Are you currently trying to sell things online?
I’m sure you will agree that converting your visitors into revenue is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even harder.
But there is a simple secret to raising the value of each customer you sell to:
Sales funnels. Clickfunnels For Seo
By creating a well-designed sales funnel, you can dramatically boost your sales and provide more value for your customers.
In this article, I’m going to introduce you to ClickFunnels, the software I’m using to create sales funnels for my business.
You do not need any technical know-how to utilize it, and it will truly change how you operate your business.
Plus:
If you’re prepared to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it’s one of the best affiliate programs on the market. I’ll be talking about that too later on.
What’s ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels was created back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his group. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels to a $100 million a year business and they just crossed over 65,000 active members as of August 2018.
At its core, ClickFunnels is an application for constructing sales funnels. With a lot of additional bells and whistles.
You can use it to construct:
– Landing pages
– Squeeze pages
– Webinars
– Membership websites
– Every type of sales funnel you can think of, complete with order bumps, upsells and downsells
Plus, with the highest end Etison Suite package you will even be able to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and change out your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Essentially, you’re getting everything you need to market and promote your products online, without having to hire expensive programmers.
And individuals are using ClickFunnels with great success.
If you check out their 2 Comma Club site, you can see that almost 300 entrepreneurs have already created 1 million dollar funnels using ClickFunnels.
That is amazing.Clickfunnels For Seo
What are the best parts of ClickFunnels?
Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints
In case you have never created a sales funnel before then ClickFunnels has you covered.
Russell has identified 22 different types of funnels that he has employed successfully in his own business.
The funnel forms fall into 3 main categories: Lead Capture Funnels, Sales Page Funnels, and Event Funnels. But there are some other special funnels like Membership funnels you can create as well.
They include simple funnels like the Squeeze Page Funnel which gathers a visitor’s email address and then sends them into a Thank you page when signing up.
Or to more complex sales funnels like the 2-Step TripWire Funnel which sells a low ticket front-end product (your tripwire) and then upsells them to your more expensive products with Order Form bumps, and One Click upsells or Downsells.
Moreover, each funnel type has its own group of free templates and paid templates. So even in the event that you don’t have any design skills, your funnel pages will have a consistent, professional design.
Here’s a high-level summary of how to create your first sales funnel:
- Choose a funnel type.
- Select a template.
- Customize each page to fit your business.
- Add your products and ensure all your email and payment integrations are set up.
- Set a domain name for your new funnel.
- Save your funnel.
Your sales funnel is now live and you can start sending traffic to it. Clickfunnels For Seo
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While ClickFunnels provides you a wonderful starting point with its funnel and webpage templates, the ClickFunnels editor is the place you can truly make each page in your funnel your own.
Pages in ClickFunnels are laid out with sections that can have any number of rows and columns. You can then use your mouse to drag elements around and put them where you want them.
While not as adaptable as Instapage’s landing page editor, it’s still very good and it can be used to achieve pretty much any design you desire.
What I like is that the editor is very intuitive to use.
Selecting elements on the page and transferring them where you want is very seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and changing any element’s properties could be done via the fly-out sidebar.
And unlike other editors on the market, everything is organized in a logical way. You’re not spending a lot of time hunting for what you would like to do.
The main thing is that no coding is required. So you don’t need to spend time studying HTML or CSS or some other technical things like that.
Best Feature #3: Nice Selection of Page Elements
Elements (or widgets) are all essential for providing you the flexibility to design the exact pages you woud like and ClickFunnels gives you a wide variety of them to use.
Fundamental elements comprise of Headline, Photo, Text, Button, Input types and Video widgets. These are the fundamental building blocks for any landing page you construct in the software.
ClickFunnels also includes several advanced elements like:
– SMS Signup
– Surveys
– Pricing Tables
– Progress Bars
– Facebook Comments
– FAQ Blocks
– Countdown Timers
– Custom HTML
Additionally, there are specialized elements like Membership elements for your own membership pages and order and shipping form elements for your order pages.
Each element can be easily customized from the editor sidebar. With majority of elements, you can change common properties such as background colors, margins, fonts, and orientation.
Then there are element specific attributes like the image URL for the Image element or the Button text of your button.
Best Feature #4: The ClickFunnels Affiliate program is awesome
There’s little doubt in my mind that ClickFunnels has the very best, legitimate affiliate marketing program which you can be a part of.
First the Fundamentals:
The ClickFunnels affiliate program pays 40% recurring commissions for each referral you make and you can win cool prizes like $500 towards your own dream car once you reach 100 active referrals.
On top of that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program itself.
You also get 40% commissions by promoting any product in the ClickFunnel’s ecosystem such as DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets or even the Software Secrets books.
And thanks to the ClickFunnel’s sticky cookie, you’ll also earn commissions on any upsells that your referrals purchase as they go through their specific funnels as well.
