Traffic Generation Tips and Strategies to Increase Blog Readership

This is a very easy and efficient strategy to draw in an avalanche of highly targeted traffic and readers to your blog. I will notify you in the beginning, that it does require a bit of time in order to realize the gain in traffic. Although, after you are completed, you will agree that it was all worth it due to the increase in subscribers and traffic to your blog.

Here we go:

1. To start, you want to find who your competitors are that have blogs with high readership and ranking. These bloggers must be directly related to your niche. Your mission - if you wish to accept it - is to draw all of those readers to your blog.

To find out who they are, use the free tools our friends at Google share and input your main keywords. After the list of blogs come up, check out those on the first three pages that directly relate to your niche and assess the content quality. The key information you want to obtain is how many RSS readers (if available), traffic
regularity and content quality.

Use these tools to help you out:

Alexa Traffic Details

Blog Juice Calculator (compare and contrast the result with those of your blog. You want to ensure the other blog is equal to or higher in ranking than yours):

Xinureturns (one of the best tools for a blog overview):

SEO Tools

You want to develop a list of the top  5-7 blogs as a minimum. You may know who some of the movers and shakers are in your niche. If you do not, you need to real quick. Just make sure the other blogs are authority blogs with high Alexa and Google page rankings.

2. Next, you want to bookmark the blogs and check them out every day for updates. If they have an RSS feed, subscribe to it so you will know when it is updated. Your next mission is to run to that blog as fast as possible to read the update and make a top notch comment. Don’t write a comment for the sake of writing, but make it meaningful. Remember, your mission is to make yourself out to be a mover and shaker too. Make your posting relevant and valuable. Strive to be one of the first 10 comments to get the greatest benefits.

3. Lastly, keep doing this every day and you will eventually see a dramatic growth in your traffic, readership, and hopefully sales. When you see that happening, you know that you have diverted the traffic to your own site. Just make sure that every one of your comments has your name and blog URL. People will not only get to your site this way, but it will also build backlinks to your site.

I routinely do this on 10-15 blogs per day. Make it part of your schedule and you will stick to it. Just keep think of how many backlinks you will have in the end, not to mention the increased traffic.

If you are an internet marketer and are searching for a good ecourse, sign up for my new Internet Marketing Professor Internet Success Program here.

Dr. Dave Hale is the founder and Chief Social Marketer at The Internet Marketing Professor, a business coaching firm dedicated to assisting small to medium sized businesses with integrating Web 2.0 into their marketing mix. He has written over 40 books and how-to course on Internet marketing related topics, is a professional speaker, business coach, and a professor at Webster University, Columbia, SC where he teaches business development and organizational psychology courses.

Article Writing for Increased Website Traffic and Conversion

Article writing and later submitting them to article directories is a very easy method to drive almost pre-qualified traffic to your site. The only tough part about it, is pushing yourself to do it every day. I have found this to be true for even myself, as I use article writing as one of my top traffic generation tools, although, I too am like everyone else when it come finding the time to write 5-7 article per day, which equates to 25 - 49 articles every week.

When time is tough to schedule in, I just remind myself of how much traffic will be coming to my web site once I post the articles.

So, is there a magic formula that I have found for writing articles to make them pay off with targeted traffic? What I mean is, what method do I use to develop my articles?

These are the steps I use for every article I write:

1) Determine the niche subject matter that I want to write on. You may already have a niche you currently write on or have a web site for. If so, write on subjects associated to it. The main point to keep in mind is that you must write for the benefit of your audience and what they need for information. Do not just write for the sake of writing and having people come to your site. The key is to build a relationship that results in the traffic buying from you. Again, your articles need to  be targeted at your customers, expressly, and pulling new buyers to your site.

2) Write your title with search engine optimization in mind. By that I mean with your keywords as the first couple words in the title. Your keywords for the article should reflect what the article is about. Again, start your title with your keyword(s), then use the rest of the words to let the reader know what they will read about. It should be directed at a benefit of your article.

3) Before actually writing the article out fully, write three core intentions of your article. Three techniques to completing something, three fascinating details, three methods to achieving success. Get the picture?  Now, develop the ideas a bit.

