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by Simon Whincop

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

You read countless articles, seek endless expert advice and hear numerous success stories of people building massive wealth on the Internet with opt-in lists, and you finally decide to have one of your own. You think you know everything there is to know about opt-in lists and follow all the advice to the Tee. Yet you still haven’t made a dime.

In fact, you’re leaking money, fast. A bit here whan you hired writers to help out with your articles, a bit there on advertising, and an even larger chunk on the latest can’t-possibly-fail traffic generating scam. Perhaps your list even got quite big. But only a tiny percentage actually converts to sales.

Which ever way you look at it, you’ve failed to make a profit, and after a few months of desperately peering at your statistics and sales figures, you come to the conclusion that your dreams of Internet wealthbuilding are over.

You ask yourself what could possibly have gone wrong. You wonder why others have succeeded where you have failed. You begin to think you were too hasty, diving straight in like that. You begin to doubt the validity of your product, or worse, your own ability.

Have similar thoughts ever crossed your mind?

All is not lost, however - don’t forget that just because you emailed people on your list does not mean they’ll buy instantly. As an Internet marketer, you need a bit of patience!

And, if you’ve already started an opt-in list and think you failed, I strongly urge you to follow the following advice, too. Same thing applies if you’re just starting out. The advice comes in the form of three quick and easy steps:

1) Make sure you are selling product or service is one that people really need.

And get to know your product. Too many people forget this. How can you expect your subscribers to buy something you haven’t bothered to research or learn about thoroughly? You carry it forward - knowledge and belief, or lack of it. Invest some time and effort to research your product properly.

2) Join forums. Providing expert advice and recommendations will build an aura of trust around you. You could then build a base around other forum users, inviting them to join your opt-in list. Friends make good customers. Placing a link to your site on your forum posts will enable them to see what your business is all about. They’ll begin to believe in you and your products. Writing and submitting articles and posting blogs will further increase your credibility as well as building more potential subscribers and customers.

3) Make friends with other opt-in list users (forums are an invaluable tool here, too). Let them mentor you - someone who has already launched a successful opt-in list will be able to tell you what to do and what not to do, They can steer you clear of potential pitfalls and mistakes to avoid, because they have gone through it themselves. Experience is the best teacher, and there is nothing better than learning from the mistakes of others!

Building a profitable opt-in list doesn’t happen overnight. It takes great preparation and effort. Opt-in lists have to be built from scratch and, once built, take some maintenance. Keep yours organized and manageable. But use it to Keep your subscribers happy and they’ll be willing to buy from you time and time again. Build your list, build Internet wealth!

About the Author:
by Simon Whincop

Starting a home-based business online is not difficult, and websites these days are easy to set up. What is more difficult is getting what you have started to grow. And for that, you need one thing: traffic. Here are some tips on how to build and maintain it:

Step #1: Optimize Your Site

Have you ever wondered how webmasters manage to get their sites to the top of Google rankings? They do it by using a technique known as SEO.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a way of improving the volume and quality of traffic of your website by using keywords throughout the body of your pages’ content. Search engines will pick up your site via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for these targeted keywords.

Google provides information and guidelines to help you through the process of SEO. You should also use keyword tools. Some are free, such as Google’s own http://www.goodkeywords.com. Others, such as Keywords Analyzer or Wordtracker will tell you how competitive your keyword phrase is. Use phrases relevant to your online home business - the more specific, the better.

Be wary though: overstuffing with keyword phrases creates website pages that feel unnatural and unwieldy. Using the natural occurrence of a word or phrase in the writing offers slower results than keyword stuffing, but they are long-term results that offer visitors real information.

Putting choice keywords into your website pages is only part of the story, however. SEO can also involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, in addition to preventing search engine indexing programs from spidering your site.

Step # 2: Back-Link Your Website

Building up your link popularity is essential to developing a good relationship with the major search engines. To do that you need to establish as many inbound links as possible, preferably from highly respected directories, and from websites and directories related to your niche.

If you decide to go down the route of reciprocal linking, I recommend using some software to automate the process of. Link Machine is free, and once it’s installed on your site you can use it to add link partners without having to know HTML.

Step # 3: Become an Article Marketer

Search engines favour sites with relevant content and rich information relating to targeted keywords. An excellentway of adding content to your website to include an article section. You could write your own articles, or post those written by others. You could even add an article directory to your site - you will have to maintain it of course. Linking your site to your own blog is another way to add content (Google’s Blogger is excellent and easy to set up and use).

One of the best ways to provide literally hundreds of backlinks to your website is to become an article submitter. If you don’t have the time (or inclination) to write your own articles, you can purchase Private Label Rights material relevant to your online business.

Next, submit your article to a selection of high quality article directories. Most article directories allow you to include HTML in your resource box, so you want to take advantage of this and include some anchor text with your keywords in the resource box, as well as at least one URL to your site.

Remember quality articles will drive the curious to find out more at your website.

Step # 4: Start an Email Campaign

One way of expanding your home-based online business is with Opt-in email campaign, a vital element of any online home business.

Opt-in email involves setting up an landing page where customers sign their name and email address in a prescribed box in exchange for information about a product or service they are interested in. This is done through the use squeeze page designed expressly for the purpose of harvesting email addresses of interested prospects.

You will need an autoresponder, a program designed to send emails out automatically to your customers. You create a series of follow up emails, which are then sent out at pre-programmed intervals. Your list is your lifeline to referrals and future sales since your ongoing relationship with your customers builds TRUST.

Entrepreneurship and owning your own home based online business is not for the faint-hearted. To succeeed, all home-based online businesses need one thing: traffic. And that comes with hard work, coupled with expertise. However,if you are willing to use these techniques, preferrably focussing one at a time, you really can make your dreams come true.

About the Author: