Opt-In Email to Increase Website Traffic and Boost Online Sales

Sending messages and information to people who have given you permission to contact them is a great way to build the kind of relationships that will encourage a steady flow of traffic to your website... and greatly increase your online sales!

All online businesses can benefit from having an opt-in mailing list of some kind! Opt-in email lists generally fall into 4 categories….
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New Content Notification - You've probably seen sites that offer to notify you whenever they have new information, products, or content. To tell you the truth, this is probably the least effective kind of opt-in list, simply because most people won't sign-up. Instead, they'll bookmark your site thinking they'll just come back from time to time - but don't count it! Of course, there are certain kinds of sites that CAN benefit from this form of opt-in list. For example, if you have a site that runs contests, you can offer to notify people whenever a new contest begins.
Tip! Wait for the increase of website traffic that would surely come your way.

Free Report - Another kind of opt-in list involves the offer of a free report, or series of reports. However, be careful with this! By offering a free report, you are restricting the number of times you can mail to your list … it's not a good idea to capture the names and then bombard them with a continual stream of sales material when they were only expecting one or two reports. This would be considered spamming! If you offer a free report, it should contain "real" information and a reason for them to visit your website again.

Resource Updates - You can offer to update subscribers on various issues or resources. For example, if you are in the real estate business you could send people a list of current mortgage rates for the top 10 or 20 financial institutions. You could send this out once a week, once a month, or whenever there are significant changes in the rates.

Free eZine/Newsletter - A great way to build an opt-in list is by offering a free subscription to an electronic newsletter or ezine. Newsletters are a really good way of regularly reminding your subscribers about your website and products. By writing a newsletter that contains copy which is both informative and compelling, you draw subscribers back to your website again and again! I have a huge newsletters devoted specifically to explaining how you can develop a fantastic newsletter and get thousands of people to subscribe to it! Having an ezine/Newsletter is one of the best ways to build credibility and rapport with your readers and customers. If you understand the value of a "Lifetime Customer", then you know exactly how powerful an ezine or newsletter can be!
Tip! Press Releases: This is one of the most overlooked ways to increase website traffic. The subject can be as simple as announcing a new product that you offer, or a new hire that you've made.

Once you determine the kind of opt-in list you are going to have, you need to automate it. Why? Because one of the secrets to running a successful online business is to automate as much of the routine work as you can!

At your site, put up a simple CGI script designed to capture people's names and email addresses. This information will be sent to your email address so that you can add it to your database.

You can get great CGI scripts for free! Simply go to resourceindex and look up "Mail List Management" to find dozens of free scripts.

When people sign-up, you should immediately send them a confirmation email using an autoresponder. In this email, you should remind them that they have signed up and have asked to be on your list. Let them know how to unsubscribe (this information should also be in every email you send them). Restate the benefits they will experience by participating in your opt-in list. Let them know how often they will hear from you - will it be once a day, once a month, or only when there is something new to report? You should also confirm that you will not sell or let anyone else use their email address.
Tip! Submit to Search Engines: This is the first step towards increasing your website traffic. Don't wait for the search engines to find your site.

Good software will subscribe and unsubscribe people from your list automatically. It will take the information sent to your email box by the CGI script and add or delete it from your database. Doing this manually can quickly become overwhelming - particularly when your subscriber list begins to grow! These are the kind of tasks that you want to be automated - your time will be better spent on other things, like promoting your business!

Sending email to your list should be an easy process. You should be able to simply merge your message with your address list, click a button, and send them off! We recommend 1shoppingcart because, in addition to automatically subscribing and unsubscribing, it makes the task of merging and sending personalised Email messages very easy. It also allows you to set-up an unlimited number of autoresponders... plus a whole pile of other things I do not have room to list here.

Once you have your list set-up and automated, you can concentrate on WHAT you are sending your subscribers. They have subscribed for a reason. You made them promises, now it is time to follow through!

Your message, your report, or your eZine/Newsletter should be content rich. It should relate closely to the theme of your website and to what your audience is interested in. It should help them in some way! The information must be timely and relevant. And… it should draw people back to your website, as I do on my web site http://www.my-mortgage-loans.co.uk!!!!
Tip! Another excellent way to generate no cost website traffic is by submitting ready-made articles to 'content hungry' website and newsletter publishers with your 'resource box' attached. A resource box is nothing more than a little 3-6 line 'bio' about you and/or your web-site - including a link to your site (or even instructions on how to subscribe to your newsletter).

