Most beginning marketers know in their heads that the money is in the list but few will begin building a list in the beginning. Once they do start, they are likely to just put an opt in box in the sidebar of their blog and call it good.

Only having your opt in box in your sidebar is a huge mistake because there is just too much going on and too many choices a reader can make once they hit your site. They can read articles, click affiliate links, or even click the back button. Too many options leads to confusion and a confused mind never does what you want it to do. If you are trying to build a list you don’t want confusion you want the only option to be to sign up to your list.

What is an opt in page?

An opt in page, which is also known as a squeeze page, is a simple web page that has one, and only one, mission. The only thing you want people to do when they land on the page is to sign up to your autoresponder. An opt in page is a short page, generally short enough that people dont have to scroll. It provides a little bit of information about what you will offer to people if they join your list, and then has space for them to enter their name and email address.

Creating an opt in page will increase your subscriber rate enormously. Since there are only two options to get off the page, sign up or click the back button, you will find most people will opt in to get your gift or ecourse. If you are providing a nice incentive (gift) for them to give you their email address, most people wont say no.

What Makes an Opt In Page?

There are only a few must have elements for an opt in page. First of which is a free gift to entice people to join your list. This gift can be a free report, an e course, or even a newsletter. Creating this freebie doesn’t have to be stressful, it can be as simple as collecting 5 or articles you’ve written on the topic an putting them together in pdf format. You could even use a plr report you’ve purchased on the topic. It’s a little more expensive, but if you don’t want to do the writing you have have one written for you by a freelance writer.

The second element on your squeeze page is your headline. This is where you grab their attention and make them want to keep reading. This is what lets them know if you what you have is a match to what they are looking for. Here’s an example of one of my well converting squeeze page headlines. “Learn from a Giant Squid How to Make Squidoo work for You” Learn step by step how to choose a topic, find great products to promote, set up a new squidoo lens and start making money!…” This is for a 10 day ecourse on how to use squidoo to make money. This site converts quite well because people come looking for how to do squidoo and that’s just what this page offers.

You want to tell people how they are going to benefit from getting your information and being on your list. If you’ve created an ecourse you can go through each lesson and pull out the biggest benefit. This can be a short bullet point list. You want to show benefits, but you don’t want to make this a sales page. If you can keep all this information above the fold of your page, all the better.

The last piece of the puzzle is your opt in box itself. You can get this from your autoresponder. Make sure you mention the free gift and give them some instructions. It seems ridiculous, but when you specifically say something about them entering their name and email address conversion rates go way up. Crazy but true. Once the code has been created by your autoresponder, all you have to do is paste it right on to your squeeze page.

Yes, an opt in page is just one simple page, with a few elements, but it is also a very powerful tool. If you want to increase the conversion rate from readers to subscribers an opt in page is a must have tool.