List Building Tips - Personal Blogs

In this installment of List Building Tips, I want to discuss how to use your own personal blog to build your list. I'll go over what to do as well as what NOT to do. I think you'll find this interesting reading.

If you've been following this series for a while now, you know that I went over how to build a list using forum blogs. The process is somewhat similar except there are some big differences.

With a forum blog, the forum owner has complete control over the blog itself. They can refuse to allow certain content to be published. Also, the format of the blog itself is out of your control. With your own blog, these things aren't an issue.

When a prospect comes to your blog, the first thing you need to be concerned with is the first impression that your blog makes. What exactly do you want them to see? What kind of layout will they be expecting?

One thing I've discovered, mostly from my own experience with going to other marketers' blogs, is that people don't want to be aimlessly searching for things. They want a navigation system that is easy to follow. That's why, on my own blog, I make sure that there is a clear menu across the top of the blog right below the header.

Once the prospect sees that navigating around the blog is going to be easy, they're more likely to browse the contents. This is where you need to make sure that one of FIRST things they see, preferably on the right hand side just below the header or navigation system, is your opt in box with a brief description of what they're opting in for.

Make it attractive enough, both through design and through your offer, for them to want to be on your list. A simple "Enter your name and email below to be informed of future blog updates" may or may not be enough incentive for them to join. A lot will depend on the actual content of your blog.

Ah... but they won't know how good the content is until they actually READ it. This is where you place your second line of attack. At the end of each article, subtly inform the reader that he can join your list to be informed of any future blog posts or whatever it is you want them to know.

For example, my blog posts are mostly about how to market online. My article closings usually involve telling the reader that if they want more info on how to market online that I have a newsletter that they can subscribe to and then I give them the link. Between this link and the opt in box on the side bar of your blog, you have multiple chances to get the reader onto your list. This is something that you may not be able to do with a forum blog.

If you have multiple blog pages, you want the reader to be able to access the list opt in from any of those pages if the platform allows it. Some blog platforms don't have this capability. So you want to check before you set something up.

You'd be surprised how many people WILL opt into your list IF they like what they see on your blog. But if you don't give them a way to do this, how can they?

Take advantage of every opportunity to build your list.

Your personal blog is just one of those ways.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

The Dos and Don'ts for a Successful Ad Swap

Ad swap or advertisement swap can be considered as the most powerful free method of driving massive amount of traffic within a short period of time. Basically, an ad swap means you promote your partners' websites to your list while your partners promote your website to their lists.

What makes an ad swap great is not only it does not cost a dime to perform but also because it can be repeated as many times as you like. This article will give you a thorough understanding on how to perform a profitable ad swap.

Dos

The first thing that you need to do is build a list of at least 200 subscribers. You can even do an ad swap with less though but a list of 200 - 500 subscribers works best.

Prepare a high quality free product to attract the subscribers from the other list to opt-in. Your free product must be valuable to build your credibility among your partners' list.

Carefully compose your swipe emails to maximize the click through rate from your partners' list. At the same time, make sure that your website is working well in terms of graphics, contents and opt-in box as you would not want others to leech off from your list.

Compare the number of clicks before closing a deal. Matching the number of clicks is a complicated procedure and may result in either one party sending emails to more subscribers than the other.

Confirm the date and time for an ad swap and set the broadcast using your autoresponder so that you won't forget. Then, send a screen capture to your partners and encourage them to do the same.

Don'ts

Do not conclude an ad swap deal if you find the partners too suspicious. For example, someone with a list of 10000 subscribers wouldn't make a swap with you who have only 400 subscribers. You may end up getting tricked for not being rational when making decisions.

Do not forget to check on their squeeze page, sales page and/or free offer to ensure that they are legit and ethical. You wouldn't want to risk promoting a bad experience to your list that will severely affect your relationship.

Most importantly, do not get too upset if you come across one or two scammers who do not deliver their promises. It is near to impossible for any internet marketers to avoid conmen. Therefore, if you happen to bump into one, do not waste time making a fuss about it. Rather, spend your time wisely in other tasks like list building and traffic generation.