4) Compose an introductory section that encapsulates what the three points will teach them.

5) Close article with a paragraph informs the reader how to contact you for more information about what you just taught them.

If you are an internet marketer and are searching for a good ecourse, sign up for my new Internet Marketing Professor Internet Success Program here.

Dr. Dave Hale is the founder and Chief Social Marketer at The Internet Marketing Professor, a business coaching firm dedicated to assisting small to medium sized businesses with integrating Web 2.0 into their marketing mix. He has written over 40 books and how-to course on Internet marketing related topics, is a professional speaker, business coach, and a professor at Webster University, Columbia, SC where he teaches business development and organizational psychology courses.

Quick Strategies To Drive Traffic To Your Website

Most people who are starting out in a business get a website to draw visitors, share information, and increase sales, but they don’t have extra money or sales yet to spend the money on paid advertising such as pay-per-click, banner or text ads, etc. So they look for ways to send people to their website for free- that’s what we internet marketers call driving free traffic.

There are 3 basic ways to drive traffic to your website for free that are the easiest for beginner online business people. These strategies don’t involve a steep learning curve or a writing degree, but they will involve extra time to create content and then release it to as many websites as you can.

1) Article Marketing- writing simple articles that showcase your expertise in your niche area is a powerful way to exhibit what you know to your consumer. It also wets their appetite for more information enough to gently guide them to your website to see what you have to offer. The resource box or bio is the most important part of your article because this is where you get to introduce yourself and give your website for readers to visit.

2) Web 2.0- This is just another term for social media such as MySpace, Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn and all the other networking sites where people connect with friends, family, business colleagues, old classmates, etc. On these types of sites, it is important to make sure your profile is updated to include a photo for personalization, a website URL, e-mail address and a short description of your business. Then, most importantly, be patient and let people come to you as you interact normally within the network. Share valuable content, share photos, share personal ideas or inspirational quotes, but do not constantly thrust your business into the conversation.

3) Video Marketing- anyone with a webcam, a video camera, or a digital camera can produce their own video which can then be uploaded to YouTube, Google Video, Viddler, or other social video sites. The video does not have to be professionally done or flawless and it can still send traffic to your site as people search video sites for specific keywords and come across your video. In fact a video with errors is more likely to lead to visitors who can identify with you more and feel more confident that they can do what you have done. As major search engines love videos and websites use videos to augment their own content and conversations more than any other form of media, video is a must-do in the marketing arsenal of any online marketer.

Once you have created articles and videos, you can share them on social networking sites and place them on the largest media-sharing sites on the internet to get more people to see them. There are hundreds of article directories and video sharing sites to upload your content. Of course, the intent is to make sure you include a call to action in each piece you create to send visitors back to your lead generating website or blog. As your content circulates the net, it could get picked up by other websites, reprinted, re-tweeted, and rewarded for the quality of your work. Constant creation means a constant stream of new visitors, but don’t underestimate the consistency this effort will take. Do it every day or more and soon you’ll be generating leads like the people spending big bucks on pay-per-click.

If you are looking for the insider information on what internet marketer is all about, sign up for my free ecourse, the Internet Marketing Success Program.

How I Built a Successful Automated Online System in 30 Days

The next time you see a product (information or software) that claims to get you thousands of visitors or make millions of dollars without lifting a finger, ask yourself this question…

If it works so well, why are they selling it?

The answer: because they make more money selling it than actually using it!

And there’s nothing wrong with that. The point is, selling information and software is the fastest way to go from zero to making thousands of dollars every month!

In this article, I’m going to show you how I made my first $5k on line and then how I ramped it up to make more money  per month selling information products and software.

The basic marketing formula is: Traffic + Conversion = Sales

There are hundreds of ways to get traffic. But only one method allows you to use all of them at once. I’ll talk about that in a minute. But first let’s talk about conversion.

The conversion rate is the percentage of people who visit a web page and take a specific action. That action could be joining your list, purchasing a product from you, or purchasing an affiliate product that you recommend. When you own the list and you sell a product, you have control over the conversion process.

