The graphic shown on the previous page would have been the entire page. You can see how it looks at www.bobsbaseballworld.com. You can see that the visitor only has two options. Fill out the opt-in box and proceed to the sales page or move along. (The Bob's Baseball World is a fictitious site that was built live during my Spin Your Web training videos.)

With a squeeze page, the only way a visitor will see your offer is if they opt-in. Once they do so they will be re-routed to your sales page and be able to see your offer. See the autoresponder section to learn how this all takes place. So by taking this approach you are pretty much assuring that a certain percentage of your visitors will never see your offer because they are not willing to opt-in to your list. They are afraid of spam, and just have a general distrust for anybody marketing anything online. These folks are sometimes referred to as "Nervous Nellies". 

As a marketer, using a squeeze page is a fairly bold position to take. You must be very confident that your visitors interest and/or curiosity in your offer is strong enough that they will opt-in to your list in order to actually see the offer. Within the "make money online" niche we are accustomed to the squeeze pages and we realize that we can easily unsubscribe from any list if we are not happy being on it. But in other markets this isn't necessarily common knowledge.

It does not make sense to me to work to bring visitors to your site, and then turn them away without allowing them to see your offer. When you use a squeeze page that is exactly the risk you are taking. Doesn't it make more sense to show them your offer and then also present the opportunity for them to opt-in during the process of viewing your offer? You accomplish this by placing your opt-in box on the same page as the offer. Your opt-ins may be lower than if you used a squeeze page, but then again maybe not. But at least you know that every visitor to your site saw your offer. Since your ultimate goal is to make a sale and not an opt-in, you are increasing your chances of making that happen. If you give me the choice of a sale or an opt-in, I'll take the sale every time. Of course I'd rather have both!

Have Your Cake and Eat it Too?

I have shared my logic for using an inline opt-in box opposed to a squeeze page opt-in procedure. You will have to test both options to see what works best for you. But let's consider a third option that could give you the best of both worlds.

A pop-up window that displays your opt-in box may work better for you. Of course the advantage of using the squeeze page is that it puts your opt-in offer right in the face of your visitor. Since that is all that is on the page, it means that it is the only thing your visitor has to focus on at that moment.

They ask themselves if what you are offering them in exchange for their information is worth it or not, and they take action one way or another. They opt-in or they leave the page. But what if you had your visitors land on your sales letter and then have a smaller window pop-up, and your opt-in box is in that window? That might be kind of slick right?

But what about pop-up blockers? Everybody is running some sort of pop-up blocker these days. What if the opt-in pop-up is blocked and the visitor never even has a chance to opt-in? How could it get worse than that? Well the good news is that the Aweber company does an exceptionally good job at beating the pop-up blockers. However you will lose a few impressions here and there due to the blockers.

One of my other concerns with using a pop-up opt-in box has always been the question of it being a distraction. The fact that the window pops up and commands the attention of the visitor might be a good thing for obtaining their opt-in, but does it distract them from my sales message?

Any good copywriter will tell you that it's all about greasing the proverbial slide and getting the visitor to read through the copy. My sales page has loaded quickly and they have read my headline. I have their attention. Now I begin to build interest with my sub-headline and my introduction. Then here it comes... "pop".

Now I have distracted my visitor with something else. Well perhaps they are already interested enough to accept my opt-in offer, or maybe I have put them off by making the distraction. They had started down my greasy slide and I have brought them to a screeching halt with my pop-up.

So here is something else to consider. Why not have an in-line opt-in box on your sales page and then also have a pop-up opt-in form that appears on the page 10 or 20 seconds after they land on the sales page? In this scenario you will have the benefit of putting your opt-in box in your visitors face with the pop-up. If they refuse that opt-in opportunity, you will still have a shot at it as they view your offer and see your inline opt-in box. Again, this is all easily setup within your autoresponder.

Summary of the Opt-in Options

Squeeze page- This method does a nice job of putting your opt-in offer directly in front of your visitor. It's the only focus of the page and therefore all the visitor needs to think about. The downside is that you will likely get fewer people actually seeing your offer because of their unwillingness to opt-in.

The squeeze page method works best during a high profile launch situation where you have created a significant "buzz" about your product. In a case like a launch the visitor has probably already heard about the product from a forum post, or an email etc. They have already been pre-sold to some extent and already have an interest before arriving at your squeeze page. Therefore the squeezed opt-in comes easier.

Inline opt-in box- Every visitor will view your offer, but it doesn't offer the same "in your face" effect that the squeeze page does.  Sometimes that might be a good thing.

Pop-up opt-in box- This method works nicely to put your opt-in offer front and center before your buyer. They will have to take the action of either closing the window or opting in to make the window go away.

The downside is that your offer may be blocked from appearing at all, or it may serve as a distraction from your sales message.

How can you possibly know which way to go with all of this? You have to test it all out. Testing is a major element in establishing which will convert best for your offer. Simply drive some traffic, test every combination and log the numbers. I would suggest starting with a simple inline opt-in box and bring a couple hundred visitors to your site. Establish what your opt-in conversion and sales conversion numbers are and use that as your control. Then test the other possibilities against that and see where you are.

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