Affiliate Resource Guide

The Death of Squeeze Pages

For years now, the squeeze page has practically been the lingua franca of the marketing online world. Whether you’re in real estate (and actually, the real estate industry in particular has leaned particularly heavily on squeeze pages), banking, e-commerce or anything else, the conventional wisdom has been to target tightly focused groups of consumers through these web pages/marketing tools.

These pages do OK at helping marketers identify which keywords or keyword phrases do well in terms of attracting targeted traffíc and if they’re well designed, at gathering email addresses or other contact information from these visitors. However, there are much better methods of doing keyword research than creating a separate squeeze page for each of your keywords. Additionally, building and maintaining these pages represents an investment of time and money which isn’t likely to produce a worthwhile return.

The squeeze page is dead – it just doesn’t know it yet and neither do the marketers who still use this direct marketing-style methodology in their líst building efforts. I know there’s probably at least a few of you out there reading this that still use them and are wondering what exactly is wrong with squeeze pages.

As it happens, the answer is plenty. They’re unappealing to consumers and increasingly, they’re seen as undesirable pieces of virtual property by the search engines as well. When you’re trying to market your business with a tool that turns off both your target market and the search engines, it’s clear that the time has come to abandon ship. I’ll explain in more detail below.

They’re Completely Unappealing To Readers

You’ve seen a squeeze page before – and chances are you’ve hit the back button on your browser almost immediately. These pages almost universally feature incredibly unattractive cookie cutter designs and copy which is generally nothing but sensational hype. That alone is enough to turn off most readers, not to mention that squeeze pages seem all too often to be riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. Put simply, they don’t look professional by any stretch of the imagination – but they do look professional enough to fool many business people who are new to the medium of the web into using them at least for a while.

Think of it this way – if you got a flyer in the mail that looked like one of these pages, would you be in a hurry to contact the marketer to sign up for their mailing líst, let alone actually do business with them? Probably not.

As a general rule, if it looks too awful to be true, it’s just what it looks like and squeeze pages are a prime example of this. They lack any kind of credibility with your prospective customers, especially when you’re in the real estate business. These pages make you look like the online equivalent of a shady used car salesman, not the kind of person that people want to do a real estate deal with. There are other things about squeeze pages that turn off your potential customers, but since there’s some crossover with this and the SEO shortcomings of the format, we’ll get back to that a little later on.

Google Slaps Squeeze Pages

It’s true: squeeze pages are nothing less than poison as far as your performance in the search engines is concerned. Google and other search engines have been working on ways to discount the rankings of these pages, which are rarely the kind of content that users are actually looking for when they use the keywords which these sites target. It comes down to what it always comes down to when search engine rankings are the issue – relevance. A webpage designed to entice visitors to fork over their contact information simply isn’t that relevant to many, if any, actual search engine queries, no matter how much content you try to cram onto the page.

Speaking of the content, this is something which has changed about squeeze pages in the last couple of years. Once these pages started being penalized by search engines for their lack of content (“classic” squeeze pages, after all, feature little more than an opt-in form), marketers started turning them into the online equivalent of the long form sales letter – in other words, something no one wants to read, especially not page after page. This unappealing content has led to a further decline in the ranking of these pages in search results, making them even worse marketing tools than they already were.

Squeeze Pages Can Sink Your Main Site

Let’s get back to that subtitle about Google “slapping” squeeze pages, because this is one of the most important points I’d like to make here today. If your squeeze pages either link to or are part of your main site, they’re more than likely causing a slump in your main site’s search engine ranking, making you less visible to your market online. In other words, the exact opposite of what you’d hoped to accomplish. If these pages link to your site, you can be penalized for these links from unpopular sites in what Google considers to be an iffy online neighborhood – and what are the three most important things in real estate? Exactly.

Another way that squeeze pages can drag down your online presence is through having a large percentage of duplicate content. Many businesses throw up dozens of squeeze pages which are basically identical other than the targeted keywords for that particular page. Even if you make an effort to rewrite the content on these pages, there’s only so much you can do without putting a disproportionate amount of time or money into the effort.

So if squeeze pages are out, what are real estate professionals to do in terms of marketing online? There’s plenty of options, all of which are better choices than building a series of squeeze pages. I won’t go into them all here, but as always on the web, it’s all about good content which is geared towards readers first and search engines second. When your market sees you as credible and reputable, they’ll beat a path to your door and happily sign up for your email list. And where the market goes, the search engines will follow; but no one’s flocking to squeeze pages.

About The Author

Former Software CEO turned Internet Marketer, Duncan Wierman shows you how to use creative marketing methods to create a full time income online. Duncan is the original creator of the software that finds business LEADS and converts them to income. Get a trial copy at: www.OnlineLeadFinder.com

5 Common Facebook Tactics – That Don’t Work!

There are about ten common Facebook marketing tactics. (You can probably think of more, but most are a derivative of one of these ten.) It may surprise you to learn that five of these tactics don’t even work — that’s fully half! Now, no Fire God will suddenly appear to smite you if you happen to have done one of the following things. They are definitely mistakes, but they aren’t irreversible. In fact, they’re really only mistakes in one sense of the word.