3 Tips to Increase Your Opening Rates

When it comes to list building, one of the most important aspects you need to take into account are opening rates. They are key because if, for example, you are sending emails to 10000 subscribers, but only 500 open it you are wasting your time and money.

When it happens that, you probably think:

OMG, what I'm doing wrong? And normally the answer is that not only you're doing one thing wrong, but more than one.

Some of the point you may need to check are the following:

- Does your email have a compelling title? The title is probably the most important part of the email because if the subscriber doesn't feel attracted it will be deleted without even having been opened. Some of the best article titles are: "How to... " "3 ways... " "Don't miss this opportunity if... ". Just test some of them and see which ones have the best opening rate. Remember, every list is different because every person is different to another.

- How often do you send emails to your subscribers? I know some Internet Marketers who send more than one or two emails per day. Of course, if you do so don't expect your opening rate be higher than 10%. Your list will eventually become burnt out and will unsubscribe. Ideally you should be sending no more than 2 or 3 emails per week providing excellent tricks or information to your list. By doing so, you generate an expectation that will increase the opening rates because your subscribers will be looking forward to the next time you send them an email. And when it comes with the follow-up don't email them every single day if you haven't told them you wouldn't be doing so. What I normally do is email them days number 1, 3, 6, 10 and 15. Do you see? The interval increases every email. That is used to generate an expectation.

- How often do you send affiliate links? Subscribers are not stupid, especially when it comes to the Internet Marketing niche, and they know what an affiliate link is. So if you keep sending them every day they will notice it and unsubscribe because they will think: Oh this guy is just trying to make money out of me. You have to be wise. Explain them a problem which they may or may not have had. Offer them different solutions, one of which includes you affiliate link and you'll see that you conversions increase dramatically.

I hope this helps you and remember, if you want further information about how to build your list on autopilot do not hesitate and visit my webpage which is posted below.

If you want further information visit: Free list building report

Internet Marketers - Want To Build An Email List And Don't Know How?

To be a successful internet marketer you need to make money, and to make money online you need a list of prospective buyers. If you have a website and no list then your traffic is dependent upon the whims of the search engines or you take up paid advertising. A secure way is to build a database of all the customers who bought from you in the past. This database is pure gold because these people are the ones who are likely to respond to your offers in the future.

The basics of creating a list are quite simple; you need a website, an autoresponder service and something to offer, usually free. An autoresponder will store all your email leads and be able to send out scheduled messages, newsletters or latest offers to all or just some of your subscribers. When you think that a marketing list can contain 10,000 subscribers or more, then you see that an efficient autoresponder service is essential and one called Aweber is probably the best.

You will want a targeted list of subscribers to market your offers to. For example, you will get a poor response offering beauty products to a list of subscribers in the soccer niche! Each niche will need a separate list and some internet marketers may have 20 or so different lists! Don't worry though, you'll only be starting off with 1 or 2 lists as a beginner and the autopresponder service can take care of 1 or 20+ lists just as efficiently.

If you are a total newbie when it comes to internet marketing, then you are going to have to learn how to get a webpage or blog up and running so you can offer something of value to your visitors. Try a free blog at Blogspot.com (owned by Google) which is pretty straightforward to setup and has a user friendly backend where you carry out admin tasks. The other more involved option is to buy a domain name with hosting where you can set up your webpage. GoDaddy.com is quite good at hand-holding the beginner and walking you through the various steps, but beware they will try and sell you different 'bells and whistles' options at each step so do some research first about basic things you'll need for a simple website.

Now you have a hosted webpage or free blog at Blogspot with your offer on a 'squeeze page' [designed to let the visitor access your free offer or product only after they entered their email address first]. Your squeeze page must include a web form with a link back to your autoresponder service to put your subscribers onto a list. There are paid email marketing solutions provided by the likes of Aweber and Getresponse but there are also free solutions like MailChimp.com. If you are serious about internet marketing to develop it into a full time income, which is certainly possible, start off with a good paid service like Aweber.