• You can find out what people want and create a freebie to give away in exchange for an email address
• You can follow up, give valuable content, build relationships, and earn the trust of your subscribers
• When it comes time to sell something or promote an affiliate product, your conversion rates will be off the charts

Now let’s talk about traffic…

Everybody says that affiliate marketing is the easiest way to get started online. And that’s true to a point. I mean, how are you going to compete with some guru marketer who spends $20k to have  a product created and gets all his JV buddies to promote it? It’s a lot easier to promote a product like that for a cut of the profits than trying to create one yourself.

But the problem is, how do you get the traffic?

Like I said, there are hundreds of ways to get traffic:

• Pay-Per Click Advertising
• Banner Advertising
• Ezine Advertising
• Social Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Video Marketing
• Blogging
• Press Releases
• Viral Marketing
• Webinars
• Teleseminars

Just to name a few…

But are you an expert at all those methods? I’m certainly not. My advice has always been to pick one method and make it work before you move on to the next. And that’s sound advice. But the problem is…

It takes a long time to learn,  implement and be successful at any one of those methods. And most people give up before they ever make a sale.

But what is there were a way to get traffic from people who are already experts at those methods? And what if didn’t even have to pay anything up front to get that traffic?

How to Set Up Your Automated Income System

1.  Create or buy rights to an info product on a hot topic

2.  Build a conversion system (squeeze page, sales page, followups)

3.  Get other people to sell it and split the profits

That’s how I made my first $5k online and then it jumped to more than I thought I could ever make a month when I focused on step #3.

That’s the power of an affiliate program!

I run my entire business from home with the help of two part-time, virtual employees in who live in outside the USA. I can do this because most of my day-to-day operations are completely automated.

What I want to talk about right now is creating your own basic info product and getting other people to sell it, so you can build a list and sell high-priced affiliate products to your subscribers.

Step #1: Create a Hot-Topic Product

The easiest way to get attention from affiliates is to create a short, focused report on a hot topic. For example, two years ago people were going nuts over JV Giveaways as a list building tactic.

So here’s what I did:

• I signed up for a new joint venture Giveaway and submitted my gift
• I documented everything I did and took screen shots of the process
• I wrote a 14-page report (including screen shots)
• I bought a graphics package for about $100
• I sold the report for $7, resell rights for $17, and branding rights for $27
• I paid affiliates 100% commission to promote it

That little report did over $10k in sales the first month and it’s still selling today! I also got thousands of new subscribers who bought other products from me and also became my affiliates.

The key to that success was creating a focused report on a hot topic. I didn’t list 50 theoretical tactic for building a list. I documented one proven method for getting hundreds of new subscribers. The 100% commission didn’t hurt either.

A current example it social marketing. Everybody’s crazy about Twitter!

So here’s what I did:

• I created viral software to help people get more followers
• I bought resell rights to some Video Tutorials and set them up as an upsell
• I paid affiliates 100% to promote (customers only)
• I set it up so only customers could get commission, so there was more incentive to upgrade. The videos are great, the software is great, people are making money, everybody wins.

Within 30 days, affiliates were (and still are) sending over 3,000 visitors per DAY to that site and I don’t even promoted it anymore. I sent a few initial emails to my list to get the ball rolling and affiliate inertia, the viral marketing affect, took over from there.

Step #2: Build Your Conversion System

When you’re developing your plan, you need to factor in lead generation before anything else. How are you going to capture leads?

If you’re selling a low-cost report, it doesn’t always make sense to use a squeeze page and even if you’re paying 100%, you affiliate may not like it. But you can use an exit popup to offer a free report on a similar topic, with links back to the report you’re selling.

Personally, I like to use a squeeze page with an upsell. But that’s a little more work. One method I’ve used very successfully, is making the squeeze page appear to be a membership signup page. Affiliates give memberships away to their subscribers who have to create an account to download the freebie.

Once you have people on a list, you can follow up with great content, build relationships and increase conversions.

Once you decide how to capture leads, you need to write a sales page…

I’m not going to get into the art of copy writing here. But I do want to talk about your offer. If you follow step #1 and create a product on a HOT topic, you won’t need to do much convincing to get them to buy.