But that’s not all:
ClickFunnels also has another great feature for affiliates called share funnels.
Inside the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.
Whenever someone visits this URL, they’ll have the ability to add this funnel directly into their accounts if they are an existing ClickFunnels member. If they aren’t a member yet, they can register for the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial and then get your funnel added to their accounts.
What’s really awesome is that this share URL also functions as your affiliate link, and you’ll get a recurring commission when this new user ends up staying.
What I do not like about ClickFunnels?
Bad Part #1: Why is adding a funnel so slow?
After choosing your funnel type and template, it needs to get added to your account.
For some reason, this process appears to take around 8-10 seconds each time.
While I really don’t know what’s really going on behind the scenes, it does not make sense to me why this would take so long. It’s a bit annoying, although just a minor inconvenience.
Bad Part #2: Limits on funnels you can create and visitors
ClickFunnels limits you to 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors on their lowest plan. I’m really not a fan of software products which limit you in this manner.
If you’re just building sales funnels for yourself, these limits are most likely okay.
But you may get more annoyed at these constraints if you’re doing client work, creating funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate using share funnels.
You will need to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you would like to develop unlimited funnels.
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve
The range of what ClickFunnels could do is fairely huge, and it can definitely be intimidating to some.
That is why ClickFunnels put a lot of work into the onboarding process to help ease you into the program. The ClickFunnels interface is fairely well made for the most part and once you’ve built a couple funnels yourself, the entire procedure does get easier over time.
ClickFunnels Pricing
Over time, ClickFunnels has evolved their pricing plans. In the beginning, they had 3 different pricing tiers, however they’ve now been merged into 2 separate plans.
So how much is ClickFunnels now?
At the moment, the cheapest ClickFunnels plan is $97 a month. On this plan, you get access to all of the funnel production tools, but you are limited to creating 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors. You also don’t get access to Actionetics, their built-in email service provider and Backpack, which allows you to create your own affiliate program.
To get access to that, you’ll need to go with the Etison Suite plan. It features everything, and you get unlimited funnels, pages, and visitors. However, this will run you $297 a month.
As far as I can tell, there aren’t any ClickFunnels coupon codes available. However, you can buy Funnel Hacks for $997 which gives you 6 months of Etison Suite for free plus some extra bonuses. This brings the cost down to $166.16 per month.
ClickFunnels does make it easy for you to demo their service with their free, 14-day free trial. It’s not limited in any way which lets you give the software a complete test before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month seems like too big a commitment for your present budget, there’s also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan that you can also have access to for just $19 a month. You can only create 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it’s a great way to test out ClickFunnels on a budget.
Everything else you need to know about ClickFunnels
How is their support?
ClickFunnels support is quite good in my experience, although they can be somewhat slow in responding. They use Intercom, so you may directly ask questions in the live chat box. Support requests are usually answered in a few hours and I found the staff to fairly helpful to all my questions.
Do I need my own domain name? Clickfunnels For Seo
You don’t necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, although I would advise it. If you do not have one then your funnel URL will look something like http://username.clickfunnels.com.
One nice bonus I did not know about is that ClickFunnels will buy you your first domain name for free and even set up SSL on it for you. You can discover how to do this from the very first game in the onboarding training.
Do they have an active community?
ClickFunnels has an massive community. There is the official group on FB with over 100k members and the ClickFunnels Avengers FB group (for affiliates) that has over 30k members.
Both groups are very active and it is a great place to get opinions on your own sales funnels and answer any questions that you may have.
Additionally, there are several other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates that are also very active. The main one I recommend joining is Automation Nation. It’s run by Spencer Mecham who is ClickFunnel’s top affiliate.
What integrations do they provide?
Even though ClickFunnels has its own email service provider via Actionetics, it also integrates directly with the best email marketing software on the market.
For payment gateways, ClickFunnels integrates with Stripe, Paypal, Clickbank, Infusionsoft, Authorize.net, and a few others. The one constraint with using Paypal though is that it does not support One Click Upsells or One Time Offers. That’s why I would highly suggest going with Stripe if you can.
What’s the Funnel Hacks system?
If you’re looking to acquire the $297/mo. Etison Suite plan, then it is definitely worth it to sign up with Funnel Hacks instead to save some additional money. For $997, you are going to get six months of the Etison Suite plan which is $1,782 in value.
You’ll also get a lot of additional bonuses and training that include:
– 6 Week Funnel Hacks Master Class ($2,997 value)
– Instant Traffic Hacks ($1,997 value)
– Inception Secrets ($1,997 value)
– SOAP & Seinfeld Email Sequences ($997 value)
Is ClickFunnels a scam?
I think ClickFunnels gets some negative buzz around it due to all the affiliates that are trying to market it.
But no, ClickFunnels isn’t a scam. It’s definitely the real deal.
