The previous article: Ultimate squeeze page guide part 1 – Finding and installing your page. looked at why we need to build a list and optimize our squeeze page, places to get squeeze pages and how to upload them to your server. Now we will look at how to split test our page to get the maximum opt in rates possible.
Tools for split testing
The best split testing tool I can recommend is Google Web Optimizer. This utility is free with any Google account is very simple but effective to use. Just log into your account and go to Google website Optimizer and when you’re at your dashboard in your account, click on create new experiment.
Now choose “Create a new experiment” followed by – A/B Experiment – The simplest way to start testing fast
The screen you see after this basically prepares you by making you identify all the pages required for a split test. You need one page which will be classed as your homepage, you need an alternative page that will be our variation, and you need a conversion page.
The conversion page is just a page that subscribers see after they have completed the necessary sign up steps. This could be the download page that you send them to or just a thank you page that your auto responder sends them to. As long as this page is only seen by successful subscribers then we can track our sign up rates because it means that they have entered their e-mail address.
Web optimizer works by rotating the two pages that you specify every time a new visitor arrives at your URL. It does all this automatically and behind the scenes and tracks all the data concerned.
A conversion is classed as a visitor completing a desired action. In this case our desired action is for them is to view our conversion page.
Click on the box at the bottom to confirm that you have read previous information and then click create. We now name your experiment and identify two pages in step two. Just enter the URL’s that you made a note of earlier. In step three enter the URL of your conversion page or thank you page.
The next step now gives you all the code that you need to paste into your pages. Follow the instructions carefully here and when you’re finished test your setup. Web optimizer will make sure that everything is working before the experiment goes live.
Now that your pages are uploaded and split testing is set up, you can monitor your experiment by going to your web optimizer account in looking at the statistics. You can now upload new page to you’re hosting every time you wish to start a new test.
Now that the technical stuff is out of the way, next we are going to look at the different page elements and what we can change to increase your opt in rates.
Changing page elements to split test.
This is the nuts and bolts of split testing to success. Everything from what you are offering as an incentive to your headline affects your op tin rate and sometimes even the most insignificant factors can have an effect on the figures. What we are going to do now is systematically change all these components until we see an improvement.
The biggest factors affecting your opt in rates and how to test them
You’ve probably heard that the 80/20 rule. Basically this rule states that just 20% of your actions are responsible for 80% of your success. There are many variables and factors that can affect your opt in rates and I’ll cover a few of the less important ones later, but let’s concentrate on the 20% is really going to make a difference. By doing this we focus on the things that are really important and get the biggest improvements first.
The three most influential elements of the page are the offer, the hook and the call to action. Out of these three the offer is the thing that is going to play the biggest part in getting your visitors to part with their e-mail address. If you create a compelling offer that is resistible, your pretty much there.
The offer
There are several things you can offer as an incentive for someone to enter the e-mail address. This could be an e-book or report, access to a video, subscription to your E-course, a template or some software. This will depend on your niche and your specific business. Just make sure that it is something of value. Obviously more value perceived by your visitor the higher the likelihood of a desired outcome. If your offer is good enough people will hand over their Email address all day long if they really want what you have got.
You probably have an idea of what’s will tempt your visitors but as we discussed earlier we don’t really know so this is probably the Main thing we can test. I personally find that offering a free reports or a couple of interesting tips on a subject usually gets good results. Just make sure you deliver on your promise.
The hook
Your headline is the first thing a visitor sees when they hit your page. It needs to grab their attention and create a sense of curiosity that forces your visitor to read the rest of the page. On average 8 out 10 people will read your headline and only 2 out 10 will read the rest of your copy on the page. You can have the most incredible offer in the world but if visitors are not even getting past your first sentence your page will not work. Writing good headlines is a skill in itself and is beyond the scope of this report however here are few tips to get you started in the right direction.
Just remember that the main purpose of headline to get the visitor to read the next part of your page, here you should make your claim or promise of what your offer will provide.
A Great way to start writing good headlines is to get inspiration from what’s already been done. Scattered across the Internet are things called swipe files. These are collections of ads and sales phrases that marketers often keep to hand to give them inspiration and ideas for projects. Good headlines are very formulaic and when you understand why a headline works, you can take these proven formulas and adapt them for your own purposes.
Here is an example of some headline phrases I’ve just grabbed from one of my swipe files. These can be a great starting point for you to create your own headlines.
Top 3 Reasons Why…
Do You Struggle With…
Winning Tactics For…
Discover…
The Untold Secrets To Making…
Who Else Wants To…
10 Ways To…
Is Your (Insert Topic) Being Threatened?
Learn Exactly How…
7 Amazing Strategies to…
Boost Your…
A Guide To…
Why Aren’t You…?
If you had just one opportunity to…
If You Want To Learn How To…
7 Sure-Fire Tips For…
How to attract more…
Uncover…
How a ‘regular guy’ from Tennessee…
Want To…?
READ THIS: If you are truly serious about…
Do You Wish There Was An Easier Way To…
Tips On…
8 Deadly (Insert Topic) Sins…
Learn How to Start…
How to Make Your…
Are You At Risk Of…?
3 Direct Reasons Why You’ll Be Kicking Yourself if You Don’t…
Double Your…
More Tips To Improve…
Exposed For The First Time Ever…
Learn the secrets to becoming…
How To…
Instant Strategies Anyone Can Use To…
How To Find…
5 Big Reasons To…
10 Steps To…
Tired of…
Techniques That Enable You To…
Watch this ‘shocking’ play-by-play underground video…
5 Action Ideas To Get…
Discover the ‘Insider’ Strategies That…
How to make a life-changing…
(Insert Topic): 3 Things You Must Know…
The 7 Secrets Of…
Skyrocket Your…
The 5 Ugly Lies About…
Finally Revealed!
