5 Must-Have Pages to Grow Your Email List to Turn Abandoning Visitors into Subscribers

When did you last have a peek at your Google Analytics?

If you did, you will realize that about 50% of people who visit your blog don’t ever come back.

This means that you only have a tiny sliver of opportunity to grab the attention of your visitor, create a good first impression and turn them into subscribers. And there are specific pages within your site that can help you do just that.

But most bloggers and creative solopreneurs don’t have any of these 5 pages. Even if they do, the pages aren’t optimized and turn readers away yawning and confused.

The result: You let several potential email subscribers slip away. Or worse, leave them wondering why they subscribed in the first place.

Let’s dive in to what these pages are.

The 5 Must-Have Pages to Grow Your Email List

#1 The ‘Get On the List’ or Subscribe Page

You would have heard about a Start Here page but how about having a dedicated page to promote your email list?

This takes your typical opt-in form a step further and tells your readers exactly what they can expect to gain by being on your list.

Here are some elements you can include on your subscribe page:

• A strong headline that states the benefits of being on your list or the pain points you are trying to solve for your subscribers.
• What subscribers can expect to receive in return for their email address. If it’s a digital report or guide, a mock-up or image of it should be placed on the subscribe page.
• Testimonials from your current subscribers.
• A sample or two of the best emails that you have sent out.

Here’s an example of a subscribe page from Brian Dean of Backlinko. His page is titled ‘Proven SEO tips’ and is placed on the top navigation bar. Having your subscribe page link here makes it highly visible to your readers.

This next example is from Laura Roeder of LKR Social Media. It has a clear call to action and value proposition:

Once you have a subscribe page, promote it on social media. Don’t leave your blog URL in your social media profile, but replace it with your subscribe page instead. This way, people who are curious and click over will see your best work and what you have to offer.

#2 The Thank You Page

Most email service providers come with a generic “Thank you for subscribing” template. For instance, this is the template that comes with Convertkit.

Though convenient, you do not want to use the generic template and here’s why.

Subscribers are most engaged when they first sign-up for your list. Something about your opt-in offer or blog post has spurred them to give you their email address.

The brand experience that you give your reader starts from the time they land on your website and is heightened from that very moment they enter their email address into your opt-in form.

The average open rate for welcome emails is 50% — 86%. And the ‘Thank You’ page is what they see just before they receive your welcome email.

This is your opportunity to wow them! So make full use of it.

Here are some elements you can include to make your Thank You page work harder for you:

• A picture of you
• Clear instructions on what they should do next
• Your social media links
• A request to share your site or freebie
• Links to your best content
• Testimonials from your readers; and the most important
• A personality

Before you go crazy and add all of these, stop.

Remember too many calls to action can have the reverse intention and get your subscriber to not take any action at all.

What goals are important to you?

• To add credibility?
• To increase your following on Instagram?
• To promote your opt-in freebie or lead magnet?

Based on that, add 2-3 elements at most on your thank you page.

Here’s an example from Bushra Azhar of The Persuasion Revolution. Her thank you page oozes with her bubbly personality:

Another example of a thank you page I absolutely love is from Renee Shupe:

Renee asks subscribers to follow her on twitter and provides links to her latest posts. The GIF of the lady sure brings out a smile as well.

A thank you page needn’t be fancy.

You can have a simple one created in WordPress in less than 5 minutes. You can also get a good looking “LeadPages” styled Thank You page with ConvertKit and free tools by following Marianne’s tutorial.

#3 The Landing Page to Promote Your Opt-in Freebie

A landing page is a distraction free page with a single, focused objective — to get readers to subscribe to your email list by giving them an incentive.

Your landing page should not have a navigation bar or side bar leading to other pages on your site. And every opt-in freebie of yours should be featured on a landing page.

Here are some elements of a good landing page:

• A value driven headline or headline that calls out the problem that your readers are facing
• A sub-header describing the benefit of the offer
• What the reader gets, in bullet points
• Action oriented language on the call to action button
  e.g.
  Yes, send it to me!
  I’m in!
  Send my free ______ now
  Yes! I’m ready to [state benefit] e.g. get more traffic, declutter my life
  Yes, Give Me Instant Access
  Yes, send me your ______

There are several ways you can structure your landing page.

When in doubt, ask yourself what change does your opt-in freebie give your subscriber?

• Having less time to being more productive
• Less organized to more organized
• Anxious to calm and happy
• Struggling to get traffic to plentiful page views and subscribers

Then use one of the two formulas:

1. Problem? [State the solution] and [make a promise]
2. How to [state desired result]

Here is an example of a landing page for an opt-in freebie on my site that is converting at 70-80%. It uses the first headline formula:

A landing page also makes it easy to promote your opt-in freebie on social media. You can make a separate Pinterest image for your opt-in freebie and link it up to your landing page. You could do the same on Twitter as well.

This way, you’ll be sending traffic to a dedicated landing page rather than a homepage.

Thankfully, with Marianne’s recent tutorials, you’ll be able to set these pages up in a jiffy and also get them to look swanky good. You can check out Marianne’s tutorials here » How to create a fake lead pages landing page.

#4 The Splash Page

A splash page is where the main navigation of the page is removed completely or moved from the top of the page to the bottom. The email sign-up is the main focus of the splash page.

Here’s another example from LKR Social Media in which she moves her navigation to the bottom. The splash page features a subscriber testimonial prominently and has a clear call to action to sign up for their weekly newsletter.

Jeff Goins’ splash page has no navigation bar. The sign-up form is featured prominently at the start of the page followed by testimonials. There is a link to the blog at the bottom of the page.

#5 The Unsubscribe Page

This is a page to which you direct subscribers who have chosen to unsubscribe from your newsletter.

Remember that having unsubscribes is a normal part of email marketing. You want to reach the right people, not as many as possible.

But you can express your desire to stay connected to your unsubscribers. It’s a gesture that shows you’re willing to make an effort and that you care.

Here’s how you can do this.

Use a Little Humor

Charity water uses humor by giving readers the option to either confirm their opt-out of the list or watch their CEO get pounded with water balloons.

By keeping it light hearted you give your subscribers a good chuckle before they leave. They part on good terms and for all you know, they may decide to hop back on your list.

Give Alternatives

Hubspot gives readers the option to be connected on an alternative social media platform.

Check with your email service provider if they have the functionality for having an unsubscribe page. ConvertKit (afflink) does not have this function at the moment. But you can customize your unsubscribe page in Mailchimp.

Have a Look at Your Own Website Now

Each of these pages helps to grow your email list and enhance the brand experience for your readers and subscribers.

Why not start by having a personalized Thank You page and add on from there? You’ll soon start to see an increase in the size of your list.

What pages do you have and what do you need to include? Tell me in the comments below.

About Meera Kothand
Meera is a certified email marketing specialist, and contributor at Addicted 2 Success, Marketing Profs and several sites. She helps ambitious bloggers and solopreneurs find focus, build authority and stand out online.

Wondering what to send your email list? Steal her Swipe File of 2 years worth of content ideas for emails.