You just need to tell them:

• What you got
• What they get
• And how they can get it

Some of my shortest sales letters of out-pulled long copy because my potential customers were already aware of the benefits. They were already primed to buy from social buzz and the “follow the heard” mentality. If your product is focused on a specific topic that people are already talking about, you don’t need to list a ton of features and benefits. Just tell ‘em how it works, what it will do for them, and how they can get it.

Step #3: Get People to Promote Your Product

If you have a hot  product and the conversions are high, it will be easy to get affiliates to promote. And some of your best affiliates will be your customers. I’ve already talked about paying 100% commission as an incentive for people to both buy and promote your product. In fact, many will buy a product just so they can promote it! But you need to make it easy.

You need to include information about your affiliate program in several places:

• On the sales page
• On the download page
• Inside the report
• In followup emails

Keep reminding your prospects and customers that they can make 100% commission without going through the hassle of setting everything up.

Give your affiliates tools and tell them what to do:

• Write solo ads and tell affiliates to send them to their list
• Write articles and tell affiliates to post them on their blog, Squidoo, and MySpace
• Get banners created and tell affiliates to add them to their blog or in HTML emails
• Create brandable reports and tell affiliates to give them away to subscribers

The more you give your affiliates, the more active they will be. Tell them what to do and show them how to do it.

Other ways to find affiliates:

• Get on the mailing lists of list owners and send Joint Venture  proposals
• Join forums and make friends with list owners
• Link to your affiliate program in your signature for articles and emails
• Socialize on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace

What I’ve given you here today, is a step-by-step system for getting your Internet business up and running in the next 30 days. It doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, simple is better. I’ve already proven that point. You just need a product that focuses on a specific topic that people are already talking about and helps people achieve what they’re already trying to do.

The first time is the hardest. But it gets easier every time. The sooner you make the commitment to created your first Automated Income System, the sooner you can enjoy Internet lifestyle that everybody talks about.

Once you have a system in place, it runs almost completely on autopilot.

• Your affiliates drive traffic
• Your sales page converts traffic into buyers
• Your autoresponder follows up to increase conversions
• Sales are processed and affiliates are paid automatically
• Products are delivered automatically

That’s what I call an “Automated Income System!”

Instead of chasing shiny objects and buying into the latest fad, try building a REAL business based on evergreen marketing methods that have worked for decades.

This is the true path to the Internet lifestyle.

If you are an internet marketer and are searching for a good ecourse, sign up for my new Internet Marketing Professor Internet Success Program here.

Dr. Dave Hale is the founder and Chief Social Marketer at The Internet Marketing Professor, a business coaching firm dedicated to assisting small to medium sized businesses with integrating Web 2.0 into their marketing mix. He has written over 40 books and how-to course on Internet marketing related topics, is a professional speaker, business coach, and a professor at Webster University, Columbia, SC where he teaches business development and organizational psychology courses.

Top 5 List Building Tactics To Creating An Avalanche Of Clients

Recently, I was asked by a small business coaching client, what the best methods were to attract new clients. I love this type of question because even with the advent of social media, there still exist the tried and true methods for attracting a large number of paying clients to your business. Here are the top five tactics every business owner should have in his or her marketing play book.

1.  Identify your niche. To become really successful at attracting clients and converting them into paying clients, it is imperative  to identify your niche. Why is this important? In order to properly target your client base, and where to allocate your time, energy and efforts, this can only be accomplished by knowing who your target client is and what their needs are. Attempting to promote your services by using a shot gun approach, not only will be a waste of time, but it is too hard. Get more tips and resources here.

2.  Establish your expertise. Clients want to connect with subject matter experts. They want to know they have the best person they can afford working for them. make sure you are using all of your experience, education, skills, knowledge, certifications, etc. to their fullest potential.  Experts are people who possess experience, education, published writing, teaching experience and have spoken to groups on their subject. Do your best to obtain experience in each of these areas in order to develop your expert status. Get more tips here.

