Technology has come a long way in recent years but are you taking advantage of it to its fullest potential? I still remember being in the last year of high school and loving the fact that we were allowed to use a calculator instead of a slide rule! Today children in school have computers in their kindergarten classes.

Having at least one computer in your home is commonplace. It seems that the majority of people now have a cell or smartphone. The convenience factor of this is huge! Mobile devices allow you to access the internet at any time from any place.

If you run any type of business either on or offline you should be taking advantage of mobile marketing. Is your website viewable on a smartphone or Ipad? If not it may be worth making it compatible.

The numbers of mobile users is growing and you could be losing out on market exposure by not be aware of these devices. With the present increase of mobile users it won’t be long before more people use a mobile device to connect to the internet instead of a home PC.

It is not just mobile marketing that is increasing social networks are huge. You should at the very least be incorporating Facebook and Twitter marketing into your business plan.

Talk about new events and happenings in your business on Facebook. Twitter is great for offering specials and coupons. Did you know that it is possible to run contests on both Facebook and Twitter? This is a great way to drum up new business and who doesn’t love to enter to win a giveaway?

Next time you are out around town make a note of how many people are using a mobile device. The numbers may just surprise you! Even books have gone mobile with the Kindle exploding onto the scene. Many types of e-readers are now available and with these devices it is possible to read outside in sunlight.

Self publishing is huge and you can easily publish a book on Kindle or CreateSpace promoting your own business. Your customers would be very impressed to see that you are a published author!

If your business marketing has run a little stale and is in need of a shakeup then consider marketing aimed at mobile devices. Targeted messages can be delivered to smartphones and have anyone in the neighbourhood dropping by within minutes to cash in on a special timed coupon.

Isn’t it time you sat down and thought about how to grab your share of this developing trend today?

Don’t you find that it is so much easier to write about something when you have a passion for it? The words just seem to flow and before you know it you have an entire blog post or article written. Today I would like to reflect on how I became a writer.

Thinking back now I was always writing stories and wrote my first novel while I was still at school. That first novel was never published and I literally balked at the idea of my mom showing it to my teacher!

Years later while my boys were growing up I was still busy writing short stories and attempting to get them published. It was really difficult and though I received many compliments no magazine picked up my articles.

Then along came the internet and changed everything for everyone. We finally got a computer when my oldest son hit high school. It was assumed that every student had access to one at home.

Around the same time I started to look for a way to make extra money from home. Now believe me I have tried every home based business out there! Including Avon, Party Lite Candles, Lingerie Parties and selling Melaleuca and Tupperware products. I always made some money but it was short lived and customers cancelled on me.

This is when I discovered the world of internet marketing and found that marketers wanted articles written for them! This opened up a whole new world for me and I set myself up as a ghostwriter. I got plenty of orders and was kept busy.

I was making money from home but of course there came the point where I could only write so many articles per day. This limited my income. There were just not enough hours in the day to write! So I raised my prices and of course lost quite a few customers. But those that appreciated my work stayed.

Around the same time I was introduced to the concept of PLR or private label rights. Basically this is content which you write once and sell multiple times! I just loved that concept and got to work on opening up my own PLR Store immediately!

I now schedule time into my day to write PLR content on a consistent basis and upload it to my site. I have seen my sales slowly increasing with more orders coming in on a daily basis. I look forward to having this as my main income stream in the very near future.

I still ghostwrite and did eventually manage to get published in an online magazine. Makes you feel really great let me tell you! So if you are an aspiring writer there are ways to write for a living and make a decent income.

Let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to answer them.

It is absolutely critical to use relevant content on your site. This content needs to be informative and engaging and ideally position you as an expert on your chosen subject. Now you may think this is difficult to achieve but really it isn’t.

Becoming an expert takes research. With the use of the internet research is easy to do and is the perfect way to find lots of content fast. What I would suggest is that you make a folder on your desktop and copy important information into it. This folder could contain statistics, breaking news, links to additional facts and figures and more.

