Michael Campbell’s latest ‘Internet Marketing Secrets’ newsletter is reprinted here. The featured article is titled “Landing Page Strategies”. [Newsletter]


Michael Campbell’s latest ‘Internet Marketing Secrets’ newsletter is reprinted here.

Landing Page Strategies

In this Issue: Want landing pages that convert visitors into customers? Here are some of my top tips and a few secrets. Learn how to take an idea like the Clickin’ it Rich Fast Track, and maximize your landing page profits.

Getting Ready for the Winter Traffic

Welcome the Winter Solstice… an ancient and wonderful idea in much of the Northern Hemisphere.

The harvest is stored away. The snow and cold has come. It’s dark most of the day. We can’t plant the crops again until spring. We’re stuck indoors with not much to do. So why not get together and have a festival?

So happy Solstice to the Druids. Dong Zhi to my Chinese family. Viva Epona to the ancients. Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends. And a very warm heartfelt Merry Christmas to all brothers and sisters of the Christian faith. May you all be blessed. May your God keep you from harm and grant you peace.

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you are fortunate enough to share some time with your family, friends and those whom you love. I wish you much prosperity for the new year. All the happiness and joy that life can bring.

But don’t spend too much time drifting along… get ready to take advantage of all those New Year’s resolutions and gifts. The usual hot topics will be the perennial how to loose weight and stop smoking.

Sites and PPC landing pages focused on these topics will do extremely well. So will most health and fitness related pages.

And don’t forget the how-to books for all the tech gizmos that were given as gifts. The how-to computer books are always hot at this time of year.

But you’ve already finished that stuff right? Your ads are in the approval queue. Your landing pages are set to go live… right? If not… you’re falling behind the curve. By now, you should be finishing up your Valentines campaigns.

Next, I’ll start working on Mother’s Day. So much to do… landing pages, PPC ads to write, affiliate programs to join, sites to build. I’ll also be adding a few more sites to my camping mininet. There’s all the new makes and models of gear that I just discovered in the Winter Catalog.

So yes, enjoy your time off and cherish your celebration. For when the new year dawns, will you be ready for the next advertising cycle to begin? By the time Valentines (and Chinese new year) gets here… spring break, summer vacations, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter and Mother’s Day are all just around the corner.

It’s good to be busy. And if you truly enjoy what you’re doing, it won’t seem like work at all. Are you ready run out and meet the cash that’s about to be spent in the coming weeks and months? If you are, then here’s to a happy and VERY Prosperous New Year!

Landing Page Strategies

I’ll have to write more about landing pages in future issues, as so many of you have questions about them. I’ve hidden a few gems inside blog posts, but it seems as though many of them were missed.

In case you haven’t done so already, I invite you to download Clickin’ it Rich and do a quick review of the Fast Track in the Action Plan. This is the path we’ll be exploring today. PPC ads that lead to landing pages for consistent and predictable revenue.

Clickin’ it Rich Fast Track ==> http://www.clickinitrich.com/cir/

For this article, I’m going to assume you’ve got your keyword research done, your ads written, and are ready to move on to creating the landing pages. So if you’re ready… here are some of my biggest landing page strategies.

The three styles of pages that I find most effective, are the product review, the product comparison and the conclusive article. We’ll take a look at all three.

But before we get started on the landing pages, here are a couple of tricks that will help you with your content. You’ll want to do these steps before you start writing your landing pages.

Visit Amazon, ePinions and the manufacturer’s site. Get ready to take a lot of notes and snag some photos.

All three sources will help you understand the product better. You’ll get honest reviews and opinions. You’ll also be able to glean a lot of ad copy from the sites for use on your pages.

On Amazon, you can sort by best-sellers to view the most popular. You can see how many stars the product was awarded, so you don’t accidentally try to sell a bad product.

Amazon also has a lot of other tools for the landing pages. The “Customers who bought this item also bought” lets you know what other products the visitors are likely to buy. The “Customers who viewed this item also viewed” tells you which products to feature in a head to head comparisons.

My real secret are the Consumer Reports. It’s the best 26 dollars per year that you could ever spent. They’ve got articles on just about everything. Recall notices and product safety information. Unbiased product reviews and thousands of items rated and compared to each other.

Consumer Reports ==> http://www.ConsumerReports.org

Ok, now that you’ve got some inside information, it’s time to move onto creating the landing pages. And regardless of the type of landing page, the headline at the very top, should continue the conversation the person was having when they clicked on your PPC ad.

