List building tips are valuable and will help you to grow your business quickly. Almost every day someone will write to me to ask how they can sell their eBook or other product if they do not have a list. My first response back to them is that they must start building a list right away if they are to be successful with an online business. This is a skill that will grow your business steadily over time. I have found the best and most effective ways to get started with list building are with blogging, article writing and marketing, hosting your own teleseminars, social media marketing, and attending live events whenever possible.

The biggest mistake I made during my first year working online was to not take this process of list building seriously and make it a top priority. Instead, I spent too much time setting up websites and going through endless hours of training in search of the perfect business. If I had started building my list from the very first day, my business would have grown much more quickly.

You will need to add an optin box to your blog and other sites to start building this ‘permission based’ list. This is a simple process that can be done using any of the autoresponder services that are currently available, such as Aweber. We cannot expect anyone to sign up for our list without having a good reason, so offer them a free short report on your niche topic that will provide them with useful information in your area of expertise. It used to be that people would join your list to receive a newsletter or email updates, but those days are long gone now that we all receive way too much email on a daily basis.

This report you create need only be a few pages in length, but must convey real value. Even though you are giving this away at no cost, put your best foot forward to make it look and feel as professional and polished as possible. This will be the first time someone sees who you are and what you know on your niche topic so you want to shine. I like to write three articles on my topic and then put them together into a report for this purpose. Then I call it a Special Report and give it a catchy title and tag line.

Now that the person has added themselves to your list the next step is to stay in regular contact with them through email messages. You’ll want to set up some of these in advance as a sequence of autoresponders that will be sent out automatically over time. In addition to these automated messages, stay in touch at least twice

if you understand how to build a list, your online business will prosper. Your list of subscribers is the most valuable asset you have for building your online business, but just how do we find the people who will join our list? This may seem like a difficult process, but it isn’t if you make a plan for list building as a daily activity. Remember that the people who subscribe to our lists are those who are not only interested in our topics, but also interested in hearing about those topics from us.

It all begins with setting up a blog and posting to that blog on a regular basis. I teach that your blog is your home on the Internet, so make that site welcoming to visitors. Include posts that teach and share your information and knowledge in a way that will be appealing to your prospects. Also, add an optin box to the upper right-hand section of your blog.

In order to get people to opt in, you must offer a

Choosing the right niche for your online business will ensure that you work in an area that will bring you the results you are after. I see many people spending way too long to choose an area to get started with, and the result is that they are frustrated with the entire process and struggle with building a sustainable business. You can avoid this problem, and build a business you can be proud of if you take a close look at your areas of interest and experience, think about the type of business you wish to create, and decide how you can best serve the people who will come to you for help with their problem.

It all begins with thinking about the things you know about and have an interest in. You don’t need to be passionate about a topic to choose it as your niche, but it will be much easier to build a business around something that you care deeply about. We all have interests that would meet these criteria. You may also have work experience or personal life experience that would be a good fit for your business. Being an entrepreneur is all about solving problems, so being able to help others with something you have personally experienced will be especially rewarding.

Everyone has a different idea of what

Creating a free giveaway is the way to build your email list. Many years ago, long before I came online in 2006, people would give you their name and email address if you just offered them an Ezine or a newsletter, but now you must offer them something that will help them to achieve their goals. Think about when you find a new site or hear about a topic that is of interest to you. Do you dash over and enter your name and email address, in hopes that the business owner will start sending you helpful emails? No, instead you visit their site and see if there is something in it for you.

We are all extremely busy these days, and the thought of receiving even more email just isn’t that exciting. But when there is information we need to know, and the site if offering us a free report, audio, or video, we will take the time to check it out.

I recommend preparing a

Building your list is an integral part of online marketing. It all begins when someone finds your site and opts in to receive your free giveaway, also known as an ethical bribe. Creating this free giveaway, whether it is an audio recording, short report, video, or something else, marks the beginning of your relationship with this prospect.

I recommend creating the giveaway quickly. When I was first online I would simply take three of my articles and paste them into a word processing document. Then I would add a few paragraphs at the beginning and a few at the end to create a short report on my topic. Remember that this is your chance to show readers that you are truly knowlegdeable on your topic and have something special to share with them. Resist the urge to do too much selling or promoting here.

Be sure to add a footer so they know who wrote it and where they can find out more about you. Also, include a call to action (CTA) at the end of the report to let the reader know what to do next. Most people do not do this. Instead, after you read their report you simply close it and that’s the end. The call to action turns it into the beginning of your relationship.