3.  Schedule time to development your business. You must schedule it! Trying to develop a huge array of products to sell does nothing if you are not also spending time to attract clients. When you do spend time on developing your business, turn off your email and phone and go to work. You should attempt to schedule a part of each day on this.

4.  Keep your network informed. Broadcast your current activities to your network so they know what you are doing.  Harnessing the full capacity of social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, this can easily be done. And do not forget to ask for referrals. Get more tips here.

5.  Follow up. You must continually connect with prospective clients who have contacted you. Keep in mind that if they came to you, they are hot prospects and are looking to be served. Studies have shown that it takes seven to thirteen contacts before they will buy. If you do not use an auto responder services, now is a good time in order to keep your name and information in front of potential clients.  Once you stop connecting with your contact list of potential clients, you as well send the list to your competitors. Because that is where they are heading. Get more tips here.

No matter what business niche you are in, the above five tactics still apply. These are no different than what I continually use in business development today, but also teach to my university graduate business school students.

If you are looking for a good resource for more indepth strategies, tactics and techniques to brand and design your expertise, check out my ebook, Niche Building Strategies

If you are an internet marketer and are searching for a good ecourse, sign up for my new Internet Marketing Professor Internet Success Program here.

Dr. Dave Hale is the founder and Chief Social Marketer at The Internet Marketing Professor. He also has written over 40 books and how-to course on internet marketing related topics, is a professional speaker, and a professor at Webster University, Columbia, SC and Northcentral University, Prescott Valley, AZ where he teaches business and organizational psychology courses.

Internet Marketing: 5 Top Tips To Build Your List

Where do you start when you get started online?  What do you need?  Web site, product, sales page, list, right?  Sure—but how do you make everything work together?

I am assuming two things here.  One, you already have a product or information to sell.  Two, you have or are willing to build, buy, or otherwise obtain a web site.

Once you have a product and a web site, how do you get traffic to it?  How do you build a list of potential customers that can buy from you in the future?  Notice I say build here, not buy.  The list you build will be far more valuable than any you could purchase online.  Keep this in mind–if they sell it to you, they probably sell it to many others.  Do you want to be one of 25 people mailing your list, or do you want your own, personal list, with people on it who specifically remember requesting you send them more information?

1.  So the first thing you need is an auto responder so you can effectively build your list.  The auto responder will allow you to pre-write letters to send to your list on a pre-determined schedule.  This allows you to stay in touch with your list whether you are actively working at the office on your campaign, or you are relaxing on the beach (This particular article was written on my vacation). I use Aweber, and most of the big internet marketers do too. They offer a great free trial period, so check them out. Get more tips here.

2.  Once you have your auto responder, set up a page on your web site where people who visit your site can subscribe to your mailing list.  Notice I said page, not link.  Why?  If you just have a sign-up location on your site they may or may not sign up.  But imagine that the only way they can enter your site is to subscribe to your list.  Wouldn’t your subscription rate go up?  To see exactly what I mean, click my link at the end of this article.  You will get to an opt-in page, and will go no further in my web site until you have subscribed. For an example, look at the opt-in box on my web site at The Internet Marketing Professor.

3.  Next, write an orderly series of letters to your list.  These letters must be informative and easy to read.  I like to make mine almost chatty—I try to write them the same way I would talk if you and I were having coffee at my dining room table (or in this case, at the beach). For more tips click here

4.  Now that your campaign has been set up, and you are ready to mail to it, you need traffic.  My favorite sources of traffic are articles that I have written, search engine results (if you write articles, your web site should climb the search engine results rankings), and inexpensive PPC campaigns.  A note on PPC–do not spend a ridiculous amount of money—bid on lower - priced words, until you have a proven response rate and rate of return.  You may think that these methods will not provide as much traffic as banner ads or guaranteed traffic schemes or even buying huge lists and mailing them.  But keep in mind, I am looking for long-term income, not a quick buck.  What do you want?  A quick buck and your web site shut down for spurious techniques, or long-term income? For more tips click here

5.  Lastly, guard this list with your life. Do not share it, give it away, send useless information, sell it, spam it, nothing.  Treat these names as though they are your very closest of friends.  Only share with them information you would share with your best friend.  Do not send them to some affiliate link to a product you don’t know anything about.  Respect your list, and they should buy from you.  Maybe not today, or tomorrow—but if you treat them right and mail them regularly, they will produce a long term income. For more tips click here

If you are an internet marketer and are searching for a good ecourse, sign up for my new Internet Marketing Professor Internet Success Program here.

