One thing I always tell people when they start looking to make money online is that they really need to focus on building their lists.

Just earlier today I was reading a thread on the Warrior forum (a very popular internet marketing forum that you should stay away from if you want to get things done!) about somebody who created a product in a couple of hours, launched it to his list and created four figures - all for a couple of hours work.

Another success story is Chris Farrell. He is someone who I really look up to in the internet marketing world because when every body else was hard selling with hype and ridiculous false promises, Chris waltzed on in there with a 100% honest and genuine approach. And, let me tell you, despite only starting online a little over 2 years ago, Chris now owns the internet's number one internet marketing site online. In fact, I'm a member (http://www.chrisfarrellmembership.com).

The List is Powerful, But How do you Build One Fast?

OK, so we all know by now that the sensible thing to do as an affiliate (or a product creator) is to build a list. The question then becomes "how?". How do you build up a list of many thousands without taking years to get to that stage?

The answer is - it depends on the niche.

If we look at things from an entirely logical perspective then there are only two factors that count when building a list...They are:-

• Volume of Traffic
• Conversion Rate

Now, in this article, I'm going to assume that your conversion rate is somewhere around the 20% mark. If you're not converting 1 visitor in 5 onto your list then you may need to look at improving your "squeeze page" and to do that I'd recommend looking here.

With that aside, the next thing we need to focus on is getting traffic. Assuming a 20% conversion rate, we need 5,000 visitors to our squeeze page to get 1,000 subscribers.

It's Not as Hard as You Think

There are two ends to the niche competition spectrum. At one end (the highly competitive end) you have make money online, weight loss and FOREX whilst at the other end (the non-competitive end) we have things like cake decorating (for instance).

Most beginner marketers are led to believe that less competitive niches are easier to break into and to a certain extent that is true. However, there are many advantages to going head first into a competitive niche (as I have found out in the Make Money Online niche myself).

A List Building Plan for Less Competitive Niches

For the sake of writing this blog post, let's say that we're going into the cake decorating niche (please take into account I've done no niche research on cake decorating and so have no idea if its a good niche or not).

Dominate Google

In the cake decorating niche I'd be inclined to do whatever I can to dominate Google. Why? Because I know that there aren't any other major players in the niche and that with a bit of work I can get multiple listings in the top 10 for multiple key phrases that I want to target.

Blogging for Authority

Firstly I'd be inclined to set up a blog and try to develop it into an authority site by writing for other broader market "lifestyle" type sites as a guest author. Never underestimate the power of submitting content to high profile sites to build link popularity (don't forget link popularity, or backlinks, are hugely important for rankings). I'd populate the blog with 30 - 60 high quality posts that targeted long tail key phrases (don't write blindly do your keyword research).

Content Syndication

I'd then start looking at other types of content that I could syndicate online. I'd probably pay very close attention to the likes of video marketing (either through YouTube.com or TubeMogul.com), e-book submission, pdf submission and other forms of basic content syndication.

Web 2.0 Sites

I may even consider throwing some content up on web 2.0 sites (Squidoo, Hubpages, WetPaint, Weebly etc.) however I have a real pet hate against not owning intellectual property of content that I create (I make allowances for guest posting because its so powerful in terms of traffic generation and backlink popularity).

I may need to build a few backlinks to some of this content to get it listed highly in the rankings, but I'd be ranking highly after a couple of weeks and traffic would start to pour in.

All Content Points to Squeeze Page

Obviously, each piece of content would point to my squeeze page with the view to getting people onto my list. A squeeze page is a simple one page web site that dangles a carrot and bribes people into entering their credentials.

Using these techniques I'd expect to build a list of 1,000 subscribers fairly passively within a couple of months.

A List Building Plan for More Competitive Niches

In less competitive niches it just makes sense to go after Google listings because the effort:reward ratio stacks up. After a few weeks of work, you can get traffic for many months straight from Google for free....Traffic that you can convert into prospects and then buyers.

In more competitive niches then you're crazy to go after Google traffic unless you have some incredible spending power or Search Engine Optimisation expertise at your disposal.

Instead, we need to focus on one thing....

Leverage

Instead of chasing the dream of a top 10 listing in the "make money online" niche, you should be focusing your efforts on ways to leverage other people's listings so that you can pick up that ever so valuable traffic.