To be honest, speaking from experience, it can be a bit tricky getting these things set up if you are a complete beginner when it comes to list building, and mistakes are bound to be made. As you progress along the learning curve your skills will increase but in the initial stages it's possible to make a big error that can be difficult to recover from and may try your patience to the point of wanting to give up. That would be a shame because, as I mentioned before, the potential to make good income is there and it's oft been said by internet marketers 'the money is in the list'

There is another way for those without technical skills to begin building a marketing list without the need of a blog, webpage, squeeze page, domain name or hosting. 5iphon.com (I think they refer to themselves as 'Siphon') who will provide you with a totally free hosted webpage that will virally build you a list on autopilot. Another service is Instant Cash Machine that also provide a ready made hosted squeeze page for a one off payment, they also provide you with an in house autoresponder service although you may opt to use Aweber. You will still need a separate autoresponder service for either Aweber or Getresponse if you use 5iphon.com, but Aweber in particular has some very good video tutorials for beginners to help set up your first list. May I wish you every success in your email marketing career!

How to Create Content to Build Your List

Today's topic is about how to create great, free content in order to build your list.We talked about how you can have all of the best products and services in the world, but if you have no one to offer them to or no one to sell them to they won't sell very quickly. When you have an email list (also called an ezine list) of several hundred and preferably, several thousands of people who are eager to hear from you, you now have people who will buy your products and services immediately and over time.

Now, that you've figure out which irresistible, free offer you will use to build your ezine list quickly and consistently it's time to create great content for your IFO, your irresistible free offer. Remember, you must offer massive value if you want to build trust, but you also don't want to give away the entire farm.

Here's a tip. The difference between giving away good value and not giving away too much is to give them the steps or give them good information, but to obviously not tell them exactly how to do everything. Don't give the exactly how. Give them the what. Give them the why it's important, but not the exactly how.

I recommend three different types of content for your irresistible offer.

1. Walk them through all of the steps of your proprietary system.It's a series of steps that you use to get your clients results.

2. Give them your compelling story, which means tell them about how you got to do what you're doing.Then give them some tips as to how you got from your 'before' to your 'after', in your before and after story. People find that very, very compelling, especially if you supplement with lots of tips.

3. Do an interview. You can actually give someone a set of questions that they ask you and that you respond to and you can record those.

Whichever you choose of the three, the idea is that the topic must be something that your ideal client would love to get their hands on.

Your Client Attraction Assignment.

Your assignment for this week is to come up with a topic that your ideal clients would say yes to. Remember, the topic is one of the most important things. They don't know what your content will be yet, but they will want to sign up for that topic.

Then, once you've selected your topic that they would say yes to, choose from talking about your proprietary system, telling your story and giving some tips, or content based on a Q&A style interview. The key is at the end of any type of IFO that you have give them an offer for deeper learning or give them a call to action to work with you. If you do this, just like I've shared with you, you will quickly build your list, get more clients and make more money. Enjoy!

List Building Tips - Using Your Affiliates To The Fullest

In this first in a series of list building tips, I want to start off with one of the sneakiest ways to not only build your list but possibly make affiliate sales in the process.

List building, while not the only way, is one of the best ways of generating a full time income. The reason is simple. By building a responsive list (and responsive is the key) you give yourself the chance to have a number of prospects and/or potential customers that will buy products from you on a regular basis.

Granted, if you only have one product to sell, then building a list for this purpose is probably sub optimal. Still, you're going to want to build it for no other reason than to be able to follow up with those who haven't yet purchased that one product.

Not everybody purchases on first sight of a sales page. Some people need to think it over. By getting them onto your list, you give them something to think about with each follow up. A very simple way is by making each follow up an issue that outlines or details certain features and benefits of the product. The more benefits you give them, the more likely they are to purchase.

Okay, but what does any of this have to do with your affiliates? Well, if you have affiliates, you certainly want them to promote your product, right? What's one way of getting them to do this? Well, what if you were to run some sort of random script that sent a prospect to a particular affiliate's page rather than directly to your sales page?

This gives them more of an opportunity to make a sale without them having to do any additional work on their own. What affiliate wouldn't like that?

Great, but how does this build your list? What you do is you offer the person going to the affiliate site a special bonus IF they sign up for your newsletter.

Here is where this gets interesting.

Let's say you had an affiliate who was promoting one product of yours but you wanted to build a list for another product that was related. By offering this incentive, you have the possibility of making the sale from the one product that you're directly sending the prospect to (the affiliate page) while giving yourself the opportunity to make a sale off of the related product.

