You need a list. That’s a given. It’s the one thing above all else that matters most. After it’s built, it’s yours to use any time you want. Just push a button and print money – literally.

Now you now why. Here’s how:

Here’s what you need to build your list:

• Your Opt-in Page
• The Incentive
• The Thank You Page

Your Opt-in Page – Your opt-in page is the page you send visitors to to build your list. This page is the one that asks them for their email. This page needs to look professional. And have an easy to understand opt-in form. And your call to action must be clear!

Failure to include a great “call to action” will result in failure. This “close” tells your visitors what you want them to do. And if you don’t include it, they won’t opt in. Oddly, if you don’t make it clear, people will be confused and end up doing nothing.

You can take your opt-in page to the next level if you make it a Video squeeze page. You only have a few second to get your visitors attention – Video helps! And you can repeat the call to action several times int he Video. Then at the end of the Video you can print “sign up now” on the Video.

If you don’t know how to make Video, don’t worry. Hiring out-sourced help to do it for you only costs $150 – $250. There are also list building systems that give you squeeze page templates.

The Incentive – The second component is the reason they are opting into your list. People won’t give you their email for nothing. Nobody likes spam, so most people guard their email closely. So make your “bribe” a good one!

You have to provide value in your bribe for it to be good. Then it becomes something people want to get from you. And something from which they can derive a benefit. Here’s some examples:

• A free report
• Software
• A Video tutorial
• An email training series

You’ve got to create some great content. Something that’s useful and helpful to your visitors. And nothing sells like “free”. Bottom line is it’s got to be worth more to them than their email address.

Once again, don’t worry if you don’t know how to create the freebie. It’s super easy to hire someone to create it for you. You just pick the topic and they create the training. A 5-part email series is a good freebie. You can have ghost writers create emails for under $25 an email. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.

Or again, you can find complete list building packages for sale online that include an email series. Two critical aspects of using a follow up series. First of all it has to give the subscriber what you promised – valuable information. And second, it needs to make you money. One very easy way to make some money from your list is with Affiliate marketing. This is such a simple solution because you don’t have to create the product. And it enables you to generate cash right away from your new list.

The Opt-in Success Page – The “thank you” page is the final piece of the puzzle. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. It’s a great idea to give them some valuable information right on the thank you page. This helps them feel they’ve made the right decision giving you their email. It also helps to build the relationship. It also makes them more likely to open your emails.

You can use a “done for you” email marketing system. Or you can do it yourself. And write it all yourself. Or hire ghost writers to write them for you.

Final thoughts

Whether you decide to build your email funnel yourself. Or hire someone else to do it for you. Or if sign up for a “complete package” solution. The important thing is that you build your own list starting now. Once you’ve got it built. You can basically write your own meal ticket.

Presell like a pro

If you want to make more money as an Affiliate, you must presell.

Before we begin, we need to first define what preselling is. Well, it is an art. And it’s also a science. It’s a process of taking your reader and getting them ready to buy. Then you send them to the site that sells what you’ve prepared them for. If you do it well, it’s completely invisible.

Basically, you give them some content. And then refer them to the product website. We’ll get into how to do it correctly in a minute. But before we do, you need to know why it’s so important. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.

• Preselling creates trust – Once you have your readers’ trust, they will click your links more readily. And the more traffic you can send to the sale page, the more commissions you’ll earn.
• It disarms your reader – Nobody likes to be sold something. By not doing that to them, your reader is less defensive. This means they are more open to what you’re saying. So your content get absorbed.
• It creates buying readiness – Now they trust you and feel open to your message. Being open means, they are open to everything you give them. Like the info on product sales page you’ve linked to. And being open to the information there means they are much more likely to buy.
• You make more money – You’ve prepped them and referred them in the right state of mind. With a feeling of trust and openness. The only possible result is more sales!
• It increases customer satisfaction – Your referral now feels like they decided to buy. Instead of feeling pressured or “sold”. And this leads to greater satisfaction with the product.
• Your profits go up – Happy customers ask for refunds much less often. Which means you keep more of your Affiliate commissions.

The need to presell is clear. You increase your profits. And produce happier customers. It’s a win-win-win!

How does it work?

Now you know whey preselling is critical. And hopefully you’re convinced you need to start doing it. So, it’s time to break down how it works. Remember, there are two components – art and science.

The art of preselling

Effective preselling requires gaining your readers trust in order for them to let down their guard. Honestly, the only way to do this is to provide real value in you content. The art of this is to provide enough information to be of value, but not enough to satiate the hunger. So you send them to the product website with a hunger for more of what the product provides. And since they’re more open, they are more likely to make a purchase.

It’s also a science

There’s also a specific formula you need to follow.

One of these key elements is the presentation of the information. You’ve got to map out your strategy before you start writing. Your end goal is to make a sale of the product you’re preselling. There are two ways to accomplish this with great content. First, you can provide useful but incomplete information. Or you can give them so much information that it feels overwhelming to do what you’re talking about. Either way, the product sales page solves the problem.

