You’ve probably heard many Internet marketers extol the virtues of “name squeeze” pages - pages designed to force a visitor to give you their name and email address - and join your email list - before allowing them to enter your website. I’ve certainly discussed the benefits of doing so too - the major one being to yield a much higher optin rate than is typical for an “open” website.

But here’s a timely newsflash: a name squeeze page may be killing your sales.

For a few of our own sites we tested (a) having a name squeeze page fronting the website and (b) providing open access to the site i.e. allowing visitors to navigate all public pages in the site, and to choose to optin to a mailing list if they wished. We found that while having a name squeeze page certainly yielded substantially more optins, sales were much higher when we did without the name squeeze page.

Looking at customer orders in these particular niches gave us a clue as to why sales were higher - the vast majority of customers bought when they visited such sites for the first time. It seems that having a name squeeze page caused a lot of people to sign up who were curious about what lay within our site… or wanted the free offer available as part of signing up (i.e. each of our name squeeze pages had a free report, email mini-course or something else to entice subscribers). But not necessarily customers.

Meanwhile, legitimate customers seemed deterred by our name squeeze page. Perhaps, in these particular niches, our name squeeze page undermined the perceived trustworthiness of our site and product/service offering among potential customers.

We are certainly not alone in finding that most of our customers in these particular niches were more likely to buy on their first visit to our site rather than later. The head of a large corporate Internet marketing department told me that 60 percent of his company’s online purchasers bought when they first visited the company’s website. Furthermore, 80 percent of customers bought within two days of visiting the website for the first time.

So… what is YOUR sales data telling you about your customers? If they tend to buy on their first visit to your site… and if a name squeeze is likely to detract from your perceived trustworthiness or legitimacy… you may be better off ripping that name squeeze page off your site. Sure, it may mean you build a smaller list… but if your main aim is to generate sales, it may be the way to go.

Of course , a name squeeze page may still be optimal in other circumstances - for example, where your primary goal is to build a list. One site where we have kept our name squeeze page is the website of our motivational newsletter, Success Accelerator at http://www.successaccelerator.net Because the main aim of that site is to build a list of subscribers and to subsequently promote various of our own products, affiliate products and advertiser products, a name squeeze works best.

All this just goes to show that, as Internet marketers, we can’t afford to blindly follow what others - even experts - advocate. By all means, try lots of things, but always look at results and data to work out what works, and what doesn’t, for your particular niches and offerings.

Okay, so you’ve got an enticing offer that will generate tons of subscribers to your email list.

But, it’s not just the OFFER that needs to be extremely persuasive… it’s also how you PRESENT the offer.

To use an extreme example, burying your subscriber optin form (i.e. the form where people enter their name and email address) at the bottom of your webpage, or even worse, within the depths of your website, is unlikely to attract many subscribers.

By contrast, having the optin form “above the fold” (visible when someone visits your site - so they don’t have to scroll down) and on EVERY page of your website will usually have a much greater response.

Other things you can do to increase your optin rate are to have an appealing headline and subhead, and include a reassurance that the subscriber’s details will be kept safe and secure.

We’ve found that including a “pop over” or “hover ad” - a layer that floats over the webpage and includes an optin form - can also substantially increase the optin rate.

Also some marketers say that including the optin box on the right hand side of the page is more effective than having it on the left, since studies show that (Westerners’) eyes tend to rest on the right side of the page.

And of course there’s the “name squeeze” page which is likely to generate the MOST subscribers (but not necessarily the most qualified subscribers. See: The Dirty Little Truth About Name Squeeze Pages).

These are definitely things to test!

Before we get started, you may be wondering… what’s a “name squeeze” page?

Also known as a “forced optin” page or simply a “squeeze” page, a “name squeeze” webpage or website is simply a site where the visitor must enter their name and email address (and possibly other details) in order to “enter” the site.

Now, why on earth would anyone effectively say to a visitor:

“You can only come in if you give me your name and email address!”

Wouldn’t that turn most visitors away?

Actually - depending on the site in question - the answer is:

“Not necessarily.”

Now before I go further, let me explain the dirty little truth that many name squeeze advocates seem to conveniently ignore.

(And the irony is that I know of at least three high profile “name squeeze” zealots who do NOT use name squeeze pages on several of their key websites!)

The dirty little truth is that name squeeze pages are NOT necessarily the best way to enlist the MOST QUALIFIED prospects into your sales funnel. This depends on a number of things, but in particular:

• Your target market - where are they coming from, what are they looking for, are they ready to buy now?
• Your product or service

We have tested requiring prospects to enter a given site via a name squeeze page versus allowing them full access to the site before inviting them to sign up for something.

In several instances, we received fewer subscribers… but MORE sales from a site WITHOUT a name squeeze page.

Also, remember that the effectiveness of certain tactics - such as name squeeze pages - changes over time. Especially as more marketers use them (and certain types of marketers use them) which can detract or enhance their effectiveness.

Having said that, in some cases name squeeze pages continue to be the most effective way of generating sales. If prospects are more likely to buy if the marketer builds a relationship with them via ongoing email communications (rather than simply presenting an offer upfront) then “forcing” prospects to join an email list may be optimal.