Top 5 Ways To Generate Low Cost Website Traffic

There is one hard and fast rule in generating income for your website: A steady flow of website traffic. If no one goes to your site, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income. Many sites have tried and failed in doing so, and these results to the sites demise. It takes money to maintain an income generating site; it also takes money to make money.

BUT, it doesn’t take a whole caboodle of cash to generate website traffic for your site.

Ever wonder how does big hit sites drive traffic top their site? Most of them are spending tons of money to drive the traffic to their sites, investing in many advertising campaigns and different forms of marketing schemes and gimmickries. This is all worthwhile because, well, they are what they are now, high earning, big hitting websites.

You don’t have to do this if you don’t really have their resources. There are many ways to generate low cost website traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have ended up losing their shirt over it.

Here I present to you the top five ways to generate low cost website traffic that could help your site a whole lot. Even if you only get a small percentage of successful visitors in to client ratio it still works especially if you get a high number of website traffic.

1. Exchange Links

This is a sure and proven method. Rarely would you see a site where there is no link to another site. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. You’ll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites is having the same niche or content as the other site. They should share a common subject so that there is continuity in the providing of service and information to what interests your target traffic.

Exchanging links also boosts your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic in your website without the high costs.

2. Traffic Exchange

This is like exchanging links but on a different higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links but could be made cheaper because you get to earn credits. You can use those credits when viewing others traffic, while you earn credits when someone views yours.

Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another’s site or page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your sites contents and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each other’s efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again the public awareness of your sites existence is boosted.

3. Write and Submit Articles

There are many e-zines and online encyclopedias in the Internet which provides free space for articles to be submitted. E-zine Articles is probably the top article directory and one which I have submitted a lot of articles to. If you want to save costs, you can do the articles yourself. There are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee, but to save money, it is wise to do those articles yourself.

Write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on so that when they read it, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your site has.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that can link them to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more.

4. Make a Newsletter.

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in on your newsletter. This will also provide free advertising for them as well.

As your newsletter gets passed around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list that can regularly visit your site.

5. Join Online Communities and Forums

This only requires your time and nothing else. You can share your knowledge and expertise with many online communities as well as your website. You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.

Share your two cents and let them see how knowledgeable you are with the subject. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site, making it a reputable and honest business that could be frequented and trusted by many people.

Related Articles:

4 Ways to get your op-in subscribers to trust you quickly

4 Crucial things you need to do to build your list

7 tips to make money using nothing more than your list

List building 101; Top tips to bring an avalanche of subscribers to your site

List building - 4 top strategies to build a long opt-in list

List Building Tips: 7 Ways To Make Money Using Nothing More Than Your List

An opt-in list can be quite crucial to any site or internet based company. Even for a small venture such as a niche profit site an opt-in list can

make a world of difference and also add some extra income for your pocket. Rarely would you see an e-commerce site, big or small, that is without an opt-in list.

An opt-in list allows for a company to market their wares and site via an e-mail. With an opt-in list, a site and a subscriber consents to sending and receiving a newsletter from your company. Through this, you can keep your subscribers abreast of what is currently available in your site as well as whatever is coming out.

And because there is mutual consent between the two parties, any mail sent to the list is not considered as spam mail. There is a great number of successfully read promotional materials such as catalogs, newsletters and such that are sent because the subscribers themselves have signed up for them, meaning, they do want to be sent those items.

Building a list is crucial, only a small percentage actually subscribe ro an opt-in list. Many people find promotional mails annoying, but if you provide a good newsletter or promotional material,  you will see your list build up and grow. You can also achieve this by having good content on your site. If people like what they see and read on your site, then they surely would want more. Newsletters would be a way to attract them back to your site. A little teaser or appetizer if you will.