And even if you only have the one product, by getting them to sign up to your list through your ethical bribe, you give yourself the chance to follow up with the prospect in case they haven't purchased yet. This gives you more opportunity to close the sale AND the affiliate still gets credit.

Think your affiliates won't love you for that?

This is just one of many ways to drive traffic to your opt in page, build your list and make more sales.

Want more great list building tips? Check my signature.

See you soon with more.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

4 Easy Lead Generation Techniques

Lead Generation techniques should be mastered, rinsed, and repeated as leads is what drives your online business.

Leads are the meat to your business. They are the core reason of your income. To get the most of lead generation techniques you need to employ both - PAID and FREE strategies.

PAID LEAD GENERATION TECHNIQUES:

Solo Ad - an ad that is mailed to a list of ezine (an e-publication) subscribers on its own. Since no other ads are included in the email sent to subscribers, the ad can be said to be running "solo". There are numerous solo ad providers. The biggest hub that contains lists of solo ad providers within numerous industries is the Directory of Ezines. Founded by Charlie Page and ran for over a decade now and constantly updating, you will get access to the list of publications willing to send your ad to their list. Charlie Page takes you through a series of training to teach you to find relevant ezines (publications), how to write a successful ad, and even offers a free phone consultation with him. This is a targeted advertising and highly effective.

Pay per click (PPC) (also called Cost per click) is an Internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, where advertisers pay the publisher (typically a website owner) when the ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system. PPC "display" advertisements are shown on web sites or search engine results with related content that have agreed to show ads. One of the most commonly used PPC is AdSense or Google Ads.

FREE LEAD GENERATION TECHNIQUES

Free techniques are more time consuming in terms of achieving results but they are very effective and long lasting.

Blogging - to attract more customer to your website, you need to fill it with quality content. You need to write articles coherent with your main website theme. And you surely need to write about things that you yourself would read about. To achieve maximum lead generation results from blogging you need to blog every single day (even a couple of blogs a day) and distribute your blog to the main content hubs and ping services.

Social Media Marketing is another FREE and extremely powerful way to generate leads. You need to approach smartly and with professionalism. It is very easy to get lost in social media and waste too much time on conversations that are never going to make you any money. You do need presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and YouTube in the beginning. Take your time setting up you profiles and channels to match your main message to make people start recognizing you. Update your statuses 2 - 3 times daily and spend only 3 - 4 15 - 30 minute time slots a day checking and replying to messages.

There are many more lead generation techniques out there, but these are the main ones. You need to do your own research, try a few techniques, select the ones that work best for you and your business. Then master the ones you've selected, test them thoroughly to see what brings most return on your investment (be it financial or time investment) and then repeat.

3 Hard-Hitting Offline Ways To Expand Your List Fast

If you are familiar with Internet marketing, you ought to know that building a list is important to the success of your business online. Can you count the number of times have you heard the declaration, "the money is in the list"? Internet Marketers jump through hoops to develop highly targeted and responsive lists. Seeing as most of these business owners are so dedicated to building their list online, they in many cases forget about a huge source of targeted leads at their finger tips. In so doing, they are in essence leaving money on the table!

Rather than solely building your list online, it is important to make it a point to pursue efforts to help you increase your list offline!

Here are several masterful list building methods that will have you overflowing with offline leads funneled right into your list very quickly!

1. "The bigger your rolodex, the bigger your business" ~Anony

One of the best ways to expand your rolodex and your list is by leveraging Meet Up Groups. Meetup.com is a tremendous website for getting laser targeted leads for any business! Head over to Meetup.com, identify meet up groups in your area that fit your specific target market. before attending a Meetup, speak to the organizer. Explain to them who you are, and inquire as to if there is somebody in the meetup group that you ought to know. Your plan is to get connected with no more than 5 people, as you will want to meet with them one on one going forward.

Don't stop at just participating in a Meetup group, but begin your own! Organizing your own meet up group established you in a position of authority. Regardless of the group you establish, make it a "beginner" group. A novice group will bring people to you that want what you have. You don't want or need an expert in your field to take part in your group because you're the expert. Offer free or inexpensive lessons, and be sure to have a sign in sheet and to collect business cards... and There you have it you're boots on the ground offline List building!