Once you have compiled your research folder you can easily access the information to create your own content for your website. Then it is just a matter of writing content using the keywords which you are trying to rank for. It is also a good idea to link to other useful posts within your site on the same subject.

When constructing your pages whether as articles or blog posts always aim to have a keyword in the title if at all possible. Plus you want the title to entice the reader to click on the heading to read the full post and hopefully leave a comment.

Some great post title ideas are:

• Top Tips for Saving…..
• 3 Ways to Profit by…….
• Top 10 Scary ….Facts, Points
• The Secret of Successful…..

Writing bullet lists are a great way to provide your reader with important information plus lists are easy to read. A list is more likely to grab the reader’s attention and make them continue reading.

In the article body your aim is to provide interesting information on your subject. This is where using your statistics and other information is good. When writing attempt to put yourself into the perspective of a buyer. Think about what content you would like to see and what would make you click on a link to buy a product or sign up for more information.

When you can write from this point of view successfully you will see both your list and your sales grow.

If you are recommending products on your site make sure that you match what your site is about. Don’t sell dog collars on a site that is about learning how to use wordpress for example.

Another thing with products is to research the product before you recommend it. Your reputation could be harmed if you recommend junky products. Your readers won’t trust you and you will be faced with people constantly unsubscribing from your list.

Remember you want to brand yourself with your website. So take the time to create meaningful content. This will have your readers coming back for more and eagerly awaiting your new posts.

This article is a follow up form my previous post: List Building Tactics Continued. If you have been following along you will have an opt in box on your site along with a squeeze page. Both should be offering a free report, ebook or some type of relevant and helpful information to your readers.

Today I want to discuss various other ways to get people to your website and signed up to your list.

One of my favorite ways to build a list is by making comments on other people’s blogs. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Google Alert by using your main search terms. As the alerts are delivered into your inbox you will have a list of available sites. By finding sites this way you know that they are being maintained regularly. There is nothing worse than posting comments on a blog where no one has added new content for months!

All you need do is look through each site and if it is relevant to your site post an informative and helpful comment. By saying more than just ‘thanks for this great post’ you are setting yourself up to become an expert in your niche. Readers will see that you know what you are talking about and follow the link to your site. They will see your opt in box and can choose to sign up for your free report or newsletter.

By writing a good response you are increasing your chances of getting your comment published as well. The majority of comments are moderated so it is wise to make a note of your comment and check back in a day or two to see if it was indeed published. Do this on a regular basis and your list will start to grow and your traffic stats will increase.

Guest posting is another way to generate sign ups to your list. You work with another blog owner and write them an exclusive article and in exchange you are given a link back to your site. Readers who enjoy the content will visit your site and sign up to your list. One pointer here is to make sure the article is exclusive to their site only. It is well worth the time to write a separate article that is not published anywhere else.

To find relevant sites you can easily do a Google search and find blogs that get a high amount of traffic. Then simply look for a way to contact the blog owner and see if they would be interested in you writing a blog post. Again you can use Google Alerts for top news stories and articles. This will provide you with ideas on what to publish and provides the blog owner with up to date information.

Remember by giving away something for free and providing useful and helpful information your list will grow and your subscribers will want to stay on your list.

I hope that you have enjoyed this mini-series on list building. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to add them in the comment box below.

In my last article we discussed the basics of setting up your list and creating a squeeze page to use to build your list. You can read that discussion here: Getting Started with List Building.

Today we will venture further and talk about creating your follow up emails for your autoresponder series.

Writing Follow Up Emails:

There are a number of points to consider when creating your follow up messages. When you start to send emails to your list members you want to start out by creating a relationship with your reader first. If you suddenly start blasting them with nothing but offers to buy something they will unsubscribe fast!

You need to write a compelling headline to get the reader to open your email. Just because they subscribed to your list doesn’t guarantee that they will open and read your email.

To increase your chances your headline needs to make them want to know more. Asking a question of leaving a statement hanging with eclipses is a good idea. The reader automatically wants to know more and quickly opens your email to read the details.