You also have to link to the product you’re promoting discretely. You have directly to the home page of the product. That’s because nobody likes to click on Affiliate links. But how are you going to get credit for the sale, if you don’t include your Affiliate link? There’s a trick to make this work… You “pre-cookie” your reader before sending them to the sales page.

The next trick is to hyperlink specific words and phrases inside the content of the article you’re providing. People are used to clicking on hyperlinked words to get information they’re looking for. Plus, if you link on relevant words, it only makes sense to click on there.

Using this system, you’re virtually guaranteed to increase your Affiliate business success.

Now for the bad news…

It’s extremely difficult to do this correctly. Think about everything that goes into crafting an effective preselling article: Good content. The entire process depends on your being able to provide useful information to your readers. To do that you have to have enough information to be valuable and be able to present it in a useful way. Preselling skills. Yes, you must providing useful content. And you have to make the content accessible in order to provide value. While at the same time making them want more. The other approach is to reveal a self-evident problem through the information.

Picking products. You also need to determine what products you’ll be preselling. If you can manage to get the article written well. All your efforts are wasted if you send your reader to the wrong sales letter.

Technical skills. One of the keys to this system is using “covert cookies” for the tracking. This is pretty easy – you just make a 1 pixel X 1 pixel image with no border and make the “source” of the image your Affiliate link. (Just don’t mess it up. Otherwise, you won’t get credit for your sales.)

In closing:

Now you know what it takes to be a Presell Pro. Preselling properly will boost your Affiliate profits up to 500%! It’s absolutely critical to do this every time – and to do it correctly. Please don’t be lazy. The effort it takes is well worth the benefits…

If you’ve got traffic coming to your site, you’re 99% there. Obviously, this assumes you actually have a reason for wanting this traffic. Once the visitors arrive you can have them join your mailing list, purchase a product or subscribe to your RSS feed. So, the critical step is to generate a steady flow of visitors.

How, then do you get traffic to your site?

Here’s a short list of great, free traffic generating methods:

• Web 2.0 Sites
• Article Websites
• Video Marketing

OK, so how do they work?

Web 2.0 Sites

The term “Web 2.0″ is associated with websites that facilitate interactive information sharing and collaboration in a social media setting. The exciting thing about Web 2.0 sites is that you get to add your own content and it becomes part of these sites. The other interesting thing about these sites is that all the search engines (including Google) treat them as “authority sites”. And that’s important to you because it means that Google and the other search engines treat links from these sites as more meaningful than links from other sites. And any links in your content that point to your own sites count as a strong “vote” in favor of your sites – lending you credibility in the search engines. The direct traffic from the Web 2.0 sites themselves is only part of the benefit. Getting free web 2.0 traffic is a big topic that we’ll discuss more later. This is good overview of the reason to get into it, though.

Articles Sites

The next thing we want to talk about is article marketing. This is because article websites are really web 2.0 site. Article directories are sites where users (including you) can upload articles they have written. And just like other web 2.0 sites, you get all the SEO benefits from having your content on them. And the hidden benefit here is that your reach grows as other people take your articles and put them on their blogs and sites. And along with your article, they have to include your author information and a link back to you – so you get more free traffic and SEO benefits. In order to get the most free traffic make sure you:

• First, spend the time to determine your keywords
• Tailor the content of your article for the keywords
• Use anchor text links in the article and the “resource box”

Video Marketing

Our discussion would not be complete without talking about Video. Here to we’re really looking at a web 2.0 sub-category. And it carries all the same benefits of article marketing. And if all that wasn’t enough, you also stand a much stronger chance of getting a high search engine ranking for the keywords you want with Video than you do with text-based content.

Here are just a few Video marketing tips:

• Set up your YouTube account
• Turn off all the modules in your account profile
• Add tags to your profile
• Include a link to your main site in your profile
• Add at least one Video to your profile
• For each Video use your keywords in the tags, the descriptions and the title

Putting it all together.

If you take action on the items listed here you’ll have free traffic in no time.

This article explains how to select a profitable niche for your membership business.

First – Look for Fanatics

The number 1 thing you have to do is find fanatics if you want a profitable membership website. Simply put, a fanatic is someone who’s willing to spend time and more importantly money on a topic they are interested in. Now that we know what we’re looking for, let’s talk about how to find them…

• Look at magazine racks. This is an often overlooked, yet extremely simple way to find niches that people are interested in. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to run a print magazine. So if you see one on the shelves you know they are making money, which means that there are enough people interested in what they’re saying to make it profitable. This is a very good indication that it’s a good niche for you to go into.
• Pay attention throughout the day in your regular activities. See what people are talking about on the radio, TV, at parties, in public, etc. If people are talking about it, they are interested in it. And that may also mean they’re willing to pay money to learn more about it.
• Again, looking in the physical world for clues you can tell there are lots of people interested in something if there are clubs and organizations around the topic. Likewise, if there are enough people to hold a convention, there are definitely enough people to fill your membership website.
• Think about the things that you are interested in. There’s a good chance that others are interested in these things, as well. The icing on the cake here is that you get to build a business doing something you love.
• Google Trends. This is a great way to figure out what people are interested in. Google Trends tells you the most popular current search terms. These are the things people are actively searching for in Google. They’re searching because they want information. Hot topics that people are excited about make great niches for your membership website.