Special Note: Meetup.com provides a sponsorship option that lets you to place advertisements on your group page. You can monetize this space by utilizing it to market products and services or any associated affiliate offers.

2. "The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everyone else looks for work." ~Robert Kiyosaki

Networking Events, when done the correct way, are an absolute hot spot for growing your list! At networking events, you will normally get 30 seconds to introduce yourself and describe what you do. Most people will just get up and say something like, "My name is Marenda, and I help people market their business online." Pretty uninteresting right?

Your style will be totally different. Your objective is to create enough of a presence to spark interest and establish yourself as an authority in the room so that people are coming to you.

Here's How, Example Introduction:

"Were you aware that there are nearly a billion individuals on Facebook? Wouldn't you like to know how to detect and successfully engage your target audience on Facebook to expand your business?"

While you are delivering your quick introduction, you're handing out your flyer with a free offer to receive "5 Sure-Fire Ways To Accelerate Business Using Facebook". You instruct them to fill out their information and return the flyer to you at the end of the meeting. And just like that... you raised the amount of subscribers to your list by 50% or more with the people in the room!

3. "It's not what you know but who you know that makes the difference." ~Anony

Many people are horrified by the thought of public speaking. If you are one of those people you should get over it because there is no better way to directly influence a large number of people at one time than with speaking engagements. Seize these opportunities!

You should consider staying in contact with your local Chamber of Commerce and business associations because these entities are always searching for speakers. They probably will not be able to compensate you financially, however the exposure is worth its weight in gold.

When you say yes to speaking engagements, always remember to arrange to secure a copy of the attendee list to ensure that you can follow up with the attendees via a quick phone call. Ask every single attendee if they are interested in being added to your email list, make certain to give them the benefit of being added to your list, for example: "Get all your Facebook questions answered", or "receive free resources".

If you truly understand the concept of "the money is in the list" you should also now understand that by ignoring offline list building opportunities, you could very well be missing out on a considerable source of revenue. You can build up a following offline and then ask them to follow you online. Lots of successful Internet Marketers have used these proven strategies and are making six figure incomes and more. Get engaged with your town and get connected!

Fine Dining Technique - How to Utilize Your Ethical Bribe for Maximum Conversion in List Building

Every marketer knows that you need to give free offers in exchange for emails. However, it is fatal to think that any free offer will work like charm in converting your visitors to subscribers. Your free offer must be so good that your visitors cannot even resist their desire to grab it! So, the question is how to utilize this ethical bribe to maximize your conversion rate and ultimately making loads of sales? By the way, what does list building has got to do with fine dining? Enjoy the article to find out.

Starter

Create your ethical bribe with the end in mind. The happy ending that all marketers crave for is making sales. Therefore, your free offer must be the introduction of solutions to your visitors' problems which is the first stage of your product funnel. In other words, it is the starter. Well, just like a starter helps to fill part of your stomach, your free offer must also be able to solve at least one of the common problems that your visitors might encounter.

Do not ever think that giving them solutions for free is going to reduce your sales potential. Think from the subscribers' point of view. I opt-in to your squeeze page, I got your free offer and one of my problems is solved! By now your subscribers must be thinking, "Gosh, this person is amazing! What else this person has got to offer?!"? Bravo! You've just positioned yourself as a very dependable expert in your niche, even if you just started.

Appetizer and Main Course

Now is the time to go for the kill. Nonetheless, you must be wary that this is not the step for you to hard sell whatever products you have in mind. Just like a fine dining meal, after starter we will have appetizer followed by main course and lastly dessert. Pushing for sales is also a delicate and well-structured process. Your subsequent product should serves to help them with some of the problems they might be facing next. For instance, after the squeeze page has been set up together with an ethical bribe, the next big obstacle is most probably driving traffic.

Therefore, every step taken to introduce your products must be carefully planned so that it fits to your subscribers' needs. This is undoubtedly a win-win-win situation as it not only helps your subscribers in an orderly manner, it also shows them your expertise in the subject matter and more importantly, it sells.