It’s a great software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are using ClickFunnels to build 6 and 7 figure businesses.
It is a great software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many men and women are utilizing ClickFunnels to build 6 and 7 figure businesses.
When folks ask, “How can I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 answer hands down. There is no other software that can do every thing that ClickFunnels does at the moment.
What else is ClickFunnels used for?
Besides building standard sales funnels, there are plenty of ways marketers are using ClickFunnels right now in their business.
It’s great for creating opt-in funnels to help you generate more prospects and build your email list.
You can produce webinar funnels that will help you develop your brand and promote your services and products.
And you can use it to build membership sites where you’re able to gate your premium content so that it’s available only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Clickfunnels For Seo
To start with, you need to have a product or service to sell. If you don’t have something to market, then do not even bother looking into ClickFunnels before you do. Unless you just want to promote it as an affiliate.
Next, you need to be willing to invest money and time into creating your value ladder and building out your entire sales funnel.
That means creating a lead magnet or low-cost tripwire product to get clients or customers into your funnel. And then coming up with proper upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that match or enhance your main product offering.
If you’re unclear how to being, I’d take a look at Russell’s own multi-million dollar sales funnels to provide you with inspiration. Read his book DotComSecrets where he describes exactly the why and how of building sales funnels and how to tell stories to marketing your services and products.
And as you go through his own sales funnels you can observe how he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) to selling his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By building his very own community of raving fans he could then upsell his various different products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and much more.
As soon as you’ve gone through his funnels, then you can take the components that apply to your own business and create a strategy for your own sales funnel. As soon as you have that in place, you’ll be ready to start making money with ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels versus the competition
There are a few ClickFunnels alternatives out there that share a number of the same capabilities as ClickFunnels. Two that I use myself are LeadPages and SamCart.
ClickFunnels vs LeadPages
Today, LeadPages is one of the market leaders in the landing page builder space and it is a really popular tool in its own right.
It also recently added the capability to sell products directly on their pages using its new Checkout widget
Each product comes with a huge selection of nice looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors which make it easy for you to create the designs you desire. And both integrate with all the popular email service providers.
But, Leadpages is significantly more limited in scope than ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that can help you collect leads. This is not a terrible thing because LeadPages really shines for creating landing pages fast.
At this time, among the best strategies for developing your email list is by using content upgrades. By producing targeted lead magnets into your most popular articles you can get opt-in conversion rates that far surpass your standard pop-up.
LeadPages is the best service for implementing this strategy with its LeadBoxes, 2 step opt-ins, and automatic lead magnet delivery which is why they are the most popular popup you’ll see today.
So if you are primarily focused on lead generation, I’d definitely suggest trying out LeadPages.
However, if you are selling a product or service, then ClickFunnels is the better choice. While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, once you master the tool, you can really explode your sales once you start creating sales funnels for each of your products.
However, if you are selling a product or service, then ClickFunnels is the better choice. While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, as soon as you master the instrument, you can really explode your sales as soon as you begin creating sales funnels for all your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product that lets users build amazing, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is targeted towards getting setup and selling fast. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it includes 17 different checkout page templates that you may customize.
Concerning flexibility, there is not any comparison between ClickFunnel’s drag and drop editor and SamCart’s.
ClickFunnels is infinitely more powerful in that you can design any checkout page you can dream of. SamCart only allows for some basic customizations to its pre-made templates.
SamCart does permit you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells like ClickFunnels does. You can also quickly create coupons for your products which is another terrific way to increase conversions.
However, where Samcart is lacking, is the ability to capture leads and create complete sales funnels. Both products come in at the same $97 a month price point, and I find ClickFunnels to be quite a bit more flexible and more powerful compared to Samcart.
ClickFunnels Pros
– Best software for creating marketing and sales funnels
– Editor balances ease of use with flexibility
– Integrates with all major email and payment providers
– Beautiful looking templates for each kind of funnel
– Great on-boarding procedure for learning the program
– Software continues to get better after every update
– Easily share any funnels you create and automatically earn affiliate commissions
– 2-tier affiliate program
– Free domain name with SSL installed
– 14-day free trial
ClickFunnels Cons
– Limits on the amount of funnels, pages, and visitors with the standard plan
– Plently of things to understand, a steep learning curve
– Split testing is pretty basic
Final Thoughts Clickfunnels For Seo
Which application you go with depends on your needs and the quantity of work you’re willing to invest in your enterprise.
Although a lot of you are selling standalone products, are you ready to put in the effort required to make a high converting sales funnel?
Otherwise, ClickFunnels could be overkill for you. You can collect leads or sell your front end product more cheaply with alternative services.
However, if raising the average lifetime value of your customers is important to you, then I truly recommend giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not just to access the software but also because the coaching you receive will be both inspirational and enlightening.
Take advantage of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see whether you can use it to grow your business today.