When they did a search using their keyword phrase, your ad got triggered. Your ad convinced them to click on it. Make the headline at the top of the landing page, match the content of the ad as closely as possible.

Now lets look at three of the most successful styles of landing pages. The review, comparison and article.

The stand alone product review works well when in comes to software and ebooks. I’ll usually host it on a site with other product reviews, so it gives the review more credibility. I try to give a fair and honest assessment, pointing out both the good and bad aspects.

Usually the person reading the review is looking for product that will save them time, be more productive and earn more. Play on that and angle your ad copy in that direction.

Same deal with ebooks. People are looking for the same things, but they’re also wanting to learn something they didn’t know before. Reinforce that desire in the ad copy, by telling them that they’ve made the right decision, and how much better they’ll feel by the end of the course.

If you’d like to get better at doing product reviews, pick up any computer magazine at the newsstand. Be sure to included product photos, or the software box. Rate the item on the star scale. Do a summary pros and cons.

In short, emulate what the magazines do – the standard review format – and your review style landing pages will do very well.

When it comes to comparing two to four different products. I have affiliate links leading to all of them. So it really doesn’t matter which one they choose, I still get a commission.

The comparison page is where the intelligence gathered from Amazon really helps. You’ll want to feature the three or four most popular items on the page.

The opening paragraph is where you do the actual selling. This is where you tell the reader that this is the right place to be, and they’ve made the right choice by coming to your page. You’ve listened to all their concerns and you’re here to share a solution.

What you don’t want to do is mention that a certain product was rated number one over at Amazon. They’ll click off and you’ll loose ’em. What you can say – with great effect – is that a certain product was rated #1 at Consumer Reports.

They don’t sell anything at Consumer Reports. And you can’t get access to most of the reviews without a subscription. So they’ll have to take your word for it.

In addition, if Consumer Reports haven’t the product reviewed yet, you can simply talk about the brand. You could say something along the lines that, “This brand widget is consistently rated in the Top 5 and CR Best Buy at Consumer Reports.”

After the opening paragraph, you don’t want to oversell on the product comparisons. Just provide the facts. Then gently nudge the reader ever so gently with a four out of five stars type rating system.

Finally conclude the product comparison page with an emotional twist. For in the end, it doesn’t matter which one of the four widgets they choose. Imagine showing this new product to their friends. Inviting them over to experience what it does. To bring people together and celebrate a friendship.

My tests have shown that you don’t want to compare more than four items on a single landing page. Too much choice leads to overwhelm and much less satisfaction with the product.

Fewer choices like three or four, mean the person is far more likely to make a choice, follow your affiliate link and make the purchase. They are also far more likely to be satisfied with that purchase.

The article page is something new that I’ve been experimenting with. It doesn’t convert as often as the review or comparison style landing page. But when it does, the orders are usually pretty huge.

In the beginning, I start talking about 10 different things, related to the opening headline. But which path to choose, which product is the best?

I’l lead the reader down a slippery slope, eliminating one contender after the other. Then at the end, I conclude the article with a single affiliate link as the best solution to the problem.

For example, I did some research into promotional gifts. Turns out that one product is a clear winner.

At the start of the article I talk about the usual promotional cups, pens and personal items, and how they’ll only be seen by one person, usually the recipient. With other products they’re not very useful and end up in a drawer. Some the ink wears off due to use. Some like calendars are given once per year.

But one promotional gift not only gets used, it gets seen by tens of thousands of people over its lifetime… Can you guess what it is?

Then after I’ve told the story based on my research, I tell them the best promotional gift and link out to the merchant. So far the orders have been huge.

So there you have it. Some of my top landing page secrets. Now go put these tips to use right away, and start earning a lot more, from every single one of your landing pages.

That’s it for this issue my friend. Thank you for reading. We’ll chat again soon. Until then, here’s wishing you all the best for online success.

Michael Campbell

P.S.

Want more content just like this? Get the FAQs, important news and more helpful articles on the Internet Marketing Secrets (IMS) Blog.

IMS Blog ==> http://homepage.mac.com/dmcorp/index.html

WebLink ==> Click

Legal stuff…

Copyright 2006 Dynamic Media Corporation. All rights reserved world wide. All trademarks and servicemarks are property of their respective owners.

The information contained in this newsletter is the opinion of the author based on his personal observations and years of experience. Neither the author or publisher assume any liability whatsoever for the use of or inability to use any or all of the information contained in this publication. Use this information at your own risk.

Privacy Policy: I never sell, rent, trade or lend any information about my subscribers to anyone, for any reason, whatsoever. I assure you that your privacy is respected and well protected.

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