But other than marketing your wares and your services, an opt-in list can also be used to earn extra profit. Not all lists can be used though. It would be good to first build a successful list with a huge number of subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the more money you can get. Here are seven ways to make money using nothing more than your list.

1) Place advertisements. There are many corporations who will be willing to pay to put their banners and ads on a list with many subscribers. Selling or renting out lists is not a good idea so rather than doing that, many companies would rather place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. Your newsletter could be placed with many ads and each one spells money.

2) Have affiliations with other companies that have at least a semblance or relation to what your site is about. Here other companies will provide links and brief descriptions of what they offer, products and services. With every click made on the link that directs or leads a subscriber from your list to their site, the company will pay you. This P4P or pay for performance.

3) Make deals with other companies by asking for a small percentage of sales done through your list. With every sale done by customers that have come from your list and have gone there because of your newsletter, the other company will pay you a small percentage of your sales. The more people who buys from them, the more earnings you get.

4) You may also get products from other sites on a consignment basis and sell them to your list via  your newsletter. Place descriptions, articles and photos of the product in your newsletter. There will be those who will buy from you and when that happens, you can order the product from the other site and sell it to your buyer.

5) Sell e-books or a compilation of your articles to your list. Manuals and how-to articles are in great demand. Many people will be willing to shell out money to gain knowledge about a certain topic and subject. With your existing list trusting your expertise in that area, an e-book could be offered and sold or used as an incentive.

6) Create a network out of your list. Get people to invite more people to view your site and subscribe to your list. The larger your list is, the more people will be able to click on your links and affiliate links as well as make your advertisement rates higher.

7) Subscribers are willing to pay for information if they know that it can be trusted and relied upon. Use your list to get more and more people to subscribe to you as well as browse your site. Lastly, you can use your list to earn money by making them your partners. Your list will be the bloodline of your growth and increase.

For in-depth list building training and how-to guide, check out Listbuilding Insider Strategies. You will find all of the top tips to build and monetize your opt-in list.

Lastly, to keep up to date on listbuilding strategies and other Internet marketing information sign up for the free Internet marketing journal on the home page of The Internet Marketing Professor.

7 Surefire Ways To Increase Your Traffic Starting Yesterday

Internet. Business. Profit. To fully integrate all of these words into a successful merging you will need another word. Traffic.

Every article you will find about making your site or company successful would always include the importance of generating traffic.

So, we all know that in the core of it all, traffic is the most essential thing to a successful internet based business company. A side from ensuring that you have a great product to sell, and you have your company’s internal organization well taken care of, it would be time to get to the nitty gritty of things, generating traffic.

If you already have a site and you want think that you’re not getting the traffic that you’re supposed to be getting, then it’s time to reconsider. If you are contending in these very competitive business, you should always be a step ahead of your competition, increasing your traffic flow should have been done starting yesterday.

Timing is essential, that’s an old adage known to everyone. But with generating traffic, you should always be on your toes and be a day ahead of everyone. Never think of today and tomorrow as a starting point for making your site traffic laden, it should always have been yesterday.

To help you out in generating more traffic for your site, here are some seven surefire ways to increase your traffic starting from yesterday.

1) Invest in good advertising with search engines

Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Overture provide great advertising schemes that are very truly popular and assures great traffic. Although with this surefire way to increase your traffic would cost some money. While some would shy away from spending money to increase traffic, it is imperative in this case to do so because Adwords and Overture is the top surefire way to increase your traffic.

You could see for yourself the success this search engine advertising methods have reaped rewards for so many companies. Lots of site feature these advertising system and many have signed on to reap the benefits. Do not be left behind. Every penny is worth it with using Google and Yahoo’s advertising.

2) Exchange or Trade Links with other sites

With exchanging links with other sites, both of you will benefit from the efforts both of you do to enhance your sites traffic. When one site features another sites link, they could provide one another with the traffic one site generates. The efforts are doubly beneficial because it would seem like both of you are working to generate more traffic. The more links traded with more sites the more traffic could be expected.

