I?ve said it many times before on this blog and I?ll keep on saying it. I even say it to my 7 week old son ? ?a business with no contact list is no business at all!? Actually I sing it and usually to a melody like ?If you?re happy and you know it?? or ?Ten green bottles?? But hey I?m sleep deprived so I have my excuses.
A business needs new contacts in order to develop and grow. Therefore list building should be an essential activity for any one serious at developing their online presence.? If we had all the time in the world we could go out and meet people face to face and start to share with them how we have the solution to the problems that they are experiencing. However, in order to 
1. Blog Commenting
Build your list by offering some information of value on someone else?s blog ? and provide a link back to your own blog or web page. This list building strategy? is very effective. It works best if you actually provide content of value and not just the average ?Nice blog! Well done ? keep it going.? Instead try to offer a different perspective and give the blog owner and their readers a reason to check out your web site.
2. Blog Widgets
This is more about keeping your visitor on your web site once they have read your post. The longer they stay on your site the more likely they will be to sign up to your offer (and the more successful you?ll be at building your contact list). So consider adding a related posts widget ? these are effective in getting more people to read further posts that are related the one that they initially came to your web site to read. More visitor time on your blog the more successful your list building system will be.
3. Ping Your Fresh Blog Material
Sites like http://pingomatic.com/ provide a service to up date a number of different search engines that your blog has been updated. This is a powerful way to attract people to your new content. Also if you use a WordPress blog you can set it to automatically trackback or pingback other blogs within WP?s dashboard.
4. Free Premium Content
White papers, ebooks and other PDFs are very effective methods to attract a lot of attention from your web sites audience. If you don?t have the time to write one yourself then consider a white label version that you can quickly edit for your business and then offer as a free incentive to capture leads. Or if you want a bespoke approach then write some new material yourself or contract a skilled writer via ww.elance.com but make sure your content is fresh ? don?t just regurgitate what everyone else is saying ? have your own spin.? If you have great material you?ll have no problems in building your contact list.
5. Write Testimonials To Build Your List
Not testimonials for your own products or services from your own customers (although these in themselves are great social proof) but instead provide testimonials for other peoples products and services that are related to your niche. Mark yourself out as being knowledgeable within your niche. Compliment the product or service and find a hook to encourage the reader and/or web site owner to come visit your site. Great list building strategy to hook those already searching for what you have to offer.
6. ?The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread Is Now Dead?
Did you know? Twitter is dead! Yeah, it has been dead almost since its birth and every time it was pronounced dead again it attracted an avalanche of traffic from passionate Tweeters and those who hate Twitter. It works with other disciplines as well ? like life coaching is dead or Apple Mac is now dead! Just don?t apply this to human beings please! I?m sure that you will have seen this strategy play out a few times over the past few years ? there is a reason ? it works! Humans are curious by nature.
7. Answering Questions To Build Your List
Yahoo Answers is a bad resource for answers. In fact last time I dared surf there the question thread I was interested in was at least five years old. However, it is a great resource for questions along with Linked-In Answers. Also, forums are full of questions people ask. All you need to do is provide an answer and people will be so thankful that they?ll come visit your site and who knows even complete one of your conversion goals. There are many ways to do this and no right or wrong way of doing it. I link a specific squeeze page to my answer response so that I can track the success of this strategy.
8. Blogging To Build Your List
There are literally millions of blogs on the internet. Blogging in itself is not all that effective at drawing in traffic. Most blogs are about people pandering to their own vanity or about useless information. Worse still they attract zero traffic. Make sure that you have a goal for your blog. Make sure that you optimize your posts, make sure that you are adding value for your readers, make sure you are measuring the impact of your blog (e.g. how many conversions per day or per week, is it an effective list building system?). Do all this and blogging can be a fantastic way to mark yourself out in your niche.? Bloging can be a phenonmenal list building strategy which will aide you in building a massive contact list.
9. Make Your Content Engaging
If you write engaging content then people will want to read it and come back for more. Remember this little fact ? less than 20% of people will read the content of a blog post, whilst 80% of people will read the blog title. So make sure that the title will hook your readers in and then have good content to keep them hooked. The longer your reader is on your site the more chance you have of capturing their contact details and builidng your list. Don?t be lazy with title tags. Make sure your title tags contain calls to action that will make people click on them.
