Many of my new internet marketing students get confused between the concept of a sales page and an actual branding site. What is the difference? Does your product need both? Do you need a squeeze page and a sales letter before you have a branding site?

Well, okay, so let's just explain what a branding site is and then also what a sales letter is for you real quick. A branding site is a site that's specifically designed for one purpose and that is to brand you. Most graphic designers or web designers will design those. A branding site exists to provide all the information about you, your company, your products, testimonials, events, contact info, store, etc. It's branding you and your company. So basically, it has all these different places for people to click around to find out more about you.

Now if you are trying to sell from such a site through your own store, that's fine. However, a store usually carries several different products and packages and as far as conversion goes such a site may be confusing for a visitor. Why? Well, it's because they don't have a clue of where they should start or what product(s) they need to buy. A confused mind never takes action and the more times you ask somebody to click, then the less sales you're going to make or the less actions people are going to take. Now, don't get me wrong, having a branding site is really good to brand you, your company and everything you're doing, but it is totally different from a sales letter site in its function.

A sales letter site is specifically designed for one purpose and that is to sell something. It may be to sell one particular thing or one particular product. For example, you could have a sales letter site specifically designed to sell your book. You could have another to specifically sell a course you are offering. You could have yet another to get people to enroll in a seminar. When you have a sales letter site, it is specifically designed to sell one thing.

Now, does your product need to have both? You could, but having a choice I would much rather see you having a sales letter page, more than I'd like to see you have a branding page. However, the branding page is good because it gives customers more to see.

Do you first need to have a squeeze page and a sales letter before you create the branding page? A squeeze page is always a good thing to start off with. If you have a squeeze page specifically designed to sign people up to your newsletter or whatever it is you're offering this is an excellent idea because since you have their name and email address you can make offerings to them again and again. This will allow you to make even more money in the long run. But make sure that at the time you're capturing their information, always direct them to a sales letter page selling them something. After they've gone through these first two stages, you can then refer them to your branding site to learn even more about your company.

Build your brand once you already have a following of eager willing to buy visitors. Build a relationship and then start branding yourself from there. Once your list gets to know you, they'll more readily be able to trust you, understand your brand and want to stay with you for the long haul.