The great thing about what I'm about to teach you is that you can start to see traffic pretty much instantly. In fact, I build a list of 500 new subscribers in a matter of a two weeks from scratch simply by following these tactics.

High Profile Article Marketing

There are many high profile web sites out there that are really hungry for hugely valuable content that their readers will appreciate. My advice to you is to find these sites and submit your content. When you get published, a link back to your squeeze page will be posted at the footer of your article. This can be hugely powerful, and if you write today, you can literally get traffic back to your site tomorrow...No waiting around for ages.

Joint Ventures

Having lots of competition is a double edged sword. On the negative side it's hard to get traffic straight from Google because the competition is so rife. On the positive side it means that the niche is profitable (money is being spent) and there are many "partners" with which you can joint venture with.

A joint venture is really just a partnership that you strike with others in your niche for mutual gain. There are a few very powerful strategies that you should be considering:-

• Giveaways
• Adswaps
• Piggybacking

To grow my list in one of the most competitive niches online, I use a combination of all three. Here's an explanation for you:-

JV Giveaways

A JV Giveaway is an event where you can, as a "contributor", add your free gift for others to download. There are a couple of hundred contributors at any given event, all offering their gift for download. To build your list, you'd sign up to a giveaway event as a contributor, add your free gift and then promote the giveaway event to your subscribers.

Each contributor promotes the giveaway event to their subscribers by telling them that they can get a load of gifts for free for a limited time only. For each member a contributor refers, he/she earns points. The more points a contributor has, the higher up the listings that person's gift is displayed.

The idea is to get so many points that your gift is displayed on the first page and therefore you receive the lion's share of everyone's traffic.

Adswaps

Adswaps are very simple. Once you've built a list of around 500 subscribers you can then advertise other people's offers to your list in return of the same favor from the other person.

The idea is that both parties are able to grow their list rapidly. You'd commonly expect that 10% of the list will click on the link in the adswap email (thus taking them to the squeeze page of your JV partner) and around 50% of those that actually visit the squeeze page will opt in.

In other words, on average you'd expect to see around 5% follow through with an adswap.

Once you get a list size of around 10,000 you can see how easy it is to grow that list to new levels (ie. 500 sign ups per adswap).

The danger is that if you do too many adswaps then you might annoy your subscribers and "bleed your list dry" so that your subscribers are no longer responsive to what you send them.

Piggyback or Integration Marketing

This is similar to an adswap in that you find JV partners and promote eachother's stuff, however, with piggyback marketing you don't do a one-off email blast to your whole list (like you do with an adswap). Instead you'll integrate the advertisement into your follow up campaign.

The most common form of integration marketing that I've seen (and use) is the thank you page piggyback. There is a prime point immediately after people sign up to a list where they are usually more than happy to be persuaded to sign up to receive other free gifts.

On my thank you page I have three free gift offers from three of my internet marketing friends. Each of the gifts are hugely valuable so the subscriber wins...I win because I receive leads from my JV partners and the same goes for my JV partners themselves.

The key to this kind of marketing is to make sure that you use a link tracker to count the number of visitors that you're sending and that you're receiving so that you don't sell yourself short and that you're getting a fair deal.

Report Creation

Often marketers are looking for free reports that they can use as opt in bait. If you put together a highly valuable free report with a small promotion to your squeeze page in the header/footer, then it is likely that your report will be snapped up by marketers.

This can be another powerful way of quickly and easily building up your list of subscribers.

Social Media

Of course, if there's a popular sector online, then you'd better believe that there will be plenty of social media activity. This means that you'll be able to build up relationships and cleverly embed your links in a non-obtrusive, helpful way.

I am by no means a massive user of social media - in my make money online account I have about 500 twitter followers and under 100 Facebook friends yet I still do get around 200 hits per month from both these places combined. Not much in the grand scheme of things, but still a shade under 70 subscribers for very little effort.

The Great Thing about List Building...

The really great thing about list building is that it gets easier the bigger your list is. It's easier because you can attract JV partners, because you have instant traffic on demand and because you can communicate with your list through surveys for direction.

If you can get to that first 1,000 subscribers then you'll be well on your way to building a decent list.

As a final note, don't forget that the most valuable asset you have is not the list by itself, but the relationship you have with the list. Don't endlessly blast out advertisements that will alienate your subscribers...Look after them, treat them well and in return the wealth will flow to you.