Are you unhappy with the number of leads your company website’s generating for you?
If driving traffic isn’t the problem, then I’ve got bad news for you – it’s your website.
*dun dun duuuun*
Don’t worry, though. I’m not going to tell you to redesign it.
Instead, I suggest that you create a squeeze page. And then drive traffic to it, skipping your company homepage.
Feeling slightly hesitant? Good, we’ll answer all the questions that might be popping into your mind right now.
In this beginner’s guide to squeeze pages, we’ll cover the following topics:
Want to skip one section or the other? Just click on one of the quick links above to jump right to the part you’re most interested in.
What is a squeeze page
A squeeze page is a landing page created with the sole purpose of convincing a visitor to leave their contact details – usually an email address.
While other types of landing pages may be designed to generate click-throughs, video views, or some other kinds of user interactions this isn’t the case for squeeze pages.
They are used exclusively to capture an email address and start a conversation with a potential lead or prospect (ideally, this should all be part of carefully planned marketing funnel).
Squeeze pages are sometimes referred to as signup pages or opt-in pages.
Some marketers also use the term landing pages interchangeably with squeeze pages. Personally, I don’t think it’s the best choice and consider squeeze pages to be a type of landing pages, similar to thank-you pages, click-through, or viral landing pages.
Naturally, you may disagree with this distinction.
To make sure we’re on the same page, here’s a squeeze page example, created by Smart Insights.
Squeeze page vs homepage
Why or when should you use a squeeze page instead of your homepage?
The squeeze page definition already hinted toward the right answer.
Your homepage has a different purpose than a squeeze page (in most cases, at least).
It’s designed for many types of users and various goals. There are additional elements like a navigation bar, potentially tons of links, images, and maybe even multiple calls-to-action (CTAs).
Even if you do have a primary CTA or even a signup form in the above the fold part of your page, it’s probably not optimized for capturing email addresses.
And all of these individual elements compete for your user’s attention, while they’re checking out your homepage.
Remember the example I’ve shared above from Smart Insights? Let’s take a look at their homepage now.
You see right away that there are many more elements competing for your attention. That’s because they choose to communicate other things there.
Elements like the navbar, login or blog links, multiple CTA buttons, or the search bar could potentially take away the attention from a signup form – if they had one there.
But they didn’t place a signup form on their homepage. On purpose.
Because that’s what they use squeeze pages for.
Squeeze pages are free of excessive content, links, and any other elements that could potentially distract users from the main goal – providing their email address.
This is critical, especially when you’re running paid ad campaigns to drive traffic to your pages and you have to be careful about your budget.
Before digging deeper into the topic of squeeze pages, I’d like to note that this distinction isn’t always as clear-cut as it may seem.
Sometimes companies design their homepages so that they resemble a typical landing page.
It’s usually the case when the company’s still developing its product, like in the following example from SparkToro.
Or when their primary goal is to generate conversions and new registrations, like in this example from Spotify.
And as always in the online marketing world, landing pages, homepages, and squeeze pages come in all shapes and forms.
How to create a squeeze page
Now let’s look at all the elements your page should include and best-practices to follow when creating high-converting squeeze pages.
1. Make an offer they can’t refuse
The most important element of your squeeze page is the offer.
What is it that the user will get in exchange for their contact details?
This is what we call a lead magnet or a signup incentive. A freebie that’s meant to convince the potential subscriber to leave their email address.
A few examples you might have come across include ebooks, spreadsheets, and email courses.
Here’s one squeeze page example where the lead magnet is a report.
There are many other, however, and it’s important that you use the right lead magnet for your target audience and your campaign.
To learn more about this, read our blog post on lead magnets.
2. Start with a powerful headline
How long do you usually spend on a page before you decide to exit it or fill out the form?
Not much, that’s for sure.
Your headline has to seize that moment. Capture your user’s attention, spark interest, emphasize the value or pain points you’re helping with, and convince them to read more or go right to the form.
Take a look at this squeeze page example that stresses the value right from the start.
Bonus:
Want to generate more leads with your landing pages? Join our free email course:
Essential Landing Page Course
3. Write convincing copy
Writing copy that turns landing pages into conversion machines is both an art and science.
Your supporting copy has to convince users that the offer is exactly what they need and it’s in their best interest to fill out the form right away.
Other times you just need to emphasize the value and minimize the perceived-risk. That’s what Netflix does on their homepage.
4. Use social proof
Marketing copy isn’t always sufficient. Sometimes users need to hear the voice of other customers or users to decide whether filling out the form is the right thing to do.
That’s where social proof comes into play.
Customer quotes, testimonials, and case studies can help you fulfill that need.
Consider this example from Ahrefs, where they’re showing tweets about their blogging course.