In fact, there are two specific cases where it might be best to use a name squeeze page. Where:

1. Relationship Building Is Required

With target markets that are likely to be more (or only) responsive based on having a positive relationship with the marketer, the main aim should be to get them onto a list. This enables you to build that relationship via ongoing email communications.

Forcing prospects to provide their name and email address before seeing any of your content is based on the idea that you’ll get more of your website visitors opting in to your list than otherwise.

A good name squeeze page may deliver an optin conversion rate of 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent or higher, depending on where the traffic derives. (Note that 20 percent of search engine traffic may be just as good as 50 percent of traffic from an endorsed mailing).

That’s a significant percentage of visitors you can now communicate with, build a relationship with, and sell products or services to - not just once, but again and again.

One major caveat though: it doesn’t necessarily follow that getting more optins via a name squeeze page will get you more QUALIFIED optins than if you allowed free access to your site and encouraged people to join your list by other means.

2. You Don’t Have a Product or Service Yet

Another reason why you might use a name squeeze approach is where you haven’t yet got a product or service to sell.

By emailing your prospects on a regular basis, you get to build both a list and a positive relationship with your subscribers, so that by the time you do have a product or service, they are more likely to buy from you.

One final point about name squeeze pages. They only work if you offer something people are willing to trade their name and email address for! The greater the perceived value, the more - and more qualified - subscribers will likely sign up.

Of course, the best way to test whether or not a name squeeze approach is the most profitable is to test each approach.

You’ve probably heard that you should test each key aspect of your marketing before assuming that one particular approach is more effective than another. All the same, it’s very easy to assume that if a particular tactic works for one target market / product / website, it should work just as well for another.

Big trap! While there are some universal principles… there are many elements that may work better or worse for a particular market.

For example, many people have modeled their name squeeze pages on Eben Pagan’s previous DoubleYourDating.com home page (it’s since been changed). Accordingly, they’ll have a headline, some bullet points and a name/email form. But is this necessarily optimal for your market?

While I’m still trying things, testing and tracking, I can tell you that initial testing has shown that, in some cases, having no bullet points has worked significantly better than having bullet points or any kind of lead-in copy. Yes, sometimes short copy beats long copy!

I’ve also found some other key differences between my various target markets. For example, on the “thanks” page (the page someone sees after signing up through my landing page) a prospect is given a link that takes them into the main area of the relevant site. Now you might think that the same word for that link e.g. “Next Page” or “Enter Site” might work just as well for all my sites. Not so! Early testing is showing that while one target market may be more responsive to “Enter Site”, another is more responsive to a different word. And that’s not to say that I have worked out the optimal link/word yet!

So, the big lesson here is to test everything, assume nothing!

Having instituted ongoing split-testing for landing pages on various websites (a range of different niches - you can see some of them in the list to the right) one of my major take-outs is:

Different target markets will respond differently to the same elements.

There are NO hard and fast rules about whether or not you should have a header graphic, an image, a photo, long copy, short copy, bullet points, testimonials, etc. I am finding that having one particular element on one site for one niche will generate an entirely different response to having the same element on another.

Have I found any consistent patterns? Yes: short copy on name squeeze pages seems to work much better than long copy to get optins. And if you are going to have long copy, have it below the optin box. Whether or not it generates the same quality of optins… still to be tested. However, don’t take my word for it - test it for yourself. And don’t assume that works for one site, will work for another.

Here are six (6) tips for helping your email messages fly through the spam filters.

1. Regularly check your blacklist status. Visit these sites for blacklist updates: http://www.dnstuff.com; http://www.barracudacentral.com/ and http://www.Senderbase.org.

2. Use a dedicated IP address for sending email, perhaps different IPs for transactional and promotional types of email.

3. Get whitelisted. Request whitelist status from your ISP, get accredited by email reputation service companies such as Habeas (http://www.habeas.com) and Goodmail (http://www.goodmailsystems.com), and ask subscribers to whitelist your email address.

4. Test confirmed optin versus single optin.

A single optin approach can lead to a much bigger list - and greater sales - but can also lead to fake submissions, people erroneously or maliciously subscribing others and, consequently, more complaints.

Confirmed optin - where subscribers must respond to an email (by clicking a link) to confirm their subscription avoids these problems to a greater degree… but can lead to a smaller list. I suspect that confirmed optin may be the safer way to go if you share an IP range (e.g. if you use an email service provider) and/or “force” people to opt-in to view your content (e.g. if you use a name squeeze page). Single optin may be better if you use a dedicated IP address for sending email and you make opting-in completely optional and available after visitors have had a chance to see what you offer. However, as always, ya gotta test!

5. Manage your list. Provide an easy way for people to unsubscribe and make sure the email management software or service you use to facilitate “unsubscribing” works! Further, clean your list daily – get rid of spam rejections and bounces.

6. Avoid spammy content. Use an application such as SpamArrest to detect content that may trigger the filters.

Source: Mitch Eisen, “Use These Tips To Get Past Spam Filters,” SIPAlert Newsletter, June 23, 2008