Step 2 – Determine the financial feasibility

After selecting a possible niche to build your membership site around, the next step is to find out if it’s a profitable niche to be in. One way to figure this out is to see if other are making money in it.

Here’s a punch list for figuring out if anyone’s making money in your niche:

• Are there blogs or forums in this niche? Take the name of your niche and search for “niche name blog” & “niche name forum” in Google to see if there is an active group of people talking about and interested in the niche. This means there is a large group of people already assembled for you to market to.
• Check Amazon, eBay and Google Shopping to find out if others are making and selling products in your niche. It’s a good sign if there are because it tells you people are making money here.
• Monitor Google Adwords to determine if people are running the same ads for weeks in a row. If they are, this means they’re making money on these ads – otherwise, they’d stop running them. Which means there is money to be made in your niche.

Finally – Figure out your barrier to entry

After figuring out a good niche and determining that other people are making money in it, the last thing to do is decide if you will be able to enter the market. Here are some things to look at to figure this out:

• Look at the product types in this niche. You want to find a niche where information products are being sold as the norm. That’s because it’s much easier to build a membership business around information vs. any other kind of product.
• The last thing you want is a marketing filled with tons of competitors. A few means it’s a profitable niche, but too many means you won’t be able to take a piece of it.
• Unless the market is just so big that it doesn’t matter how many competitors there are, you want to limit the competition. So evaluate the size vs. the competition.
• How quickly do people in this market make buying decisions and are the ready to buy? Every market is different. Sometimes people are looking for information and are ready to pay for it right now. And sometimes it takes weeks, months or even years for them to make the decision to purchase.

In Summary

So far, we’ve talked about exactly what it takes to pick a great niche: One with a hungry crowd of fanatics, who are ready to spend money on information about their topic. And you’ve determined your barrier to entry is small enough to give it a go. If you’ve followed along with these steps you’re success in practically guaranteed. The only thing left to cover is exactly how to run your membership business…

Visitors to your site are critical – getting them there automatically is even better. Here’s how…

Before we begin

Keyword research is really the first step in getting traffic to your website. Why? Because you have to target these keywords if you are to have any hope of actually generating traffic for them. This means it’s critical to select your keywords properly.

Here are the important considerations for your research:

• Will you be able to rank for these keywords? Take a look at the “strength” of others websites (and how many) are already targeting these keywords.
• Will the keywords you’re targeting bring buyers? If you don’t do your research you’ll end up with a lot of traffic that doesn’t buy from you. You want to generate visitors ready to buy.
• What about Affiliates? Generating your own customers is great – having other people do it for you is even better. So, it’s important to also target Affiliates in the keywords you go after.

Although this is an essential step, doing it all by hand can take a very long time. Experts are expensive and don’t guarantee results. Which is why practically none of your competitors will do this! If you’re smart you will use website traffic software to help you with this process. This way you get this critical step done fast and done well.

OK, now we can talk about traffic…

Only after doing your keyword research correctly can you start targeting these keywords to get you traffic.

Here’s a short list of sneaky traffic techniques:

• Most people overlook the power of Surveys!
• “Answer” Sites
• Video Websites

Surveys

The truth is that people really enjoy taking surveys and finding out what other people think. And smart website owners know this, so they will include your survey on their site if you make a good one. And when they put your survey on their site, they will include a link back to your website. This allows you to get free website traffic from other people’s sites! This is a sneaky little idea that most people never even think of. So, get creative and make up a survey that’s wacky to get other people interested in putting it on their sites.

“Help” Websites

These sites, like answers.yahoo.com are filled with people asking and answering questions for each other. But, like the surveys, that’s not why you’re going to pay attention to these sites. You are going to generate traffic, leads and sales from them. One thing you can do is to visit sites like Craigslist and Yahoo! Answers and manually extract contact info to contact other users. The good news is that it’s easy to find website traffic software that can do this automatically. Then you just get a daily batch of fresh leads delivered to your inbox.

Video

No doubt you’re aware of YouTube and other Video websites. YouTube is one of the most highly traffic and search websites on the entire internet! So don’t miss out of this incredible source of free website traffic.

You don’t have to be able to make awesome Videos for this to work. It’s really easy to just start with an article or something you’ve already written. And use free screen capture software to record yourself reading it. You can even get software that will automatically do this for you.

In Closing

It’s not that hard to get traffic to your websites. Use your noodle and come up with things other people aren’t doing. And today there are tons of options for software tools that can help with every part of this process.

Get started right away:

• Do your keyword research
• Then create some surveys born to go viral
• Take advantage of the “help” sites
• Capitalize on Video!