Dessert

Last but not least, show them your gratitude by giving them another freebie which can help them to achieve better results in your area of expertise. At this point, most of the hard work had been completed and it is time for you to enjoy your dessert too.

List Building, and What Is Required to Build a List

The point of List building is to connect with a specific audience by giving top quality products or services in exchange for them joining your list.

When someone joins your list, you must build a professional relationship with them by providing a series of follow-up emails designed for the niche that your subscriber is interested in.

List building enthusiasts (like me and you) gain subscribers by applying marketing tactics in the form of squeeze pages and opt-in forms.

These opt-in forms are created by an auto-responder service and are easily implemented into the HTML code in your squeeze template using an HTML editor.

When a visitor is interested in your newsletter or product, the will put their details into the HTML generated squeeze page and subscribe to your list.

To begin growing a profitable list building campaign however, you will need to make sure that you have all of the necessary equipment that is needed, including:

An Auto-responder

With an auto-responder, you can create an unlimited number of email lists, and by categorising your lists you can make follow-up emails that are relevant to the audience on that particular list.

Landing Page/Squeeze Page

A landing page or squeeze page is the first thing a new subscriber will see before joining your list and this is where the opt-in form is placed and whatever product or service you are offering.

You need to plainly encourage your new visitors to enter in their details but to also encourage them to confirm their subscription to keep you free from SPAM complaints

A Product/Giveaway or Service

Your giveaway is quite possibly, the most essential element on your landing page. If your offer doesn't make the visitor jump up and take action then your lead will be lost.

This means that your offer needs to be relevant to Having a QUALITY product can make or break convincing someone to give up their email address

Offering something like

Free newsletter designed around your niche Free ebooks Free software Free video tutorials Products with Private label and Giveaway Rights Interviews Graphics, templates or even Squeeze pages themselves

You want to be certain that your audience is wanting what you offer and if you can do that then building your list becomes very easy and almost automated., but more importantly your subscribers are happy because you have provided them with quality rather than just another get rich quick scheme.

5 Reasons to Use Solo Ads - Your Bullet Train Ride to Explosive List Building

I notice a similarity in all the successful internet marketers I've met. Of course, they made millions and millions of dollars entirely online and the money just keep pouring in. What do they have in common? Each one of them has a list, and it's not just any list but a targeted list. That is the point! You need to have a list to build a successful internet business that generates money for you over and over again.

As all of you should have known, you need an attractive squeeze page plus freebies to capture the names and emails of your visitors. That may be easily done by paying someone to do it for you, no fuss about it. The most important task now is to drive traffic. While there are a lot of free and paid methods out there to drive traffic, I would like to specifically discuss about solo ads.

What is a solo ad?

Basically, you pay someone who has a list to promote your squeeze page. On your side, you will have to make the payment and draft your own email to be sent to your new prospects. On your partner's side, he will carry out his duty to send your emails to his lists as agreed.

Why uses solo ads?

It builds your list extremely fast. From as low as $30 you can send thousands of unique visitors to your website almost immediately! With a high conversion squeeze page, you are literally exploding your list with a lot of new leads. It is suitable for beginners. Buying solo ads is by far the easiest, fastest and most cost effective way to build a huge list from scratch. Unless you are patient enough to wait for your articles and videos to start sending you some visitors, you will definitely want to learn more about solo ads. It can be budgeted according to your available resources. You can start by investing $30 first and gradually increase your investment to drive more traffic. It increases sales. By including a special offer immediately after they sign up, you can possibly increase your sales and compensate your advertising costs. Then, a good follow up session can easily boost your sales and generate profit in the long run. It can be experimented. Purchase solo ads from different sellers and keep track on their performance; quality of the list and number of clicks. After a few trials you will be able to figure out which seller performs better and you can then increase your investment with the seller to explode your list again.

How To Make a Squeeze Page Convert - Top 10 Techniques

A squeeze page is commonly referred to as a landing page or lead capture page, and it's sole purpose is to obtain the email address of a website visitor before they leave your site.

If you maintain contact with these leads and build a solid relationship, in the future they may buy your product or service, however should your squeeze page fail to convert, you are wasting precious traffic.

