Video Transcript: Get An Email List with an Effective Squeeze Page

The truth about building an email list is this, it's really hard to turn ice cold traffic  into email subscribers. Sure, you could try to bribe them with a free ebook or an  online course, but you've probably seen firsthand that that doesn't work really  well. So what's the answer the social squeeze page. It's a simple page that I  recently added to my site, and it's converting at 21.7% I'm Brian Dean, the  founder of backlinko.com and in this video, I'm going to show you exactly how  you can add this high converting page to your site. So a few months ago, I had  this problem. My site was getting a fair amount of traffic, but I couldn't get  anyone to actually subscribe to my email newsletter. So I tried slapping opt in  forms all over my site, and that helped a little. I also tried giving away a free  ebook, but that barely made a dent. Then one day, I stumbled across this page  on Copyblogger called How to Write magnetic headlines, and I noticed that even though it was a squeeze page that existed solely to collect emails. It was  beautifully designed and actually had social sharing buttons on it. And that's  when I realized that the tried and true squeeze page still worked. It just needed  to be adapted for today's audience. So after a lot of research and experimenting, the social squeeze page was born, and since putting the social squeeze page  on my site last year, it's converting at 21.7% which is 10 times better than any  other page on my site. So you're probably wondering, what exactly is a social  squeeze page, and how can I add one to my site? Well, that's exactly what I'm  going to show you how to do right now. So the social squeeze page that's  converted so well for me is called how to rank for any keyword. And on the  surface, it looks like a simple page with a video on it, and in many ways it is, but  there's a lot of important things on that page that make it convert so well, and  those are the things that I'm going to walk you through right now. So first you  need a topic for your social squeeze page. And your topic is really important.  You want to find something that your target audience is hungry to learn more  about. That way, they're likely to hand over their email address for more  information on that topic. In my case, I did a case study because I knew that  most of my readers were sick of reading fluff, SEO content from other blogs, and they wanted something actionable and real, and were willing to hand over their  email in exchange for learning more information on that topic. So next, it's time  to actually create your video. Now, you don't have to stand in front of a camera.  If you don't want to, you can record a PowerPoint presentation using screencast  software like Camtasia. But the important thing is that your video has to be really good, has to add value, and ideally, it should be between three and 10 minutes  any longer, and it's probably too long and gonna lose interest, and any shorter, it looks like just another squeeze page video, because remember, with the social  squeeze page, you're actually adding value in your video. Okay, so now it's time  to create your headline and sub headline, and like any web page online, the  headline that you use for your social squeeze page is huge. Now the goal of the  headline of your social squeeze page is to give a person a specific benefit that 

they'll get from watching your video. So for example, if you ran a site about  weight loss, you could put something like how to lose two inches from your waist by the end of the month. Or, let's say that you ran an E commerce site, and you  had a blog on that site, and your E commerce site sold rugs, you could have  something like how to choose the perfect rug for any room in three minutes or  less. So once you reel them in with the headline, it's time to move on to your sub headline. And the job of the sub headline is to create what's known as an  information gap, which basically is going to encourage people to click on your  video and watch your video. In my case, my sub sub headline is here. There's  the exact step by step process that I use, and that opens an information gap,  because a person's like, what is a step by step process that I used, and then  they watch the video. Next you want to add opt in forms to your page. The first  one should go right underneath your video. That's a really important place to put it, because when someone's watching the video, their eyes are going to drift  around the page, and the more times they see your opt in form, the more likely  they are to opt in. And you may also want to put another opt in form at the  bottom of your page, and that's for the simple reason that the more opt in forms  you have on a page, the more opt ins that you'll generally get. And I also  recommend hosting your video with Wistia or LeadPages, because both of  those services allow you to actually collect emails from within the video. So once you've done that, it's time to move on to actually one of the most important steps of the social squeeze page. Finally, it's time to add social elements to your social squeeze page, like comments and a social sharing button, and remember,  because your video actually provides value. People are going to want to share  your video. They're going to want to comment on your video, and because as  more people comment, and the more social shares you get, the more social  proof that page has, the more your conversion rate will actually increase over  time. To sum up, the social squeeze, page is one of the easiest ways to pile in.  Email subscribers onto your list. Do you have a friend that's struggling with  conversions? Send him or her a link to this video? You'll be helping them and  me. And if you want more exclusive marketing tips, just like this one, subscribe  to my YouTube channel or better yet, head over to backlinko.com and sign up  for the newsletter. Where you'll get marketing tips and case studies that I only  share with subscribers.