By building an opt-in list, you are building the future of your business. People have invited you to send them information. They have invited you into their homes or offices! Your messages are a constant reminder for people to come back to your website and visit again and again. When they come back, you have another opportunity to build rapport with your visitors. You also have another opportunity to sell them your main or backend products!

Now, I'm not going to try and tell you that building an opt-in list doesn't require a whole lot of work. It does! But it is an important step in building a successful, long-term business. It is definitely worth the work! Add an opt-in list to your website and you will be well on your way to building a very valuable asset - a customer list that you can sell to again and again, year after year!
Tip! Viral marketing campaigns such as free product distribution or trial offers have been proven to be successful in producing an increase in website traffic.

Brians William, Editor http://www.my-mortgage-loans.co.uk http://www.my-casino-gambling.com

Web Marketing and Website Traffic Analysis

Among the best ways to get the very most out of your web marketing is to analyze the traffic that you already have on you website. You need to develop an understanding of who is visiting your website, what they want from your website, and what they're doing once they're there. Unless you have this information, it is challenging to improve it in a way that will better meet the expectations of your visitors.

In order to analyze your website traffic, you can choose one or many of the following four techniques:

» A webpage counter » A statistical package from your ISP » Web traffic analysis software » Hire a professional to audit your website traffic

Counters are one of the oldest tools that have been added to websites. They can be visible to your website visitors, or invisible to them so that only you can see. A web counter is a very basic addition to your website that simply registers the number of people who visit any given page on your site. Of course, showing this isn't exactly the most professional way to run a website. Sure, they're alright for personal pages, but for a business that is trying to develop a good reputation and make a good impression, this probably isn't really the way to go.
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With the statistical package from your ISP (Internet Service Provider), you'll be able to have a look at a log of every visit your website has received. This will be available to you in the form of either a webpage or a graphic for your analysis. The information is often registered in raw NCSA combined log file format, which is rather challenging to use for the average user. It is full of complicated coding that must be deciphered for each individual "hit" that your webpage has received. If you know what you're doing, however, this method does indeed provide you with a good amount of information, such as the way that people are getting to your website (for example, by way of a search engine or a link from another site) and what they are doing at your site once they have arrived. If you are using a good quality ISP, then you will likely have a freeware version of a popular statistical analysis package available to you. There are many good ones from which you can choose, and you'll find the results very useful. You can have your ISP produce a daily, weekly, monthly (etc) report for you to use. They can either be posted on a webpage for you, or emailed directly into your inbox. You'll need to contact your ISP to find out exactly what services they offer in this regard.
Tip! Use Ebay: Stop passing up Ebay! Ebay is less intimidating than it looks, and it is easy for beginners to get started. In fact, Ebay was practically made for the Internet business owner who wants to increase website traffic.

If that doesn't work for you, if you want a better detailed report, or if your ISP simply doesn't provide that service, then you may wish to purchase a web traffic analysis software program. There are tons of these programs available at affordable prices that will provide you with a broad range of analysis options for the traffic you receive on your website. To use these programs, you simply need to download access logs from your ISP using an FTP program. You'll need to ask your ISP about the directory in which those logs can be found. The software will then parse (interpret) the raw log file information one line at a time to provide you with results in various combinations and formats for your use. Though the more high-end programs can cost over $5 thousand, there are many software packages that are available to us "normal folk" with varying degrees of options and abilities, but at much more affordable prices. You can easily obtain a good quality software package at around $300.
Tip! Press Releases: This is one of the most overlooked ways to increase website traffic. The subject can be as simple as announcing a new product that you offer, or a new hire that you've made.

So why do you need these stats so badly for your web marketing? The fact of the matter is that they give you a goal for your marketing. They show you:

» Which web pages on your site are most popular » Which pages on your site are least popular » Who is visiting your website » Which browsers they are using to view your website » Which search engines are sending the most visitors » Which banner ads are sending you the most visitors » Where the errors and bad links may exist on your website.
Tip! Viral marketing campaigns such as free product distribution or trial offers have been proven to be successful in producing an increase in website traffic.

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

Mark Nenadic Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North http://www.15dn.com, where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.