Every month I create a new free giveaway, both to

I believe strongly in continuing education. Perhaps it’s because I spent twenty years as a classroom teacher, or maybe it is due to the fact that I learn something new almost every day that earns me more money online. Whatever the case, it you are not learning new things on a regular basis you will not do nearly as well in your business.

This week I am studying the work of former teacher Lee McIntyre. He lives in the U.K., and has some excellent training on list building, getting more traffic to your sites, and doing Joint Ventures from the very beginning. For less than twenty dollars you get 10 hours of his training. He has great energy, and is on track to earn a million dollars in 2011! This is the second time I am going through Lee’s program, and I’m still getting new ideas and techniques for growing my business. I encourage you to take a look at his site at Get More Momentum Online.

What are you studying? Share your best tips and resources on training programs for less than a hundred dollars. Yes, you don’t have to spend a fortune for training, but you must do it on a regular basis for best results.

The most important activity in your online business is building a list. You must have people who are interested in your niche topic and who have given you permission to email them on a regular basis. I started my list during 2006. I had an optin box on my blog where a few people would sign up every week. It grew very slowly, but I believe this was best because I was just learning how to run my online business. I emailed them once or twice a week, providing short reports, information and tips, and invitations to my teleseminars.

I promoted some affiliate products and courses to my list until I created my first product at the end of 2006. That product was a four part teleseminar training on how to write articles and blog posts that sold for $97. Fewer than 10 people signed up, but that gave me the confidence to keep going. When I created my second course in February of 2007, I invited the original people to take the new course as a bonus.

I continue to build my list through article marketing, blogging, social media, teleseminars, and interviews from other people in my niche. My training on this comes from Jimmy D. Brown in his list building and email marketing course. This gives me the opportunity to constantly have access to people who may want to join my list and hear what I have to say. Remember, your prospects must feel like there is something in it for them if they are going to remain on your list over time.

There are several mistakes everyone seems to make when

Article writing and marketing is the foundation of building your list.Once your article is complete, it’s time to share it by distributing it as widely as possible. This builds backlinks to your blog, and helps to boost your search engine ranking for your keywords. You do this by: 

*Posting the article on your blog. Your blog is your ‘home on the Internet’, so take advantage of this marketing strategy to repurpose what you have written.

*Offering it as a guest post on your JV partner’s blog (or newsletter).

*Create a Squidoo lens or HubPages page around it, including your keywords.

*Post it on social networking sites like Twitter or your Facebook page.

* Submit it to article directories such as EzineArticles and Submit Your Article.

That’s it! You too can get your articles to pull in search engine traffic for you when you use the Search, Sprinkle and Share system.

Your next step is easy – take action by searching for your keywords! Keyword research is crucial to your online success, so make it fun by learning how to search for your keywords quickly and efficiently.

This site is dedicated to teaching you how to make a 6 figure a year income with a small list, but that does not mean that you should ever stop thinking about ways to continue to build your list. I use article marketing as one of my listbuilding strategies, and it does help me when I use SEO (search engine optimization) in my article title and body.

Your articles serve many other purposes as well, such as establishing you as an expert, pre-selling products and even helping to build relationships with your prospects. But you can also use them to drive traffic to your site when you optimize them for the search engines.

Here’s the 3S Strategy for creating and distributing optimized articles:

S – Search
S – Sprinkle
S – Share

Today I’ll discuss the ‘search’ part of this strategy.

Step #1: Search

Your first step is to search for the keywords your market is already using to find information in your niche. You do this by using a keyword tool (such as Google’s free keyword tool).

All you have to do is enter in a broad niche-relevant search term like “homeschooling”, “organic gardening”, or “golf”. The tool will then offer you suggestions for related search terms which you can use to expand your list of keywords. In most cases, you’ll generate a list of hundreds if not thousands of possible keywords.

What you’re searching for are longtail keywords – these are phrases that are typically four or more words long. The key is that they have very little competition in the search engines, which means you can rank well for them.

Tip: Many keyword tools check the competition for you. For example, WordTracker offers a KEI (keyword effectiveness index) value, which looks at the number of searches against how many other websites are indexed for that keyword. The higher the KEI value, the better chance you have of ranking well. Look for words that have a KEI value of at least 100 – but the higher the better.

 Next week I’ll discuss the ‘sprinkle’ and ‘share’ strategies.

When Alex Mandossian first challenged me to double my list in October of 2008, I immediately thought of the friends and contacts of the people already on my list. I sent out an email asking them to refer at least one friend to me. The result was overwhelming.

People on my list emailed me, telling me they had been wanting to tell others about me. I realized right then that I had overlooked an excellent way to build my list.

There are people currently on your list who