Research has shown that on average it takes 7 emails before someone will purchase from you. During this time your emails must build trust in the reader.

When you do start recommending products to your list they should be products that you have actually used yourself. This allows you to easily answer any questions as well.

When adding your affiliate or product links in the body of the email you should place the link in your email three times. Once near the beginning, then in the middle and the last time just above your closing.

Including a P.S. is another strong method and this can include some final thoughts on why you are recommending this product.

Email Pointers:

Make the first couple of emails relevant to the product that you gave your subscriber when they first signed up to your list.

Provide them with the download link again and ask them if they had the chance to read it yet, or if they have any questions.

Send your reader a link to another article or report that covers the same topic but maybe in more depth. Provide your reader with something of value.

Some of the best email headlines are:

• Short subject lines – Weight Loss Tips to Ignore
• Asking a Question – Did you know…..
• Mistake headline – Don’t Do These 5 Things When
• How to subject lines – How to Lose Weight While Drinking Beer
• Number of things you should know – Top 10 Reasons Why…..

ALWAYS, always make sure that you don’t mislead your reader with your headline. That is the worst mistake you can make and one way to have your unsubscribe rate go through the roof. Make your headline relevant to what your email is about.

My next article will focus on different ways to get exposure for your site to build your lists. I will also talk about finding people to partner up with as a method of list building.

No doubt you have heard the term ‘the money is in the list’ and for any type of on or off line marketer this holds very true.  Creating a list will turn out to be a valuable commodity, imagine creating a new product and knowing that by just emailing your list you will achieve sales? Wouldn’t that be great? Well you can do this do and this article will show you how to easily get started building your list.

The best way to start building your list is to offer your readers something for free. This could be access to your newsletter or to a report. To do this you will require two things:

• An autoresponder account
• A product to give away

There are many different autoresponder services on the market two of the most popular are AWeber and GetResponse. For a free service you can use MailChimp but be aware that they frown upon affiliate marketers and once you have 500 subscribers you have to begin paying.

AWeber is the service that I use and has lots of sign up or opt in forms that you can use on your page. Once inside your account you would create a list by following the step by step instructions.  Then select a template, simply copy the code and insert it into your site.

The next thing you need is a free report or eBook to give away. This doesn’t have to be that long about 10 pages should do. If you have your own eBook you could giveaway the first two chapters and then sell the remainder of the book.

If you don’t enjoy writing then using private label rights content or PLR as it is know, is your quickest solution. There are plenty of PLR sites to choose from just do a quick search on line for your subject + PLR and see what you can find.

With your PLR report I suggest that you make some quick changes to it as I have outlined below.

• Change the title and include your main keyword
• Make the introduction personal to your site
• Add your own keywords and affiliate links throughout the report
• Insert your summary or conclusion with a call to action
• Get a new cover made for it – you can get one made on Fiverr quickly or make one yourself (see “free eCover creator” post for details)

Once you have your report edited then turn it into a PDF file then zip it up and upload it to your hosting account. You will want to create a thank you or download page with the link to this file. Alternatively you can deliver it with your AWeber messages as an attachment.

You can now place your opt in form on your website. Make sure it is above the fold. This means that it needs to be visible as soon as someone lands on your page without them having to scroll down.  If you look on this site you will see that the SEO Tips box is at the top of the page, in a perfect position to collect subscribers.

Your other choice is to create what is known as a squeeze page. This is one page that displays information about what you are offering and contains your opt in box. Squeeze pages can be a very effective way of building a list. You can download a free squeeze page template from here or do a quick search online for templates.

Squeeze Page Template

You may want to consider adding a video to your squeeze page as these have been shown to convert extremely well.

Create Your Own Video Squeeze Page for Free

By using this information you can now get your product and your opt in form ready. Next time we will discuss other ways to build your list and talk about setting up your follow up emails in your autoresponder account.

Have fun and we look forward to seeing your newly created squeeze pages.