How to Create Top Converting Squeeze page funnel

Squeeze page funnels are essential for anyone that’s looking to generate leads and build a list of email subscribers. The idea is that you gain as many email addresses as possible, letting you put together a list to target in your next email marketing campaign. It all starts with a squeeze page, and then you take things from there. With an excellent squeeze page funnel in place, you can see more conversions, establishing better foundations for email marketing. Naturally, there’s an art to creating a top converting squeeze page funnel. In some ways it’s easy, but in others it is pretty complicated. You have to know the right things to do if you want to see as much success as possible. So, this guide will walk you through the entire step-by-step process of creating your squeeze page funnel. There’s a lot to take in, and we will also cover some of the key terms you need to be aware of. By the time you’ve finished reading, you’ll have a funnel that’s capable of creating and converting so many new leads.

Squeeze page funnel

What is a squeeze page?

Effectively, a squeeze page is a specific type of landing page for your website. One of our main goals is to try and drive as much traffic to our site as possible. This means we publish online ads, we work on our SEO, and we try to get people to click through to our site. 

When they arrive, they’ll land on a specific page. This is called a landing page – hence the name! It’s a page that’s set up to convince your traffic to complete some sort of action. Some landing pages may try and direct the user to do multiple things. 

This is where a squeeze page is different. 

You see, a squeeze page focuses on one primary action; getting email addresses. That’s the sole purpose of this page, and you want to try and convince as many people as possible to provide you with this simple detail. 

The term comes from the ideas that you’re squeezing information out of your web traffic. They land on your site, and instead of being presented with lots of different options, you’re squeezing them towards the desired action. 

Ultimately, this is where the squeeze page funnel begins. You have to focus on creating the perfect squeeze landing page – and we will discuss this in more detail throughout the guide. 

What is a squeeze page funnel?

Now, with a squeeze page funnel, we have two pages to contend with. Obviously, the squeeze page is one of them, but there’s a page that comes after this. We refer to it as the thank you page. 

What’s the purpose of it?

Well, it works as part of your funnel. A user lands on the squeeze page, and you include information on there that pushes them to submit their email details in a little box for you to use. We’ll talk about how you convince them to do this later on, but there are many ideas you can go with. Ultimately, you want to promise them something in exchange for information. It’s a trade-off, a situation where you both benefit. 

This leads to the thank you page. After they submit their email address, they’re taken to this new page that thanks them for their info and provides what you promised. Now, you’ve got an extra lead that you can market things at, and they’ve got something valuable. 

As an example, let’s say someone lands on your website, and your squeeze page pops up telling them to enter their email address to get a free ebook. The person will do as you say, then they can download the book on the thank you page. 

It’s a simple concept, and this entire process is known as the squeeze page funnel.

How do you build a squeeze page funnel?

At this point, you’re getting pretty excited. You know what a squeeze page is, you know how the funnel works, and you’re keen to get started! 

In this section of the guide, we will spend a good deal of time going through all the main steps in the squeeze page funnel making process. Before we begin, there are two main elements that we’ll be looking at:

  • The page content
  • The page structure/layout

The page content refers to what you’re putting on the page. This mainly includes the message you’re trying to give off, and how you’re going to persuade someone to fill in their details. The page structure/layout refers to how the page looks visually. This includes the overall design, where things are placed, the specific things you need, and so on.

With that in mind, here’s what you need to do:

Step 1: Come up with an impressive lead magnet

For those that don’t know, lead magnets are things you promise visitors as a way of drawing them to your business. They come in so many varieties, but they’re probably the most integral part of the squeeze page funnel. 

You see, without an impressive lead magnet, you won’t draw anyone in. Nobody will both providing their email details if they’re not interested in what you’re serving up to them. You have to come up with something very attractive and valuable to your target audience.

Naturally, so many possibilities present themselves here. These are some of the most common and successful lead magnets for squeeze pages:

  • Free ebook
  • Free guide
  • Access to an exclusive piece of content
  • A free report
  • A product teaser
  • A free trial for a service
  • A discount code
  • A limited-edition product

As you make your way down this list, you realize that the ideas are endless. When you put your mind to it, you can use just about anything as your lead magnet. The secret is that it must tick these two boxes:

  • FBe relevant to your business/industry
  • Be relevant to your audience

An excellent lead magnet has to relate to your business/industry in some way. This is because people visit your website for a specific reason. So, they’re obviously going to expect certain things from you. This links to the idea of making it relevant to your audience. Your target audience is interested in what you have to offer. They’re on your website because they’ve been searching for the products you sell or looking for the service you offer. So, they’ve already got an interest in what your business is about. As such, your lead magnet will be more effective if it relates to your business, therefore relating to your customer. 