Here are My Ten Top Tips on How to Make a Squeeze Page Convert:

1. Keep it condensed and direct. Do not over-sell with to much copy on the page. Your aim is to get the visitors attention and the lead them to the website optin form

2. Your Optin Form MUST be above the fold. This means you must not need to scroll to find the form.

3. Do not make people scroll to read you copy. They wont.

4. Use an easy to read font. Sounds obvious, however it is surprising how many people try to over decorate the page. Test different fonts and measure conversion for each. Aim for a minimum of 100 visitors before you make an opinion on the test.

5. Only use clean, tidy graphics. Avoid doodles. Use red arrows that point to the optin form. This leads the eye, the colour is important.

6. Reveal the benefits of subscribing. Utilise bullet points. Test different bullets and benefits. Do not underestimate how testing can increase your results.

7. Avoid using the word "Learn". Replace it where possible with "Discover". How do these two words make you feel?

8. Don't allow your sub-header to draw the attention away from the main headline. Your headline is the key to ensuring your readers stay on your lead capture page.

9. Use proof where space allows. Credibility matters. Do not use false testimonial. If you do not have any. Give away the product to a selected few at a forum and request an honest testimonial.

10. Get as much traffic to your squeeze page as possible!

Conclusion: Test, test, test and test again. Make one small change at a time to your page to allow you to measure what works or doesn't work. Colours, fonts and graphics will all make a difference to your response rates. Test them all and don't be afraid to ask for opinions from friends or family. Post your squeeze page link on a forum and ask them to review it. You will be surprised.

6 Steps to Safe and Lucrative Solo Ads Investment

Investing in solo ads is probably one of the fastest ways to build a huge high quality list. However, many internet marketers especially beginners hesitate when it comes to investing in solo ads in fear of being cheated. Although I cannot guarantee that these 6 steps can totally eliminate that possibility, I'm 100% confident that these 6 steps are going to make your investment much safer and profitable.

Without further ado, let's discuss about these 6 amazing steps that will crash your websites with first-class leads.

Step #1: Search for Potential Marketers in Your Niche

The easiest way to find potential marketers is through online forums in your niche. Usually internet marketers will place their links to their websites in their signatures. Another great place will be article directories like EzineArticles. Again, internet marketers will include their websites in the resource box. Then, list down your prospects and take a look at their profiles and websites before deciding whether who to approach for solo ads deals.

Step #2: Approach Your Prospect for a Deal

When sending emails to your prospects, you should first build a good rapport. Introduce yourself first followed by a few praises to ease the environment. For example, write something like "I love the design of your website and its freebie. I'm pretty sure you are one successful internet marketer by now."

After that, express your intention to pay them to send out an email containing your free gift to their subscribers. Provide them with the link to download the free gift and the download page for them to review. Lastly, it is extremely important that you ask for more details such as price, list size, click through rate (CTR) and timing for a solo ad broadcast.

Step #3: Compose Your Own Swipe Copy

This step determines the overall success of your investment. You have to draft your own email including the subject line that you want your partner to broadcast for you. Concentrate your effort on composing email that will maximize the conversion rate. Browse through your own emails to see which email is converting well and look for more ideas from other internet marketers' emails.

Step #4: Request for Verification of Work

Before you invest, request for a screenshot of their subscriber list for proof. It you decide to go for solo ad, request for a screenshot of the broadcast. If you're dealing with honest marketers, there should not be any reason for them not to comply with these requests.

Step #5: Track and Analyze the Performance of Your Solo Ads

Invest smart. Look at the performance of each solo ad investment to see which marketers list are converting well. You definitely would not want a solo ad investment that converts only 5% and makes almost no sales.

Step #6: Rinse and Repeat

The final step is to rinse and repeat all the steps with other prospects. Reinvest in solo ads that perform up to your expectations and remove those which are not.

List Building Tips - Drive By Linking

In this installment of list building tips, I want to discuss what I call "Drive By Linking" and how you can use it to actual build your links. If you write any kind of content at all that is published online, you might want to pay attention to this one.

I'm convinced that if you gave an Internet marketer a sledgehammer to do a job that could be done by a wooden mallet, he's still use the sledgehammer. Why? Because Internet marketers really like to drive the point home. Don't get me wrong. Driving the point home can work very well in many cases. But sometimes you really want to use a more subtle approach.

