What's the best way to convert traffic for a membership site?

Split test your traffic (direct sales page vs squeeze page) and once you see a steady winner...make that your control then clone that with minor tweaks and then keep testing agaisnt that.

Test test test.

Typically...people in an IM style membership site will join multible ones. So also invest some time networking with those site creators and do cross promo. Easy traffic!

If your sales page already setup to capture the email addresses and contact information of your customers then there is no need to try to capture the information of the customer who has already decided to make a purchase.

For those who click away from the sales (since all your traffic came this way first) you can then use a re-direct function (quite a few wordpress plugins like this) to bring the non-purchasing visitor to a free to join optin offer maybe even a free trial membership offer.

Sensible buyers do not appreciate being hustled to make a purchasing decision the instance they arrive at your sales page. Persons with even the slightest intent to buy would normally research, read reviews and feedback about your product and especially your support service as well as confirming the real basis for buying from you in the first place.

A squeeze page would probably be a really long way around, unless your membership costs $xxx+.

Otherwise, try using a simple review landing page for a pre-sell before sending the visitors to your main page. Yes, you will lose some traffic, but a well-done landing page can do wonders for conversions and is always better than direct-linking.

I will recommend Facebook.

Yes there are other paid methods and strategies others may recommend but I will say Facebook is among the highest converting and fastest right now.

Here are my 3 reasons.

1. It allows you to target anybody from any country and interests related to whatever you want to promote.

2. You can set up an ad for just USD$5 a day which is about the same as you spend on coffee and lunch.

3. You can see results very quickly in terms of how many people clicked, liked and even optin to your membership.

In order to see conversions, you can do 1-3 preview videos of what you want to share and eventually linked it to the final video which should be where you made your offer.

For people to see those videos, they need to optin to your squeeze page which links to your blog.

Just like what Eben Pagan did

Hope this helps.

Tony said it best:

test test test..

it all depends on the type of traffic you pull.

Test to see what converts best

-Ike Paz

As per my understanding you should send user to squeez page first. because if visitor is sure for buying then he will surely buys your membership. but if you have some confuse visitor then squeez page will help them to remove their doubts and they van be lead to buy the member ships.

As already stated above, test... test... test...

Maybe setting up a free member ship site can also be a good addition. People that are impressed and see value in your work will upgrade for additional and more exclusive content/services.

Maybe a free 7-day trial or something along that line may also help.

I don't have any experience with membership sites (planning to start soon), just some food for thought that might be helpful.

As far as i know or I can suggest you that create back links in the high domain authority site because where the people engagement are more than the low authority site. Google trust is more on that site. So, you can pull the people from that site to own website. An example is this forum is more trustable in the eyes of Google.

Get the optin first. Then try selling them on joining your membership site via email.

MightyBW,

How's that working for you, so far?

You can test it out, but just make sure you're testing each instance (direct sales page, squeeze page or opt-in page, or pre-sell page) with the right traffic; and

What are your top competitors doing with their traffic for their popular paid membership sites with large active membership bases?

I for one would spy on them before implementing test campaigns; and

I'll use tools like SimilarWeb.Com and SpyFu.Com so I can identify the most cost-effective traffic generation methods that they're doing, i.e. Direct traffic, referral traffic, organic search traffic, paid search & display traffic, and social traffic; and

I'd then know the things they're doing that could improve the effectiveness of what I'm doing, especially those with significant direct traffic, when it comes to consistently getting a massive amount of direct traffic (are they giving away freebies as opt-ins, or are they driving traffic to a pre-sell page or a sales page, etc.). Plus:

Through those tools, I'd be able to identify the sites that drive significant referral traffic to them, the keywords their using for their organic search and paid search & display campaigns, the overall look and feel of their paid ads (especially long running ads), and the social networks that drive significant traffic to them; and

I can then check if there are any advertising and content-sharing opportunities for me in those referring sites, advertising platforms and social networks ...

Hope this helps!

I think that there is no need, but as it was written above you can test it (waiting for the results).

Surely so! Did you know that usually less than 4% of the traffic will make a purchase on the first visit. Unless you have a kickbutt sales page but even so then you are so much better collecting a lead and warming that traffic up through email marketing plus you now have a instant on demand traffic source you can use any time you want.

Sales pages and squeeze pages each have their own benefits.
Sales pages work great for impulse buyers and Squeeze pages work better for your more practical customers.
The other nice thing about squeeze pages are that they are generally more concise which means your not bombarding the customer with information. And once you get that person's email you can entice them into buying your product. But that also takes extra work and strategizing.
Try to run to two different campaigns, drive one set of customers to the one page and the rest to the other page. From there you should be able to get an idea which works beset for your niche.

**** YES OF COURSE ***


you can do BOTH: drive traffic to your squeeze page, AND then, after they have opted in, you can drive new acquired leads to your SALE PAGE which replace the Thank You page.

OR BETTER

You can do a "segway page": so the visitors know that you wil deliver the freebie in their mail.

What is a "segway page"?

A page with in the upper corner you have the classic "thank you for opted in, check your inbox for the report" etc.

and in the rest of the page there is your SALE PAGE!

So you can BUILD A LIST and TRY TO SELL at the same time.

You should definitely use a/b Split Testing in order to determine which works best for you. You ideally want to create a page that is most effective and appeals to your visitors so the only way to do this is to split test everything.

I personally paid for membership on sites where I consistently got a lot of useful free information, and then I got curious on how much more advanced the training I will get if I become a paid member. So to convert traffic just provide more proof that they will get exclusive value.

Another way to make it more appealing for your audience to convert to a paid membership is when you give them an accessible/affordable option versus just providing one kind of membership.

Strengthen your membership site's social proof. Keep posting success stories of your members. Post testimonial videos. Also consider influencer marketing or if you can get someone popular to talk about membership benefits.

Mighty,

My experience related to your question is this:

1. Most prospects require multiple contacts and nurturing in a given niche before they will make a purchase
2. Once you have a buyers list, roughly 10-15% of those customers will be "fanatics" in the niche and want more from you
3. You need to remove as much risk from the prospect as you can when you are offering a recurring subscription
4. Make the option of paying a one-time fee to get into the membership (some people always refuse to commit to recurring payments but will pay a higher one time fee to get in)
5. If you don't have a squeeze page or some way of building a list at the outset, you will lose the opportunity to engage some prospects.

So obviously I think driving traffic directly to a sales page is not the best strategy. But make sure your squeeze page is motivating and enticing - model other success marketer's pages. Test, as others have said, to optimize every element on the page.

It goes without saying that you should always provide original top quality content and it needs to address the demands of your audience. The most successful membership sites I have seen are those offered by trusted marketers that have already proven they have what the customers want. So don't be shy about giving great value (both paid and free) up front in order that your customers know the type of material they will get in the membership site.

The very best to you,

Steve

get optin first then try to sell them with good follow ups.

that is how six figure businesses are built.