Episode Transcript
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Shure MV7-1 (00:00):
Hi, and welcome to
the simple SEO podcast.
I'm your host, RachelLindteigen, and today we're
gonna talk about your opt-in.
You've probably got one, you'retrying to grow your email list,
you're trying to build yourbusiness, but is it working?
So I get this question a lot andpeople really don't know.
So we're gonna talk about thattoday.
But first, can I just say, oh mygosh, how are we already at the
(00:23):
end of May?
It is Tuesday.
My kid is out of school for thesummer.
On Thursday before lunch.
I have a day and a half left,and so it's basically summer
break.
Holy cow.
Did that go fast?
So I will continue to be hereevery week.
You know that I batch my contentahead of time.
I am going to be working fewerhours over the course of the
(00:46):
summer because he's going tocamp about half the time.
So if you're curious how it'sgoing, be sure and listen in.
I will let you know, or I'll letyou know in an email, but I'll
be working two weeks each monthand he'll be home with me for
two weeks.
So as of Thursday.
I am off for about two and ahalf weeks, and he starts camp
on June 9th.
(01:07):
So it's gonna be interestingthough.
It is nice.
He's gotten old enough now thatif I do need to work while he is
home, it's a lot easier than itwas when he was, you know, two
or three or four.
He's 10, he just turned 10.
So he would happily lock himselfin the room and play Roblox all
day.
But you know, we can't allowthat.
So Mama has to adjust herschedule a bit.
(01:28):
So anyway, back to today'stopic, other than like, oh my
gosh, I can't believe.
It's already summer break.
My kid is out of school.
So if you have your opt-in, yourfreebie, you're trying to grow
your business, you wanna be ableto have a schedule like I have
where your kids are off for thesummer and you wanna take the
summer off, or you wanna workpart-time, or you wanna work
school hours, then we need tomake sure that you have an
(01:49):
opt-in that is working and thatwe are getting consistent
traffic to it from you guessedit.
SEO.
So you've got that opt-in.
I see this question all thetime.
How do I know if my opt-in isworking?
What do I look at?
How do I know if people like it?
So let's talk about this just tomake sure that you understand if
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it's working, if you need totweak it.
Or if it's actually doing okay.
And the problem is you justdon't have enough traffic to it.
So if you have a small emaillist, but you've got an opt-in,
you've created a freebie andpeople are signing up for it,
let's figure out how do wetroubleshoot this?
So.
What we're gonna wanna look at,the ideal benchmark for an
(02:30):
opt-in page, and I see peopleask this a lot, is at least a
40% conversion.
So that means out of 10 peoplewho visit your page, you would
expect at least four of them toopt in to get your freebie, to
sign up for your webinar, torequest your PDF to take your
class.
Whatever it is, we wanna see atleast four out of 10 people
(02:52):
signing up, ideally.
50 to 60%, even up to 70% isbetter.
My opt-ins tend to be in that 60to 70% range.
What that tells us is that we'vecreated something that our ideal
customer sees value in, theybelieve can help them, and they
(03:14):
want, and they're willing toexchange their email address.
For that content or thatinformation that help, and you
have to remember, you wanna makesure that your opt-in is very
helpful to them.
It's going to provide valuebecause people guard their email
address, especially if you wantthe the real email address
versus the junk email address.
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'cause a lot of people have thejunk email address and they
don't really wanna give you thereal one.
So what you are offering themhas to be a value for them to
even give you the junk one, butmore than that to give you the
real email address.
The one they're actually gonnago looking for.
So if you look at youranalytics, if you're using a
landing page software program,you may be able to have it just
(03:58):
show you right there.
You've had a hundred people join10 people or had a hundred
people visit the page.
10 people have looked at it thatme or have signed up.
That means you have a 10%conversion, you have a problem,
there's a breakdown somewhere.
They either don't like the copyon your page or they don't like
the content idea for your opt-inat all.
So anything under that 25% mark,you've got a big problem if you
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don't have software and youdon't have to pay for separate
software to do this.
Okay?
You can track this in Google,Google Analytics.
What you're gonna wanna makesure is you have one URL for the
page and a separate URL for thethank you page.
Then what you're gonna wanna dois take a look and see of the
people who landed on my page,how many of them got to the
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thank you page, that's yourconversion rate.
So how many people saw the page?
If a hundred people saw the pageand 12 people saw the thank you
page, you have a problem.
If a hundred people saw the pageand 62 people got the thank you
page, your opt-in is doinggreat.
So that's what I want you toreally understand.