A lot of content writers are fixated with one idea. Give the content as quickly as possible and then when you're all done with it, drive that sales pitch home... just like a sledgehammer doing the job of that small wooden mallet.

The problem with that approach is twofold.

For one thing, sometimes it's just overkill. You've hit them over the head with that sledgehammer so hard that you've figuratively left your prospect dead by the roadside. They're "hyped" to the point of a marketing seizure.

I hope you have lots of smelling salts and possibly a crash cart ready.

The other problem with that approach is sometimes, because you're using the wrong approach, you simply miss the target altogether. You've slanted the pitch in a way that doesn't quite correspond with the message of your content. The disconnect causes your prospect to zone out and you've lost them.

They're not dead. They're just no interested because you started off with point A and ended with point B and the gap between the two is as wide as the Grand Canyon.

However, if in the process of writing your article, within the context of the article itself, you happen to drop a drive by link, as long as it's relevant, you're quite likely to get your reader to click on it and check out what's on the other side.

Probably the best way to illustrate this is with an example. What follows is a fictional excerpt from a fictional article on Magic the Gathering, a card game. I'm sure you'll get the idea.

"Jace, the Mind Sculptor is the latest powerhouse to hit the standard scene. It's a blue 4 drop planes walker that has not one, but FOUR relevant abilities from drawing a card to literally removing the opponent's library from the game. If you're playing standard, you really want to pick up a play set of this guy. By the way, if you want to be informed of the latest new cards in standard, check out Joe's Magic Card Newsletter at (insert link here) and sign up so you can be kept up to date on the latest."

Notice how subtly I drop that in there? It doesn't come off like a sales pitch but more like a "Oh, by the way, you might find this interesting" kind of thing.

Does it work? If you use it within the context of the content itself and it fits, it can work very well. Somebody who is interested in getting news on the latest standard Magic cards and wants to know what the good cards are, WILL sign up for that newsletter.

Could this have worked within the confines of a signature? Sure, but in that context, it comes off as more sales oriented because it's outside the confines of the article itself. It's not as natural. That doesn't mean it can't work. But it also doesn't mean that drive by linking should be ignored, because it can be VERY effective.

Try it sometime. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Your First Giveaway Event

The excitement begins to build as soon as you sign-up as a contributor. Will your gift be desirable? Will you get many subscribers? After your first event or two, these worries will subside, leaving just the fun and joy of giving back while you grow your mailing list.

So what do you need to know to make your first event a success?

You need 3 things to participate as a giveaway contributor:

1. A gift that visitors can download.

2. A squeeze page to capture the leads.

3. Access to traffic to promote the event.

Each component works together to make the special blend that leads to lots of sign-ups to your list.

Your gift needs to do 2 things:

1. Compliment the event.

2. Solve a real problem that your audience has.

If your gift meets these two criteria, it will be in high demand and many visitors will click on the link in the event to get it. They will go to your squeeze page to complete the transaction.

Your squeeze page has just one job, although it fulfills many other functions, as well.

Convince the visitor to exchange their contact information for the gift that you are offering.

This one page is where you will greet your visitors and welcome them to your offer. The goal is to excite and entice the audience. Using bullet points, you provide them with a reason to follow-through and get your gift by signing-up.

Finally, you need access to a stream of traffic to promote the event. Some events have spectacular results by getting hundreds of marketers together to promote for 10-days 2-weeks or a month. Tons of visitors see the gifts inside the member area in a short period of time.

For your first events you may not have a lot of traffic, but you should do your best to send as many visitors as you can. (Even a small mailing list of 100 can garner sign-ups for the event, and that means more visitors see everyone's gifts.) Be creative, and utilize the free traffic sources that are available to you.

Many events provide contributors with multiple ways to promote, from pre-written email letters, you send out to your mailing list to Twitter and Facebook posts that you simply copy and paste into your accounts. A favorite method of mine is to add a banner or box promoting the event to my blog.

With a powerful gift, a squeeze page designed to entice visitors to sign-up and the ability to send visitors to the event, you will be sure to do well. And, after the first few events are behind you, you'll be an old-hand. Then you can concentrate on the joy of giving.