pages
2. The options and technical set up of these types of pages

There are a handful of different tools available for creating landing pages and sales pages in WordPress, but for the sake of time and my sanity we’re going to focus on only three today.

Optimize Press2

LeadPages

Premise

But of course before we get into to talking about each of these tools, let’s simply talk about these pages and why they’re important, shall we? (no idea why but I totally got an image of the ‘Church Lady’ from SNL… thank you Dana Carvey).

I’ve had a handful of different landing pages and squeeze pages that I’ve put up for different events or products over the years, but it wasn’t until I took the time to understand WHY they were important and really look at the value they created for my business that I started taking them seriously (I’ve already told you I have a tendency to learn things the hard way, so this probably isn’t a big surprise, is it?).

For me it was all about not wanting to be “smarmy”.  I was so worried about coming across like a cheesy marketer that I was hesitant to put up any type of landing page or squeeze page because I simply could not bring myself to write the type of copy that people used on these pages.

Fortunately I stayed away from the smarmy, highlighted, bolded red headlines (like how I did that? well, most of the time anyways, I can’t say I didn’t try a couple here and there). Unfortunately I didn’t do enough testing and trying of what would have been more true to who I am, until this year. If you’ve been following the podcast you probably know already that a lot of things have changed in my business this year (for the better) and I’m implementing and testing things pretty frequently.

Squeeze Pages and Landing Pages

First let me save you the time from Googling squeeze pages and landing pages, you’re not going to get a clear answer and it will probably just confuse you more. So I’ll go ahead and give you my version. 😉

A squeeze page or landing page is simply a page with one call to action – to capture your visitors name and email address (or just email address).

What I’ve starting doing with squeeze pages (and I’ll just call them squeeze pages so I don’t have to keep writing both, but you know what I mean) is creating different pages on different platforms and testing driving traffic to the pages through ads (Facebook ads) or sharing the links socially.

AND.. guess what? My subscribers are going up! Imagine that! (yes, that was MUCH sarcasm totally directed at myself).

The thing with these pages though is that you don’t need to limit yourself to just one squeeze page, the purpose of these pages is to try different things. Test them, change the headline, see what works. I’ll be brutally honest here and tell you that I’ve never been a big fan of “testing” things (I tend to be more right brain than left brain), but absolutely understand the value in testing and measuring what works.

I’m now becoming squeeze page machine (doesn’t that sound like there should be a song for that..”squeeze page machine”).

There are the obvious types of squeeze pages you can set up:

[icon name=icon-check]Squeeze page for report/ebook/offer

[icon name=icon-check]Squeeze page for something that’s ‘coming soon’

[icon name=icon-check]Squeeze page for some type of one on one session

BUT…

there are also a handful of additional pages you can set up that aren’t as obvious (well, to me they weren’t as obvious) but are missed opportunities if you don’t implement an opt-in. And let me just say this (because I have to qualify everything), I really had to get over myself and the issue of feeling like I was being pushy. When I accepted the fact that my goal is always to provide value and be as transparent as possible the fear of feeling like I was being pushy went out the window (eventually… it took some time).

One of my favorite squeeze pages?

The 404 Error Page! DOH! Totally brilliant!

I have to tell you that the evening I created this page I received an opt-in! Which isn’t necessarily anything to do cartwheels over but it showed me the power of creating a solid strategy around list building and creating a community (they go hand in hand- no exceptions).

Clay Collins and the team over at LeadPages have created a free webinar where you can watch this and a few other strategies that have worked for building and growing your list. You can register for the webinar below:

WordPress Sales, Squeeze and Landing Page Tools

O.K., now that I’ve rambled about squeeze pages in general, let’s take a look at the three different tools that I mentioned. I’m going to try to keep the text here somewhat short, but you can view the videos below on each to seem them in more detail and make a decision for yourself in terms of which one looks easiest or most applicable to your needs. I’ve created a worksheet that you can download at the end of the post that might help in setting up your pages and making sure you don’t miss a step (I’m a total geek about ‘seeing’ what needs to be completed with things).

And let me just say that I like ALL THREE of these tools (all three are plugins but Optimize Press has a theme option also).

Optimize Press 2

I think it’s hugely important to give credit where credit is due and I think Optimize Press (the first version) somewhat revolutionized the way people thought about landing pages and sales pages for WordPress.

They were first on the market (to my knowledge anyways) to create something dedicated to lead capture through WordPress that looked GOOD, had a HUGE selection of built in options and integrated with membership plugins. Oh, and let’s not forget the launch sequence built-in to Optimize Press. The first product was amazing and the brand new version completely knocks it out of the park!

There are SO many changes and updates to Optimize Press 2 that the best way will be to show you in the video, but what is SUPER fabulous about the new version is that you can use the plugin version or the theme version! NICE! The first release of Optimize Press was a theme only. I absolutely LOVE that they have a plugin now! They have also created a membership plugin for easy setup and integration of a membership site. I haven’t played around with the membership plugin yet but will in the next couple of days (I need to use it on two of my sites asap).

I think I’ll do separate videos for the LaunchSuite that is built-in as well as the membership plugin (Optimize Press 2 is probably a stand alone class I should offer… hmmm).

In the video below I’ll show you the options in OP2 but we’re going to focus on the PageBuilder (the video is below the graphic).

LeadPages

Let me just say that had LeadPages come out before Optimize Press I don’t know if I would have invested in Optimize Press. Well… that’s probably not true. I love trying new things and checking out the latest and greatest… fortunately I’ve gotten better about being selective with what I invest in (which I think comes with time and lots of trial and error).

LeadPages is absolutely one of the EASIEST and QUICKEST ways to get pages up, regardless of whether you’re using WordPress (and you don’t have to self-host them either). There aren’t as many customization options available for LeadPages because you build your pages in your LeadPages account and are limited to the page templates they have (although my guess is that there will be more custom options in the future).

There are 3 different ways you can use LeadPages, which makes it great for the not-so-technical user.

1. You can use the WordPress plugin
2. You can self-host the pages on your server
3. You can have LeadPages host them for you

One of the (many) features built into LeadPages is that they track your conversions for you. You can login to your LeadPages account, view your conversions and analytics for each page so you can easily determine which pages are working for you (and which ones need some work).
The screenshot below shows the LeadPages editor of one of my new pages I’m gong to be testing (driving traffic from the podcast). You can get a glimpse of the conversions and analytics in the video below the screenshot.

Premise

Being a fan of StudioPress (Genesis), now part of CopyBlogger Media (yes, love CopyBlogger too) it kind of went without saying that I would invest in Premise when it came out (a year and a half ago maybe? But don’t quote me…). They’ve since released an updated version and it has more added functionality.

I feel a little ‘guilty’ saying this, but Premise is probably my least favorite of the three options here. HOWEVER… it has one feature that alone makes it worth investing in.

Sample Copy and Layout for squeeze and sales pages.

Premise has multiple types of landing page options built in:

• Sales Page
• Content Landing Page
• Pricing
• Optin
• Video
• Tab Scroller
• Thank You
• Social share

In the video we’re just going to go over the Content Landing Page.

Links From This Episode

Optimize Press

LeadPages

Premise