An example of this can be a business that offers SEO services. Can you think of the target audience for a company like this? It would likely be other business owners who want to improve the SEO of their websites. In which case, would it make sense for your lead magnet to be a free guide to picking the best car insurance provider? 

No, this would be absurd. It’s not something that relates to your business, and it’s not something your audience is interested in. Instead, your lead magnet could be something like a guide to improving website SEO. This strongly relates to your business, and you know it’s what your audience is keen to learn about. Plus, there’s the added benefit of showcasing your knowledge through the guide, which may convince them to contact you later on and pay for your service. 

So, to summarize; come up with a compelling lead magnet that relates to your audience and is relevant to your business. This will encourage people to fill in their details to access what you’ve promised.

Step 2: Build the page itself

This step can be a long one as it involves actually building your squeeze page and getting the basic structure set up. 

Now, there are three different approaches:

  • Build it in HTML – if you have knowledge of how to do this, then go for it.
  • Build it in WordPress – if your site runs on WordPress and you’re confident in using the platform, then this can work for you.
  • Use a landing page builder – this is the best approach as it takes the least amount of time and provides the best results!

We’re not going to talk about the first two approaches as they’re somewhat self-explanatory. Essentially, you will just create a new page, then you can follow some of the steps and ideas are spoken about later on.

Instead, we’ll talk about using landing page builders. There are plenty out there, but you can check out this guide to the best landing page builders if you want to know which ones are better than the rest.

Once you’ve chosen the platform, you can proceed with these steps: 

  • Select squeeze page funnel templates: Most of the landing page builders will have a squeeze page option for you to choose. Essentially, this will give you the best templates for a squeeze page funnel.
  • Choose a design template: Now, you can pick what type of design you like the most. This is purely down to personal preference as each one is already suited to the squeeze page funnel. So, choose one that you like the look of the most, or that you think fits your website better than the others.
  • Edit the template: This stage is where you make the template more relevant to your business. Here, you fill it with information and content for the user to read. We’re going to look at what you need to place on your squeeze page later in this guide, so don’t worry about that now.

After following these steps, you’ll be in a position where you have a squeeze page set up and ready for you to use. Now, you have to add to the page and craft something that grabs your audience’s attention and makes them want to provide their details.

Step 3: Produce the main content

This step usually catches a lot of people out. Mainly, the issue is that you’re looking at your squeeze page funnel from the perspective of a typical landing page. We’ve already discussed the difference between landing pages and squeeze pages. A squeeze page is a type of landing page with one aim; to gain email subscribers. 

You might not think this matters, but it’s genuinely the most important point to remember. Why are you setting this page up? It’s not to promote your business or to promote your services, it’s literally just to get emails. 

Consequently, leave all of that to the rest of your website. The chances are a user will continue onto your site after moving through the squeeze page funnel anyway. So, you can let your existing web content focus on promoting services or products and screaming about how awesome your business is. 

For now, focus on the lead magnet. 

Create short and simple web copy that explains what you’re offering and why it’s so important.

Ideally, the main header on your squeeze page should lead with what the user will get from you. Going back to the SEO guide example, the main header would read “Get Your Free SEO Guide For Small Businesses Today!”. This tells the user what’s up for grabs and instantly makes them interested.

Then, you follow this with a subheading that describes why your offering is beneficial. In our example, this might look a little like this: “Increase web traffic and boost sales within a month”. Again, it’s straight to the point and lets them know what they gain from getting the guide. Most of the time, that’s all you need to put on your page. There’s no need for anything else as you’ve said all you need to say. 

Sometimes, it’s okay to maybe include a few bullet points instead of the subheading. Just make sure the points don’t waffle on about irrelevant information. Use them to drive home the importance of your lead magnet. Make users feel like they absolutely need it in their lives and will benefit from it. 