3) Use Viral Marketing

Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company and product without any costs or if ever low costs only. This is a marketing method that can be quite sneaky; you can attach your company’s name, product or link to a certain media such as a funny video, entertaining game, an interesting article or a gossip or buzz. With this method, people get infected with the creativity and entertainment of the medium that they will pass it on to many people.

4) Search and use proper keywords or keyword phrases for your sites content

Search engines look for certain keywords that they would show in their results page. In doing so, having the right keyword and keyword phrase is a high requirement in ranking in high in search engine results. You could write your own content or you could hire someone to do it for you.

5) Write Articles that can lead traffic to your site

Submit articles to sites that would contain the same subject that your site deals in. If you sell car parts write press releases and articles about cars and car parts. Attach your sites description and services at the end of the article as well as the link.

6) Join forums and form online communities

Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you found a good foundation for your site, people will trust you and your site and will pass on to many people their trust. Traffic will certainly increase because they know that you can provide what they need.

7) Lastly, Offer newsletters.

If many people know what you are about and your existence is shared with many others, you will find a loyal traffic that can provide you with more traffic by recommendation. If you arouse the curiosity of your customers they would be pushed to help you with your traffic.

List Building - 4 top strategies to build a long opt-in list

Internet  marketing may have developed a sudden surge these past few years, but many in the know, have felt its rise even more. As more Internet-based businesses are developed, the need to design new marketing skills and awareness have come about. New marketing strategies are being discovered and developed almost on a weekly basis to manage the evolving business to business world.

The demand for Internet marketing tips and strategies have significantly evolve, thus creating d a new  business model, Internet marketing. While there are companies that are all too eager to assist web site owners develop a large opt-in list a fee, there are also many free or low-cost strategies that can provide more visibility to a web site. One such strategy is opt-in email marketing, also known as permission marketing.

Opt-in marketing requires the permission of a person to subscribe to your marketing material, such as newsletters, products and promotional e-mail. The more opt-in email sent to a list, the more chances there is to develop paying customers. To do this, a web site owner must build a list of subscribers who wish to receive further information by opting in.

From a developed opt-in list will come targeted customers. these are hot leads as they have already  shown an interest in obtaining the initial offered information by subscribing to a list. Many Internet marketers believe  that building a list takes a lot of hard work and effort to collect names and email addresses. This does take a bit of time, but like anything, effort is rewarded by results.

The Internet abounds with reference material and articles on list building. Like all industries, Internet marketing has as many list building strategies as it does marketers. Here are four of them that I have found most useful.

1) Design a professional looking opt-in web form for visitors to enter their name and email address. The location for this form is very crucial in that it should be placed above the top fold of the web page. The fold of a web page is the portion above the screen bottom when scrolled to the top of a respective web page. Research has shown that form placement is vital as to whether a person enters their data or not. If your home page does not command a visitor’s attention and the form does not stick out, they are likely to leave.

Designing an attractive opt-in web form is not difficult to do. Any autoresponder service will offer this feature, such as Aweber or 1Shoppingcart . Once a form is designed on their site, simply copy and paste the html code provided into the html code page of a website and Presto, the exact form that was designed appears. Because the form is linked to the autoresponder, once a person enters their data it is automatically collected into a database, which is then used to send marketing emails.

2) As described above, the web site must be professional looking. Adding informative and topic specific articles will assist in providing sticking power for visitors. Make a web site useful and easy to navigate will also add to the attraction of search engines, thus providing a higher Page Rank (PR).

3) Any Internet business web site should provide good services and product offerings. It is easier to sell to  a returning customer than to attract new ones. As in retail stores, satisfied customer will always recommend a business to their friends and family. Word of mouth and recommendations alone can rake in more business than expensive advertisement. As a web site’s visitor list and opt-in list grows so shall profits. Like is any sales environment, a person is more likely to purchase an item from someone they know , like and trust. In the Internet marketing world, this is done with sporadic, but constant email contact.

4) Privacy above all else. If an opt-in visitor or customer finds out a web site owner passed on their email address, and thus start receiving spam mail, the web site owner will lose a list very quickly.

In the Internet marketing world, reputation is everything and will assist in attracting an avalanche of  traffic and subscribers as well as strengthen the loyalty of your customers.

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