That number, that percent ofpeople who signed up for it is
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critical to telling you whetheror not it's working.
Now, if you have an opt-in thatyou determine is not.
Working.
You have below 40% of the peopleregistering for your opt-in
getting to that thank you page.
Then you need to do sometroubleshooting.
So the first thing to look at isthe form.
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How much information are youasking for on that form?
So we want to have as littlefriction as possible, meaning
ask for as little information aspossible.
So in the event.
Of, let's say we're talkingabout A-P-D-F-A guide, something
like that.
Really the only thing that youhave to have.
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To get it to them is their emailaddress.
So if your form asks them fortheir full name and their
address and their email addressand their phone number or
something else, that may be partof why you're not getting them.
Switch that over.
So the only thing you're askingfor is the email address, and
you may automatically see yourconversions increase.
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On mine, I tend to ask for theemail address and the first
name, but I don't make the namerequired.
It's there if they want to giveit to me, because I do like to
personalize emails, and I cannotdo that unless they've given me
their name.
But I don't make it arequirement because having it be
a requirement is going topotentially add friction to
(06:31):
somebody who's signing up foryour opt-in.
So that's the first thing totroubleshoot.
The next thing is to make surethat you are explaining the
benefits of your opt-in on thatregistration page.
So if you are telling them whatthe opt-in includes, but not how
it's going to benefit them, thatcould be why you have a low
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conversion rate and you wannatry to edit that.
Now you can use chat GPT to helpyou with this.
You can go to it, give it yourcurrent.
Landing page, like copy yourcontent, put it in there, and
ask it to help you.
Ask it to think like a highconversion copywriter who's
creating a registration page foran opt-in for, and then tell it
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what your opt-in is.
Ask it to edit that, give yourecommendations.
You can also look at.
Recommendations are opt-in pagesfor other brands, bigger
companies, people who are withinyour niche, who are further
along from you and ask for it tokind of help compare, take yours
and take theirs.
(07:40):
And ask what it could, what youcould do to increase the
conversions on your page andjust say, this is a low
converting page.
I need it to convert higher.
What do I need to change?
And see if chat GPT can help youwith that.
It generally can help with stufflike that.
Then if you don't have a visualof your freebie, consider adding
(08:00):
that to the page.
It seems kind of silly, but itcan make a difference.
It can make someone understandmore, feel like, oh, okay, I see
a benefit to that.
I want a copy of that.
So add that photo of yourfreebie at the top of the page.
You also wanna look at.
Your page on both desktop andmobile because you want to make
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sure that the spot where theyopt in, the spot where they put
their email address is on thescreen on mobile, without them
having to do.
Any scrolling at all?
This is really important.
This is what we consider to beabove the fold.
Above the fold is an old term.
It comes from newspapers, butthe most important information
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needs to be above the fold,meaning it's what was displayed
in the newspaper box.
In today's world, it means it'swhat displays on the website or
the phone or the tablet.
Without scrolling, so you wannamake sure that above the fold on
your landing page has reallygreat information that is
helpful to your potential newemail subscriber, the person
(09:08):
who's going to opt in and thatthere's an opt-in box.
Then we wanna also look atincluding a short bio about
yourself and how your backgroundcan help them.
If it is relevant, it should berelevant.
So those are some of the thingsto look at.
The other thing we wanna see isthat if you have a really low
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conversion, let's say you are25% or below.
It's very likely that your pageis distracting.
It's too long.
You have irrelevant content, oryou have a breakdown between
what you're offering as anopt-in and what your ideal
customer wants.
If you're not sure what tocreate for an opt-in, do a
(09:51):
little bit of.
Consumer research, ask yourideal customers.
Go to Google.
Do a little bit of searchingthere.
Use your keyword research tools.
I have a blog post, um, aboutthis, like how to use keyword
research tools to find opt-inideas because it's possible.
Opt-in is not good, or it justdoesn't have the right name.
(10:12):
Even again, take it to chat GPTand ask it.
Think like a conversioncopywriter.
Help me troubleshoot this.
Is there a different name Ishould use?
Or what would my ideal customerbe looking for?
You can use it to help you withsome of these things.
So what I want you to do then.
Is make sure now we know arepeople signing up?
The next thing is, are wegetting the right people?
(10:35):
So what we wanna look at here isof those people who are signing
up.
So we've passed the problems.
We, you know, we have 50% of thepeople signing up.
Now what we wanna look at is onyour.
Email, are they opening theemails?
Are they reading your nurtureemails?
