Doorway pages, just as the name implies, are web pages designed specifically to lead you somewhere else. Lets say you are a member of the “Grandma’s Glorious Grits & Roadkill” Recipes affiliate program, and they furnish you an affiliate web site. There are a couple of problems with this.
First, your URL might look something like this:
www.grandmasgloriousgrits.com/affiliate?9994827hognose4343
The question mark in the URL is an obvious give-away that you are an affiliate, and not the actual company. Don’t ask me why, but for some people this is a turn-off.
Additionally, the above URL can not be submitted in most search engines. This limits your marketing ability.
Another issue: The URL mentions the grits, but what about the roadkill recipes? Some people might pass the ad by because they don’t like grits. (Yeah, I know. Some people just don’t have good taste.) But, everyone loves great roadkill!
In addition, many people will recognize the URL of an active affiliate program as one they have looked at in the past. Thus, they will not view the site, even though significant changes may have been made to the site, the program, or the products which they might now find of interest. By using a different URL, you may trick these people into looking at the site a 2nd time.
Finally, Grandma’s products might be great! And, she might have the most lucrative 2 x 8 Oak Against the Head Progressive Double Wide on Wheels Forced Matrix compensation plan in the world. But simply put, her affiliate site might suck raw eggs. You might need a good introduction to explain the benefits of Grandma’s program before they actually enter the site.
How do you resolve these problems? Simply use a doorway page.
If you have your own web site, you can create doorway pages on it. If not, you can use your free hope page provided by your Internet Service Provider, or you can build a free doorway page at any of the many free web page providers on the internet.
A doorway page should contain the following elements:
First you need to cover your Meta-Tags of the page. Meta Tags are not seen by the public, but are used by various search engines to rate the relevancy of your page. The Meta-Tags you need to be most concerned with are Keywords, Description, and Title.
KEYWORDS: You should come of with a good set of keywords for your doorway page, specifically related to the products or opportunity. Do not try to cover too broad of a band with your keywords. Keep them focused on a single aspect. Push a specific product, or a specific aspect of the opportunity. If you want to advertise a broader range of products and services, use a different doorway page for each product or service. Be sure and use the same keywords you enter in the Meta-Tag in the text of the page itself.
DESCRIPTION: You description should be a short, well written, ad for what you are offering on the doorway page. The description is often displayed by search engine results to surfers. Try to incorporate as many of your keywords as possible into your description, but, above all else, make it a well written classified ad.
TITLE: Your title is a short description of the page. Using an example, you might use “Grandma’s Glorious Grits” as the title, but we don’t recommend it. Use something more description like “The World’s Best Grits”, “FREE Grits Recipes”, or “Billy Bob’s Grits Lovers Site”. If you are advertising the opportunity instead of the product you could use something like “Make Money From Home with Roadkill”, “Roadkill Business Opportunity”, or “How You Too Can Make Money From Hairy Pancakes”. I think you get the drift.
Now to the body of the page. The body of the page is what is seen by the public. Do not copy what Grandma does on her affiliate page. Again, focus on one product or one aspect of the opportunity. Tell it in your own words! And, please, use a dictionary and thesaurus when writing. Be careful with those words people screw up with all the time. For example: “Your” is possessive. This is “your” doorway page. “You’re” is short for “You are”. You’re not gonna screw up using “Your” and “You’re”.
Your doorway page is an advertisement. It is not an exercise in cuteness. Use minimal graphics. You want it to load fast. Your doorway page should entice someone to want to learn more. Thus, it needs to stir some form of emotion, be it excitement, pride, sympathy, sadness, anger, love, greed, nostalgia, whatever. Most people buy because of emotions, not logic. Draw upon people’s emotions. With Grandma’s Glorious Grits you might say as part of your page:
“Your family will love the down-home taste of these wonderful grits. They taste fresh ground, just like Grandma used to make. Imagine a cool winter morning, your family sitting around the table laughing and enjoying idle conversation with a bowl of hot steaming grits in front of them, with a liberal slab of real butter melting on top. Your imagination can become reality.”
“Send your children off to school happy with a tummy full of nourishing country-style grits to get them through the day. Many doctors, medical journals, and government agencies claim that they best way to start the day is with a good, well balanced breakfast. Studies even show that student retention is better after a good breakfast. So, do the most you can for your children by making Grandma’s Glorious Grits part of their complete breakfast.”
With the above example we draw upon the emotions of nostalgia, happiness, love for one’s children, and even some logic by referring to the medical stuff. (Yeah, almost everything is good for you in moderation, but dump a truckload of oranges on your head and at your funeral your family will talk about how it was a shame you just went through the hell of quitting smoking so you could live longer.)
Read your (note, I did not say you’re) doorway page several times. Let it sit a couple of days, the read it again. Then start using it.
Now, once people are at your doorway page, what do you do with them? You have two choices: 1) send them on to the site for whatever it is you are advertising, or 2) do something else with them. Which you do is up to you. Regardless of what you do, you should try to get some information from them. Maybe ask them to sign up for your “Raunchy Roadkill Recipes” newsletter, or ask them to submit their name and e-mail address for more information.
If you can get their e-mail address from them, and their permission to send them e-mail, you can continue to market to them over the long haul, as well as make offerings to them of other programs you are involved with. This should be a very high priority with your doorway page.
Now, there is a 2nd type of doorway page you might wish to consider using. This is a redirect page. It is a page that once a person accesses it, it immediately, or after a predetermined time, forwards them straight to the affiliate site. Personally, I use these a lot with immediate redirection. The reasons are it gives me a choice over the name of my URLs, it does not tip off the prospect as to the specific program, product or service I am advertising, and I can easily keep track of hits.
The redirect code is very simple to insert into your doorway page. Here it is.
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Brande and Chris Bradford are active participants in a home based business opportunity and are the publishers of GREAT HEIGHTS, a monthly newsletter focused on home based business issues. To subscribe to their newsletter, send a blank e-mail to: Great-Heights-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com or visit: http://www.brandebradford.com
