7 Easy Steps to Effective Listbuilding

As you build your affiliate marketing business, you’ll want to develop a targeted strategy for listbuilding. Unlike a bricks and mortar business, your location is not an issue. Your ability to attract qualified leads is essential to your business’s survival. Here are 7 easy steps for building a list of qualified prospects:

1.    Purchase a domain name. Domains are inexpensive, and you can buy them on the Internet for about $10 a year. When you create a domain name, make it simple and easy to remember. Because there’s a lot of competition for domain names, you may not get your first choice. If your business is specific to a specific state or region, it’s wise to put that in your domain name (e.g. www.texas*****.com). This will draw even more location-specific traffic to your website.

2.    Get website hosting. Next, you’ll have to find a host for your domain–somewhere to house your website. There are thousands of domain companies with different plans available. If you are new to web design, find a company that has web templates so you can just type, save, and publish your website without html code. It’s best to shop around to find a plan that suits your needs. Start small at first. As you build your business, you can upgrade your hosting plan to one that will grow with your business.

3.    Transfer your domain name to your dedicated web host. Unless there’s a connection between your website and your domain name, people won’t be able to find you. Contact your hosting provider, and they can help you with this process. Most providers have round-the-clock support staff dedicated to helping people set up their websites.

4.    Set up your site. At first, you may want to begin with a simple blog. Search engines prefer blog links (deep links) to home pages, and this will help you rank higher in the search engines. Search engines also like fresh content, so blog daily. This will help your site rise in the search results when potential customers type popular search terms in the search engines.

5.    Sign up for an autoresponder account. Autoresponders are automated e-mails that go to your list. You’ll need to have one before you start taking names, so find one that makes the process as easy as possible. Once you start sending automated e-mails, make them personal. Write them as if you’re talking to one person.

6.    Create an opt-in page. This is where the listbuilding begins. Keep it simple. Offer something in exchange for your blog visitors’ names and e-mails. You can write a simple report that offers tips and tricks to solve a problem that your audience may have.

7.    Establish yourself as an authority. Blog daily to keep readers interested and to catapult your site up through the search engine page ranks. Make every post count by addressing your readers’ interests and needs.

Listbuilding is not as difficult as you may think. If you follow the 7 steps listed above, you’ll be able to build a large and growing list of targeted prospects.