Are they ultimately buying fromyou?
Because we wanna make sure thatwe're getting the right people
(10:57):
into our list from what we'redoing.
So if we're doing SEO, we'redoing ads, we're doing social
media, whatever marketingchannel you're using, or you
should be using multiplemarketing channels.
Wherever you are sharing youropt-in.
We wanna make sure that theright people are signing up.
So what we wanna look there isyour Optin, your open rate.
(11:18):
Your open rate on your veryfirst email in your nurture
sequence.
The one that delivers thisopt-in should be by far the
highest of the sequence.
You should see 50, 60, 70%.
Most people who request youropt-in should open that email.
You also should see a high clickrate if they're clicking to be
(11:40):
able to download theinformation.
If it's something that you cantrack, you should see a high
click rate there for them to goand actually get that document.
Then through the course of youremail sequence, which you
probably have, let's say,anywhere from.
Five to eight emails in yournurture sequence, you want to
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make sure that you're providingvalue, you're giving them other
resources, you're helping leadthem to the point of conversion.
In those initial nurture emails,we wanna see an open rate 30% or
more.
And again, we wanna seeclick-through rates.
We also want to watch forunsubscribes.
If you end up with an emailwhere one of your.
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Like in your email sequence, yousee that you have a bunch of
unsubscribes in email numberthree, then you wanna go back
and review email number threeand see what's going on with it.
Is there something that you needto change?
You know, what do you need toadjust and focus on that?
Because you know you're gettinga lot of unsubscribes in email
three, so something's notworking there.
This is how we troubleshoot.
(12:46):
We just look at each step of it.
Now, you may wonder like howmany of these people are gonna
become customers.
Generally what we see is aboutone to three.
3% will become customers, whichmeans if we get a hundred new
people on our email list fromour opt-in, we're gonna get one
to three customers.
So that is what we should belooking for.
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So if you've had 500 people comethrough your funnel, so that
would mean maybe you've had athousand people land on your
page.
500 of them signed up for youropt-in and went through your
funnel and nobody has boughtwhat you're selling in your
funnel, then you know you'reeither not getting the right
people or your opt-in is notlike matching what you sell.
(13:29):
And so you wanna troubleshootand take a look at that again.
Now, what I want you to reallyunderstand here.
And let's just do a quick recap,'cause I know this one's a
little more involved, a littlemore numbers we're talking
about, but I want you to look atthis and be able to understand
kind of what we're doing andwhat we're working on.
So this is all about your salesfunnel, and the way that we get
(13:51):
traffic to our sales funnel isthrough SEO and through our
podcast.
And then it's about growing ouremail list.
So the first thing you look atto determine if your opt-in is
working.
Number one thing is your opt-inpage conversion rate.
So if you're 50% or better,you're good to go.
If you are below 40%, you needto start troubleshooting your
(14:14):
page itself.
If you are below 25%, you reallywanna look at not only your
page, your content, but alsopotentially your opt-in itself.
Once you know that your opt-inpage is converting at 50% or
better, then you wanna look atyour email funnel, those nurture
emails, those five to eightemails that you send out.
(14:37):
When somebody signs up thoseemails, we wanna make sure that
they're being opened, the linksare being clicked, people are
paying attention.
We're getting the right peoplein, and ultimately we're seeing
some sales.
If you've had a thousand peopleland on your page 500,
approximately, sign up for youremail list and you've not yet
(14:57):
made a sale, and you areoffering something for sale in
your nurture sequence, or youare offering a consult call or
something like that, and nobodyhas signed up to take that next
step with you, then you have abreakdown.
Something's not working.
But if you've had 500 people gothrough and anywhere from five
to 15 have signed up for yourfree consult, they've bought
(15:19):
your product, they've bookedyour service, then you know you
have a funnel that is working.
Your opt-in is working.
Okay.
I know it's a little bitdifferent topic for today, but I
figure we need to start talkingabout this because.
We're working so hard to gettraffic to our site.
Now, the next step is to makesure that the traffic we're
getting is converting, becausethat's how you're gonna grow a
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profitable, profitable, I can'ttalk.
That's how you're gonna grow aprofitable business is by
bringing the right person toyour site.
So we're using SEO to do that.
We're driving traffic now.
We need to make sure that we areconverting them and we're
getting them onto our list, andwe're turning them into
customers.
If not.
We need to go back and do sometroubleshooting.
(16:02):
Alright, that's it for today.
I'll see you back here nextweek.
Have a great one.
Bye for now.