Although success online is possible without a list, having a list gives you tremendous leverage.

Success in business depends on having customers and having a list means you have access to people that can be readily converted into customers. Studies indicate obtaining new customers can cost six times as much as maintaining current ones and one of the most valued assets of any business is the list of customers.

There are several methods that can be used for building a list. Some may work in some situations and may fail completely in others. The factors that contribute to the success efforts include the niche and the method used but, what is critical, is how when and where the method is used.

The fuel required to power the list-building engine is traffic. Nothing happens online without traffic and the more traffic the better. There are hundreds of methods for generating traffic and, again, some may be more effective that others.

If you have a budget, and you should, even if it is a small one, you can consider buying advertising, either in the form of banner ads or pay per click ads, such as Google AdWords where you bid for keywords and only pay when the link is clicked. You can also buy solo ads in ezines, or ads on high traffic sites such as Facebook.

Before buying ad space on the seemingly unlimited amount of available cyberspace, some research is necessary to find out the type of audience the space receives. Sending messages to the wrong audience will negate all your list-building efforts.

If you are like most people, you may have a preference for free list-building strategies. These can include social bookmarking, article distribution, blog posting, cross promotion, co-registration and, of course, search engine optimization. There are advantages and disadvantages to each method, and the suitability of each method for the purpose of list building should be carefully examined.

List Building and Traffic Generation are Complimentary

Traffic generation does not require a list, but list building does require traffic and there are other components that are absolutely necessary to build a list.

You need a way to capture the information that goes into the list. Lists can be made up of simple e-mail addresses, or they can contain much more information such as names, addresses, telephone number, age and sex.

The details captured will depend on the purpose of the list and the niche in which the business operates. The site or page to which you direct the traffic must have a double opt-in form that captures the information and automatically enters it into a database.

The attached autoresponder will respond to any messages received. You will also need a facility to communicate with list members. E-mail still remains the most popular and cost-effective method for communication, but other methods can include text messaging.

You now have to answer these questions: What may be the most important determinant of success? How do you get subscribers to opt-in to your list?

The design and placement of the opt-in form: A more attractive form translates to more visitors and the content on the form is just as important. Testing has shown higher opt-in rates result when less information is needed.

Where the form is located: Some more testing may be required, but generally, presenting the opt-in form at the top portion of the page, can increase opt-in conversions.

The offer: Visitors are becoming much more sophisticated and you must give them a compelling enough reason to get them to give their contact information. The offer should express the value it represents. It should not be monetary value, but in time savings or added convenience.

How the message is delivered: There are reasons why video is popular in delivering messages. It can increase credibility and you may wish to include video in your messages.

There may be several others strategies, and each should be thoroughly tested and modified to achieve optimum results.

This can result in new visitors, increased Web authority, and higher search engine rankings. In addition to standard online marketing practices, such as quality content, good web design and engagement, link building can be instrumental in making your website a success.

There are hundreds of strategies for link building, but try these five tried-and-true methods for getting your website the attention and traffic it deserves.

Internal Links
The easiest way to build links to your site is to simply point links back to your site in your in-house blog posts. This can help direct your readers to related/archived posts and a wider-range of information about that particular topic. Not only does this bring archived articles to the forefront, it helps Google bots get a better idea of what your site is all about. Make sure the links look seamless and natural, not awkward and don’t add too many links per post.

Guest Blogging
Increase your authority by fostering relationships with other blogs and sites. Guest posting on authoritative sites that link back to your website also makes you look authoritative.

Offer to trade guest-posting privileges with other blogs to increase both your online profiles.

Comments
You can forge connections with other blogs by commenting on their posts. This is an easy way to create back links to your site. Leaving thoughtful or interesting comments can also invite new readers to your view your website or blog.

Social Media
Set up online profiles at popular social media sites and keep them populated with links to your website as well as relevant or interesting content. And don’t forget to post links to your site on other pages within your personal social networks.

Directories
Posting your website’s profile in online directories can help new readers find you, but be picky about which directories you use. Some can come across as looking like spam.

• Be sure to post in your blog’s appropriate niche. A site about motorcycles does not belong in a home furnishings directory.
• Post in directories that have a high page rank and good reviews.

Link building is a great strategy for increasing your rank in search engines, gaining a wider audience of fans and increasing your authority on the Web. Creating back links successfully is an ongoing process that should be approached strategically. While there are hundreds of ways to create these, the five strategies outlined above, in conjunction with other SEO tactics, can greatly benefit your online presence.

That is true. In my experience, having prime quality links pointing to my websites has improved my rankings.

Nevertheless, high PR backlinks are not the solution to all your off-page SEO problems, especially since the Penguin update introduced by Google. This algorithm looks for natural backlinking, excluding pages (and websites) showing over-optimization. This is because Google officially searches for high-quality sites that other webmasters find helpful and link to. This means not all sites linking to yours will have high PR. Some of them will be blogs owned by people like you and me and a few of them can be sites with high PR, including forums, article directories, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia etc.

In other words, search engines like Google and Yahoo, when determining the web page rank of your website, take into consideration not just the standard of backlinks pointing to it, but also the variety.

As discussed in a previous post, pinging your site, submitting its URL to link directories and submitting articles to article directories will give you a ton of backlinks that search engines will consider valuable when assigning your site a page rank.

Now that you’re aware of this, how do you actually go about doing it? Will you submit your links manually or use software that does it for you automatically?

In my experience, link submission is without doubt one of the most boring jobs ever. Nonetheless, using software that automates the entire process can sink your site completely and hopelessly if you don’t know what you’re doing.

This is what I do with my websites/blogs:

1) I write an informative article around a keyword that has a good number of (global) searches per month and I post it in my blog. Automatically, the article gets pinged, submitted to RSS feed directories and social bookmarking sites. This can be done tweaking the preferences of your WordPress blog from the dashboard and also adding a selection of free and paid plugins.

2) I then spin the article. Spinning means generating several versions of the same story. I use a piece of software called Magic Article Rewriter.

3) I submit my article to a collection of article directories and niche blogs. I do this using a service that does it for me, but allows me to decide how quickly my article should be published. I can instruct my article submitter to post my content over several days to ensure my articles are not red flagged by search engines.

The service I use accepts spintax, which means it will post original content in every article directory and niche blog. I highly recommend making use of an article submission service you can trust. Keep away from pieces of software that break too frequently and fail to submit your content after article directories make changes in their article submission platforms.

Following the steps I highlighted above, will give you hundreds of backlinks naturally spread over time. Some will come from high PR sites, some from sites with low PR, some appearing as naked links and some with anchor text. In my view, this is a technique that anybody can implement to build a solid foundation for their business.

One last tip: start with something you know about, and feel you’ll be able to teach. People will know if you are an expert in your field and will be prepared to buy your products if they think you may help them find solutions to their problems and aid them in achieving their goals.