5. Add trust and authority elements
Your offer sounds fine, the copy is convincing, and there are even some customer reviews on the page, but that’s still not enough for certain customers.
They want to see what other brands, companies, or people you’ve worked with said about you.
This is especially important if money is involved.
Not exactly a squeeze page, but here’s how Transferwise is using FCA, Bloomberg, Financial Times, and information about the number of their customers to help them minimize customer hesitation.
Here’s how Brian Dean uses authority elements to collect more email signups on his homepage, which is designed pretty much like a squeeze page.
6. Cut down the deadweight
Since squeeze pages are meant to convert as many website visitors into email subscribers, it’s only natural that everything you place on that page should point towards the primary goal.
At the same time, everything that could potentially distract your users from leaving their email address should either be removed or placed somewhere where it’s not going to collide with your primary goal.
What kind of elements do I have in mind?
Think of all the extra links that you have. Your resources, blog, social media, careers page, contact us page, etc. All of these are useful links, but not in that particular moment.
The same goes for all the other content or products you may want to promote along with your lead magnet. If they’re not essential, keep them for later, and consider showing them on the thank you page instead.
You’ll have to approach this individually. See what’s critical for your audience and make a decision yourself.
As an inspiration, consider this squeeze page example from BigCommerce.
Notice that they’ve skipped the navbar or any other irrelevant links here?
As you can see, there are a number of elements and best practices that most high-converting landing pages include.
You can learn more about them in our post on the anatomy of a landing page, written by Pam Neely.
As for design inspiration, here’s an awesome post from Brea Weinreb from 99designs on the landing page design trends for 2019.
List of tools that’ll help you create squeeze pages
You’ve learned why squeeze pages are important and the best practice should follow to design them.
Now it’s time to look at the how part of creating the best squeeze pages. Here are some tools that’ll help you with the process.
Squeeze page builder
GetResponse offers a set of solutions that’ll help you build and promote your squeeze pages with ease.
Here are the main ones:
Landing Page Creator is a squeeze page builder that lets you create landing pages both from scratch or using one of many mobile-responsive templates.
Packed with 5,000 free Shutterstock images, intuitive drag-and-drop editor, and built-in A/B testing capabilities, it’s got pretty much everything you’ll need to design an effective opt-in page.
Here’s what it looks like in action:
Autofunnel lets you run your entire lead generation campaign using just a single dashboard.
By combining elements like the funnel creator, Facebook and Instagram ads, autoresponder sequences, social ads creator, and more – it helps you drive traffic and build your email list fast.
You can learn more about from our post on lead funnels.
Tracking and conversion optimization tools
GetResponse squeeze page builder comes with built-in analytical reports that keep you informed about the number of people who visited your page and how many of them signed up to the list.
If you’d like to gather more analytical data, you can use:
- Google Campaign URL Builder to add campaign parameters to URLs to track custom campaigns in Google Analytics.
- Google Analytics to learn more about where people are visiting your squeeze page from and how they’re behaving
- Google Tag Manager to add other tracking codes or track events, e.g., when someone clicks on a specific link, interacts with your content, or scrolls to a certain part of your page
- CrazyEgg to create heatmaps and record user sessions to learn more about their behavior
- Facebook Pixel to drive more sales, e.g., by showing them to those who visited your website but haven’t converted
Creative and design tools
Last but not least, you’ll also need to be able to design your lead magnets and maybe additional assets for your squeeze pages.
Here are several tools that’ll help you along the way:
- Visme and Venngage – they’ll help you create ebooks, infographics, and other downloadable content you may want to promote on your squeeze page
- Coolors – with this tool, you can quickly generate color palettes you can use throughout your pages and all the content formats
- Unsplash and Pexels – two of my favorite sites containing royalty-free stock photos.
- Squoosh – want to make your squeeze pages faster and lead magnets lighter? Squoosh is the tool we use to make our content user and SEO-friendly.
Squeeze page templates
Now that you know how to make squeeze pages, I’d like to provide you with some more inspiration.
Below you’ll find squeeze page templates that ready to use in GetResponse.
As you’ll see, they’ve been prepared to fit several different industries, but you can adjust them easily to fit any other vertical, too.
Want to give it a try? Go ahead and sign up for a free trial account to access these templates right away.
Fitness coaches
Online coaches
Real estate
Non-profit organization
Professional services
Promoting an ebook
Ready to create your first squeeze page?
Now that you know the basics, you should be fully equipped and ready to create epic squeeze pages that’ll help you generate tons of new leads.
Now, keep in mind that you rarely hit the home run on your first attempt.
That’s why when you’ve successfully launched your first squeeze page, make sure to check out these more advanced materials:
Essential landing page course
Landing page optimization: A step-by-step process for optimizing your landing pages