Equally, you can often have squeeze pages with just a headline. Our fictional SEO company may have a headline that says “This free SEO Guide will increase your web traffic and generate more sales in less than a month”. That’s all they might have as the written content on the page. 

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It can be hard to get your head around this as your instinct is to get into sales mode. With regular landing pages, your sales pitch is a lot more detailed and full-on. But, don’t forget the purpose of a squeeze page funnel. Emails are all you care about, all you’re advertising is the lead magnet, nothing else!

Step 4: Add in a strong call-to-action (CTA)

If your headline and written content are designed to grab the attention of your audience, then the call-to-action is in place to ensure they follow through. Effectively, this is where you generate your leads. 

A call-to-action is basically a button that the user’s click to take them to the thank you page and submit their details to your server. There are loads of call-to-action examples out there that work like a charm. The words you use on the button aren’t as important as the button itself, and the button placement. 

Our only guidance on the wording is that it makes sense in relation to your offer. Let’s go back to our faithful example, and the CTA may say ‘Click Here For Your Free Guide’ or just ‘Click Here’, or even ‘Free Guide Here!’. 

As for the button design, this will depend on the platform you’re building the page on. Usually, you can select the button and tweak the design while you’re building the squeeze page. Make it big enough to stand out on your page. Use bold colors – ensuring that the text can be seen clearly. It shouldn’t be too massive, but it needs to be easy for people to see as soon as they arrive on this page. 

Contrast is key to your CTA design! Try and make it juxtapose the page background. This is the easiest way for it to stand out. 

What about the placement?

It’s simple, you need to place the button directly underneath the text boxes where users type in their contact details. This sounds obvious, but you’ll be surprised how many people put the CTA at the top of the page. Logically, they think this makes it stand out and attract more attention. Realistically, it’s just confusing. 

Remember, this is a funnel! You want to funnel the users down through your squeeze page. It starts with a good headline, then it leads into the subheading or extra content, moving through the textboxes, then finally ending with the button. 

Oh, one more thing. Please test the button to ensure it clicks properly and works. Broken buttons can cost you so many leads. Also, be sure it links to the right page – which will be your thank you page.

Step 5: Use visual content to support your message

Next, you need to support your message with some visual content. In truth, this step can come before the previous one or after it. It’s also not technically essential, but it will help you create a squeeze page funnel that converts. 

Visual content includes videos and images. A big image can help to support your message and really drive the point home. For example, you may choose an image of a guide, which you can edit to say ‘SEO Guide For Small Businesses’ – if you owned the company in our ongoing example. By seeing a visual element on the page, it influencers the user even more. Just make sure the image is relevant and adds something – rather than being a distraction. 

In some scenarios, you could include a video to support the content. It would need to be short, and it would likely be in place of any bullet points or words. You’ll place it under the headline, and it visually explains what the user can get and how it will help them. 

You don’t have to include a video, and it only really works in some scenarios. If your lead magnet is quite hard to explain in words, then a video can work. Likewise, it can be used to show a preview of what the user can get. So, for a guide, the video may show a few screenshots of pages and what’s inside.

Step 6: Create the thank you page

Once all the previous steps have been completed, you will have the first page in your squeeze page funnel. This is where people opt-in and provide their details. Next, you have to set up the thank you page. 

Again, the provider you’ve chosen to create your squeeze page will have an option to build this page as well. It is vastly different from the previous one as you will provide the user with more information. 

So, here are the key elements to include on a thank you page:

A clear note of thanks

Obviously, the page should have a massive thank you note as the top headline. This shows your appreciation and is mainly there for good manners!

Actionable steps to follow

Under the thank you note, you need to provide actionable steps for the user to follow. This is all part of your funnel. These steps will inform the user of what they should do to get their free item. In some cases, it can be as simple as telling them to click on a button at the bottom of the page.

However, you could also send them the lead magnet via email. In which case, your steps should tell them to check their email, then either click the download link or download the email attachment. The important thing is that you lay out all the steps as clearly as possible and that you make them as easy as possible.

Social media links

Lastly, you should have a few links to your social channels on this page. Tell the user to follow you on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – wherever. There’s no guarantee they’ll do it, but it’s one of the most effective ways of gaining some extra followers.

