Landing Page Handbook

Most internet marketers realize the importance of building a list for long-term profits and success but many are daunted about how to go about actually setting up a landing page and everything that goes with it!

Well, you’re in luck! Here’s my free landing page handbook of instructions. Follow these 11 steps and you’ll have a great landing page up and running and get heaps of traffic to it in no time:

1. Decide what it is you want to achieve with this list. E.g. are you going to promote an affiliate offer or sell your own product?

2. What free offer are you going to use to get people to sign up to your list? This can be a report, email mini-course, etc.

3. Write up your landing page. Don’t reinvent the wheel here. See what other successful marketers are doing and model your landing page after there’s.

4. Integrate your autoresponder form into your landing page. I like Aweber.

5. Setup a thank you page. When someone signs up to your list, they will be taken to a thank you page. Don’t use Aweber’s (or your autoresponder’s) default one. On your thank you page, you’ll ask them to check their inbox and confirm their email address (if you have email confirmation turned on – this is the default) but also place a link to your affiliate offer or the product you are selling.

6. Setup an email confirmation page. If you’re requiring your subscribers to confirm their email address, set up a dedicated email confirmation page (don’t use Aweber’s default one) and on it place a link to your affiliate offer or the product you’re selling.

7. Write up your first email message in your autoresponder series. This can be a brief ‘thank you for subscribing’ email or the first part of your email mini-course if that’s what you are doing. If you are offering a free report, provide the download page for the report.

8. Monetizing your list. Make sure that from the very first email in your autoresponder series that you have links to your affiliate offers or your own product. You don’t have to overdo it – as long as they are there. Don’t sell to your list – presell them. Give them valuable content and then recommend your products. If you are offering a free report, include your affiliate links within the report or in a “Recommended Resources” section at the end.

9. Getting some traffic to your site. Once your landing page and backend are all set and ready to go, you’ll want to get some traffic to your site and track conversions. Here’s a few good free ways to do this: Write a few articles and submit them to EzineArticles.com with links back to your landing page in the resource section. Sign up for free giveaways. Participate in relevant forums and place your landing page link in your signature.

10. Track conversions. Check your Aweber stats for optin conversions rates. Once you are happy with your signup rate (I believe 25 – 50% is a good optin rate) and you’re also making some sales then it’s time to send more traffic to your site.

11. Traffic Generation Strategy. There are many ways to get traffic to your site – some paid and some free. Step 9 mentions some free ways. I would continue with those on a consistent basis. Here are some other good free traffic generation strategies:

– Submit your site to the main search engines, i.e. Google, Yahoo and Bing.
– Also submit your site to the DMOZ directory.
– Sign up for a free TubeMogul account and start uploading videos online (they submit it to Youtube and 20+ other video sharing sites).
– Create a blog and add regular posts. Place links on your blog back to your landing page or have a signup form on the blog itself. Get your blog listed on Technorati (blog directory)
– Use Twitter and Facebook
– Use free Social bookmarking services, like Onlywire.
– Do email ad swaps with others in your niche or in related niches.

You may also want to use PPC (Google Adwords, Bing Ads) if you are willing to spend money on advertising and your list is converting into sales.

Download the pdf version of the landing page handbook here.