Uncover…
Get an Instant 20-50% Increase in…
Discover how we…
Proof That…
The Truth About…
How this surprising little secret…
10 Simple Steps To Catapult Your…
Discover how YOU can…
How I (Insert Benefit) In Record Time…
Tips On…
Learn how to EXPLODE…
Sometimes combining two or more of these phrases can give you a great headline with very little thought. For example you could combine some phrases in this way:
“Discover the insider strategies that finally reveal the truth about copy writing that can help you instant 20 to 50% increase in conversions!”
Just scan over the snippets above and try putting them together in different combinations adding your own text specific to your offer and may be changing it all up little. Again we can hypothesize what’s good copy and what’s not but like we agreed earlier we don’t honestly know until we have tested so to split test your headline, just create one for each page and let your visitors decide.
If you’re using bullet points on your page simply look at what you’re offering your visitors and try and write down three or four main advantages or benefits they will receive from the information you are about to give them.
If you want to learn more about copy writing in general you need to visit copyblogger. They have some of the best free information on this subject available anywhere on the Internet and their E-course “Internet marketing for smart people” is a goldmine for anyone wanting to learn this skill. Subscribe and analyze their sales funnel, sometimes just going through a successful funnel like this and observing how each step is done can give you some great ideas.
The call to action
Your call to action is your chance to create some compelling urgency for your visitor to enter his e-mail and press the submit button. It can be as simple as telling them to do just that. Try writing “enter your e-mail and press the submit button” it sounds obvious but this is been proven time and time again to increase conversions on a massive scale.
Some templates use arrows with the words “click here” pointing to the e-mail box leaving no confusion as to what the visitor must do to get your offer. The box should be in a prominent place in the eye should be led towards it in a natural fashion. Combine that with clear specific instructions on what you want your visitor to do exactly.
Even the text on the subject button can have a noticeable effect and should be tested also. I’ve found that using words like “submit” or “subscribe now” doesn’t work as well as words like “grab it now” or “download your e-book” try to think of what it means to the visitor to press the button.
Try to make it sound as if they are gaining something rather than losing something. The word submit tends to make you think of giving something up where as the words grab it now sounds more like you are about to receive something.
The order to split test
In the world of conversion rates, poor performance is in the 5 to 10% region. 10 to 30% can be classed as good and 30 to 50+ can be seen as a great figure.
We talked about the three most important elements of the page that we need to test but before that, our first test is going to be on the template itself. I suggest writing exactly the same headline with exactly the same offer into two templates of your choice and run your first test to see which general layout works the best first.
When enough traffic has passed through to make an informed decision we should next focus on the offer. Don’t worry too much about your headline just yet just make sure that it’s related to and sells what you are offering the visitor.
Now we test the hook. When you have found an offer that people are interested in, try changing your headline and other copy on the page.
Finally we tweak our call to action. This can involve adding arrows that point to the e-mail submit box and changing the text on the submit button.
As I said earlier these are the few elements that will have the biggest impact on your conversion rates so spend your time getting these right. However when you are happy there are other minor but worthwhile adjustments you can make.
Changing the not so obvious
The name? An e-mail submit box as standard asks for both the e-mail address and the name of the subscriber. I have found that just asking for the e-mail address increases conversions. Is one less piece of information the visitor to part with, it’s one less box to fill out and as we know the fewer the obstacles better.
Spam message it is quite common to placing text underneath the e-mail submit box that says something along the lines of “ we hate spam as much as you do and we will never share your e-mail address” try leaving this out.
Colors the colors and fonts used in your copy can have an effect on conversion rates. I like to use black text on a white background using verdana font. Making your headlines bigger than the rest of the text and red in color often works well.
Conclusion
Using the knowledge gained from these two posts you are now in a strong position to create a high converting squeeze page. This should recap sequence of actions you should take in the correct order
1. Upload your templates to your server including the thank you/download page and make a note of the URL’s.
2. Add the download link or the content of your offer to your thank you page.
3. Create a Google account if you don’t have one already and go to your web optimizer dashboard
4. Create a new experiment and setup an A/B split test.
5. Enter the code you are given into your pages and check everything is working.
6. Use your Cpanel or FTP client to edit your pages.
7. Set up an auto-responder account and create a web form. Paste the web form code into your pages.
8. Decide on an offer and a hook and make each page the same to test the templates first.
9. Then test the offer keeping everything else the same.
10. Then test the hook keeping everything else the same.
11. Then test the call to action and any other less important elements like color and font.
12. repeat until your page performs at the required level!
This report has been deliberately narrow in its objectives so that you achieve them without distraction. One of the things we haven’t touched on yet is the quality of the traffic you send to the page. Obviously this can have one of the biggest effects of all. No optimization in the world can make vegetarians sign up to an E-course that’s going to teach them how to cook meat.
However if your traffic is targeted then you can now rest assured that this small yet crucial part of your sales funnel has been taking care of. A lot of the techniques discussed here can be used in other areas of Internet marketing such as sales page copy and e-mail marketing. Writing attractive, enticing headlines and putting the right offer in front of the right people will go a long way to giving you your conversions.
If you only take one lesson away with you today let that be the one on split testing. Split testing is key to this kind of Internet marketing and completely removes the mystery involved in what can be a very murky place. Once this skill is mastered you can test anything to success. It is a simple case of testing just one element at a time and keeping the best performing one. Using this approach guarantees improvements, edging you closer step-by-step to your ultimate goal and you can often turn an unprofitable process into a complete winner.