10. Twitter Re-Visited
OK it?s not new and people have a love/hate relationship with it. However, with over 100 million active users worldwide, there is little doubt that Twitter is capable of driving large quantities of traffic to all types of websites. This makes it a key player in your list building system. And did you know that there is a plug-in for Twitter that lets you automatically re-tweet old posts. This is useful for those who don?t have the time to tweet all day long and it?s a good way to continue sharing excellent content. Personally I set it to 1 ? 2 automated post a day because I hate seeing over automated tweet lines ? not a good look! Link back to resource page
11. Manual Submission To Online Leading Directories
This will never change, not in 2012 not in the next 10 years. If you want to build free targeted traffic and grow a massive contact list then you need your web sites page or post links stretching across the web. No better way to do this than by using online directories. These are way too valuable to ignore. Try to get into DMOZ, Ezilon, Yahoo and Bing directories. It?s hard to get in but once you do there is no way of stopping you on your listing building quest.
12. Add Images To Help Build Your List
More and more people are now using image searches. Sometimes this might not necessarily be to find your content but more around someone searching for an image for their own marketing. But because you have a great image they come to your web site intent on copying it. But low and behold you have a great title ? its grabbing.? So they stay and read. Oh and you have great related content.? So they stay and read some more. See where this is going? A real nice trick is to convert your ?call to action? into an image file. Doh just told you my mates IM secret ? how careless!
13. Using Automated Back Links
Now stop it! Do you really think that paying $19.97 for 10,000 back links to your web site is a good idea? I won?t insult your intelligence, but what I will say is if your content is good enough people will automatically link to you. Give up on getting useless links and concentrate on great content. Things that appear too good to be true usually are! Don?t fall victim to the lazy link builder!
14. Use Humour To Help Build Your List
Nothing builds rapport more with your audience than the use of humour. There are many great examples of humour on the internet, but in view the funniest site is theoatmeal.com. This site is run by a guy who used to be an SEO expert and has now decided to move into the production of funny cartoons full time as he found humour to a real crowd puller. So follow his lead and consider adding humour to your website or develop a cartoon related to your niche like this http://theoatmeal.com/comics/websites_stop you can create your own humorous cartoon at http://www.toondoo.com/
15. Being Controversial
This is not for everyone. I have to say that from my experience it can work ? especially when it?s both humorous and has some underlying point to it. Must admit I?m not as comfortable with this one just because I?m a chilled out guy and I don?t take immense pleasure in rocking the boat. I tend to flirt with this and therefore my overall brand is not controversial, but posts where I have been controversial (on issues that I personally feel strongly about) are the ones that people have engaged in the most. But be careful not to simply spout out rubbish that is controversial for the sake of it ? your audience will get wise to your nonsense.
16. Know Your Niche
Part of why someone may want to follow you or connect with you or subscribe to your site is because you know something that they don?t. Someone wanting to build a massive contact list should keep on top of memes, read Reddit daily, use StumbleUpon, engage on Twitter, and read quality marketing News. You should conduct in-depth analysis around the communities that relate to your niche.
17. Link To Authority Sites in Your Niche
This needs to be well thought out. No point trying to offer a competitors audience directly the same products or services, but try to provide either added value content not already covered or offer an incentive for your competitor to link to your site ? maybe offer a commission for every x amount of people who either buy or subscribe to your site.? This can be a great way to build your list.
18. Posting To Forums To Help Build Your List
Spend 5 minutes at a time on each industry-related forum you can find that you think will be beneficial to your site, and post useful, insightful comments to build up your reputation. The benefits in the long run include reputation, trust and relevant visitors. This will help in giving you credibility which is a key factor in any good list building system.? Forget buying a forum spamming software tool. It won?t work ? it?ll only spam your post to forums where everyone else spams their posts and will therefore be lost in a mountain of spam that has never been read by anyone and never will be! Stop being lazy!
19. Power of Video In List Building
Create a great post.? Do hours of research.? Refine your post over time and just maybe on week 1 you?ll get on page 3-4 of Google (assuming that you?re going for a big ticket keyword).? By week 4 you may just have made page 1 or the top of page 2.? But shoot a video.? Add it to your post and watch with shear joy as it goes straight in on page 1 of Google for Video searches practically on day 1.
This should be enough ideas to get you started with building your massive contact list.? Check back here as I?ll be adding more list building strategies over time as people share what works for them.? Also I conduct list building strategies research every week so that I keep up to date with what?s new.
To Your Success,
Howard Clemence
Professional Internet Marketing Coach
Author of How You Can Generate 50-100 Leads Per Day
http://tinyurl.com/3okcd9z
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