Step 7: Set up & integrate an autoresponder

Finally, you need some way of responding to all of the people who give you their email addresses. Clearly, you can’t sit at your computer waiting for contact information to come in. The best approach is to create an email autoresponder. 

We’re not going to go into detail about setting up an email autoresponder as it is a lengthy process that will take too much time to cover in this article. Instead, we can explain the purpose of this and what it will do. 

In essence, you set up your email client to respond to emails without you needing to do anything. You link it to the squeeze page, so it knows which email addresses come from this source. Then, you have to create your response. Obviously, this will be the same for every single person as they’re all giving you their email for the same thing. You just send through the email with information on whatever you’ve promised and thanking them again.

This response is also a good time to perhaps promote your business a bit more. Tell them a bit about what you do and what you can provide them. Use the lead magnet to play off this. In our example, you could include a piece in the email about how your company can help you get even more out of your SEO by taking the content of the guide to the next level. This sort of thing can help you intrigue the user and perhaps get their business. 

Anyway, this response goes out without you needing to lift a finger. It’s all automated, and you can integrate it into the platform that you built your squeeze page funnel on. We recommend checking out this list of email clients that offer autoresponse features.

How do you know if your squeeze page funnel is effective?

Right, we’re at the point in the guide where you’ve probably got some burning questions. By now, you’ve created your squeeze page funnel and everything is ready to go. How do you know if it’s successful or not?

Well, an advantage of a squeeze page – over other landing pages – is that you have one main thing to worry about. All you’re concerned with is the number of emails you’re getting. So, you simply measure this figure at regular intervals. This could be month-to-month, week-to-week, and so on. If you see the figure keeps rising, then your funnel is clearly working. 

Furthermore, you need to set a target at the beginning of the process. How many new emails do you want to get every week? How many do you want every month? This sets you up with some key performance indicators. If you’re not meeting your targets, then your squeeze page funnel isn’t successful. 

How can you improve your squeeze page funnel?

If your funnel isn’t working as well as you hoped – or you want to gain even more leads – then there are ways to improve it. 

Primarily, we use something called split testing. 

This is also referred to as A/B testing, and it follows a simple concept. The gist is that you make tweaks to your original squeeze page, then test how it performs. By measuring the performance of the newly edited page against the old one, you can see if there’s a difference. 

For example, imagine you altered the heading, and you ran a test. All of a sudden, you’re generating loads of extra leads. This shows you that the heading was an issue. Then, you might tweak something else and see if it leads to improved results or not. The idea is that you keep changing one thing at a time and comparing it against the previous version. 

Take a look at this video for a more detailed explanation on A/B or split testing:

Who can benefit from a squeeze page funnel?

Truthfully, anyone with a website can benefit from creating this funnel. We’ve used the example of businesses, but bloggers can use them as well. If your goal is to generate leads and create an extensive mailing list, then you’ll easily benefit from designing and implementing squeeze page funnels.

What are the best tips for creating your funnel?

We have mentioned plenty of tips throughout this guide, but we’ll put all of the best ones in this section. You can think of them as the dos and don’ts of creating a squeeze page funnel:

  • Do: come up with a compelling lead magnet that’s relevant to your business and will intrigue your target audience
  • Don’t: oversell your business on the initial squeeze page. All you need to focus on is selling the lead magnet
  • Do: keep things as short as possible. You don’t want to overcrowd the page with too much information
  • Don’t: forget to place a call-to-action on the page, making it big and clear for all to see
  • Do: ensure the CTA takes the user to the thank you page. You can’t have a squeeze page funnel without a thank you page!
  • Don’t: forget to fulfil your side of the bargain. Give the user what you promised, and make it easy for them to receive it
  • Do: send follow-up emails to your leads. After all, the whole purpose of this funnel is to generate leads. From here, you can try and sell them products and convince them to give your business a try

Summary

On that note, we’ve come to the very final section of this guide – the summary. We said in the beginning that you should learn how to create a squeeze page funnel after reading all of our steps. We’ve tried to provide you with as much information as possible, along with some key tips to make the process a lot easier. 

Generally speaking, if you use a landing page creator, then you can make your squeeze page funnel in a day at the longest. Always be sure to test your funnel to make sure it’s working. Set critical targets to aim for, then use split testing to make improvements. 

Now, you’ll be in a position to generate lots of leads and to grow your email list exponentially!