My perception of these as “mistakes” isn’t about breaches of the unwritten Facebook etiquette either – I dance on those lines myself from time to time.

Rather, I’m calling them mistakes from a perspective of effectiveness, versus the alternative behavior. Whether they’re wrong in terms of just coming across as rude or politically incorrect is another matter altogether.

Having said that, off we go.

Mistake #1 – Posting Signature Links on Profile Walls with Your Introduction

I asked someone why they did this once, especially since I’d already been to their site and purchased the item they were selling on that page.

She said: “I saw someone else do it.”

“How did it make you feel?” I asked.

“I felt kind of used. But I figured if that’s what it takes to be successful, that’s what I’ll do, even if it doesn’t seem quite right.”

Now that’s deep.

I understand though, because once I made the vow to become successful, I also made a vow to do “whatever it takes”. At the time I thought it meant hard selling and being pushy. I later found it meant hard work, and doing what’s right even if there’s a lazier, easier way.

Even if this was at one time effective in terms of getting clicks from random profile visits, Facebook is now much more stream-driven than it is profile-driven.

And that’s a huge part of why this is a mistake in terms of effectiveness.

Not to mention that people who see these postings as rude or attempts to spam can remove or hide them. They may even drop you as a connection, which cuts you off not just from them, but from their network.

You’re not missing out on anything by omitting that signature link. Your name, hyperlinked to your profile IS your signature link. If your profile is set up correctly, prospects will get to your site from there.

Mistake #2 – Pitching

If you want to pitch people on Facebook, buy an ad on Facebook.

It doesn’t have to be a Facebook ad – buy one in a popular Facebook application. No matter how good your elevator pitch is in real life, it doesn’t translate in online networking. Let me give you a hypothetical example from the real world.

Imagine you go to an after-work bar. People go there to relax with work friends, to meet potential mates, on actual dates, and to get to know other people in the business.

You’re unwinding with colleagues when someone walks up, and without forewarning, tries to sell you some steak knives. When you stare blankly, they shrug, and move on to the next person.

We all may chuckle to ourselves, and wonder what that person is thinking… but are you ever the knife salesman when you’re on Facebook?

Honestly, when I first came here, I was tempted to be.

Thank God my better judgement stopped me. I’m telling you that to say this – if you’ve been the knife salesman don’t be ashamed, you didn’t know any better. It’s not like they issue marketing lessons with your incorporation papers.

Just make a vow, right now, to always check yourself before you post. Ask yourself “Am I Networking or Pitching?”

Mistake #3 – Artificial Bonding

I’d respect a person more who was upfront with me, and said they were hoping we could work together, or do some business, than someone who pretended to care about me in order to get me to have a conversation that they could then direct to their pitch.

I wouldn’t buy from them, at least not then. But at least I’d still respect them, which means I could change my mind in the future.

Pretending to like people until you get the chance to try to sell to them is really just pitching with a little bad foreplay first.

Bad foreplay isn’t better than none at all.

Mistake #4 – Favoring Uphill Marketing Over Downhill Marketing

Again, this is a mistake in terms of how effective it is. In my own experience, as well as in case studies of clients, it always works out better when you create a fantastic marketplace presence and people are drawn to you in droves, seeking to do business with you, rather than the alternative.

The alternative, of course, is when you go out and pursue customers and clients one by one.

That’s not to say that you should stop advertising, bidding on projects, or being a go-getter in any way.

It means that while you’re doing that, also create a situation where customers are flowing towards you, seeking you out, asking for help.

It’s much less work to get from interest to sale when they come to you.

Mistake #5 – Fishing on Dry Land

A long, long time ago, I was in a network marketing company. Now defunct, the products they have greatly enhanced, possibly even saved, my life. The products were targeted to people who cared about being healthier and eco-friendly.

At first, I was so excited about what had happened to me, that I told every single person who would listen. I would try and go product by product and explain how great everything was.

After failing Very Hard for about three months, I narrowed my focus.

I bought a bottle of the mineral complex, and some sample sized containers. Then I gave a sample to every single person I could think of who had a health problem that might be related. Orders started pouring in.

Ever since that day, I have remembered two things. First, the one that’s relevant here – proper targeting greatly increases sales. Secondly, give a free sample of something needed to those most starving for it, and they’ll be back to buy more.

A few well-timed, well-placed interactions with the right profile are the main things you need to do the equivalent of offline networking on Facebook. A great profile is just as important as being appropriately dressed at a networking function offline.

Author: Tinu AbayomiPaul
Email: ask@asktinu.com
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