Some general questions about my blog..

I'm no expert, but writing a free ebook that is related to the products you are going to promote and related to the niche is best.

Always try and give value within your blog and emails to build trust. This will make it easier to get them to buy. You can try and make them buy right off the bat as long as they feel that they will be getting value from what they buy and feel that they have already gotten value from the free content on your site and from the freebie that you gave to get them to opt in

You don't necessarily need a paid theme for what you are trying to do in the beggining you could probably start off with a free theme.

No promotion intended but check out my blog -> Lets Make Money Online Together | Internet Marketing On Steriods

I paid for the theme, posting articles and implementing SEO is a good way to drive traffic. Just remember being constant is key.

You do not need a capture page on your blog, but rather put an opt in form like I did at the front of my blog. I ask users to opt-in frequently as well. A good way to get people to opt-in is to give them free stuff related to your niche!! Everybody loves free stuff.

I just started doing videos and posting them on Youtube that is good because Youtube is one of the largest search engines believe it or not and you will get traffic from there and you will be able to create a backlink!

Offering value is the best thing! Keep your website fresh with content and try and help people!

Just have 3-5 articles so that people won't feel that it's a desert... you'd be better off with long articles, say 1,000-1,500 words for the first few articles... make them interesting with graphics & photos...

Couldn't answer that without knowing your niche. Ever heard of Maslow? Google him... that may give you some ideas... if you don't have a niche, then that is your starting point...

Absolutely. Building a list is the best online business you can get into - it will make you immune to the whims of the search engines.

No. I went with Genesis - simply because I can make it look like anything I want - and it's one of the fastest themes around. You should pay reasonable attention to the speed of your site, as that's one of the important considerations for getting traffic. If your site takes longer than about 2 seconds to load, you're going to be losing any traffic you get... there are plenty of good themes out there ... if you want something really powerful, try Atahualpa or Suffusion - both quite powerful and widely used. Content is far more important than the theme... if you have a lousy looking theme, but great content, visitors will come. I've seen really slick looking sites that had nothing on them to hold my interest.

You should IMMEDIATELY offer them something to buy. A list must be 'trained' to expect you to sell - but you can do it in a friendly and helpful way... you can send an email or two describing a common problem in the niche - then send an email offering the solution you found... with an affiliate link.

Another great tactic is to do your selling on your website, and simply refer people in the email series back to your website for more information... doing this will keep the 'selling pressure' out of emails, and keep your open rate high.

These are just my thoughts... others may differ...

I think you should have published 4 to 5 blogs before begin to drive traffic on your blog.

Educational, Informative and unique content that can help people is very effective to get a subscriber.

I don't think that a paid theme requires for a blog. For a blog, the most important part is its content.

I don't suggest to use and affiliate offer in your first emails. First serve your users then you can offer your services.

I hope it will be useful for you.

I start with two or three. I always used to say "three or four" but I think "two or three" is closer to my reality, now. You get the idea, anyway: you don't need a lot, to make a start.

I always have one article, on the landing page, which hasn't ever been published anywhere else, so that visitors who really want to read an article will find one that they can't possibly have read before.

Bad question, Joe.

You shouldn't be thinking in terms of "what products work best to entice people to subscribe". You should be thinking in terms of "what works best to entice the people who are going to become the best future customers to subscribe".

It's all about quality - not quantity.

Don't be fooled into thinking "Well, that's pretty similar", or tell yourself "Well, that's what I meant, really". They're very, very different things, and the difference between them is hugely important, because it's the difference between a quality-driven approach and a quantity-driven one. And that's something it's really important to understand clearly before you start, because a "hidden assumption" or "subconscious assumption" that the biggest list will be the list that produces the biggest income would be deeply flawed and sometimes even quite difficult to recover from. So it's much more helpful to ask questions like "How can I use whatever I give people in exchange for their email address to serve my continuity process and to set my subscribers' expectations?" That would be a really good question.

I don't think of whatever I give people in exchange for their email addresses as "a product" at all.

I think of it as my method, as a marketer, of doing all these things (because there's not much income without doing them!).

If you're an affiliate marketer, then the landing page needs to be an opt-in page, of some kind, because the primary purpose of your site/blog, the reason it exists, is "to collect the visitors' email addresses".

Surely not? (I've never used one).

Yes; I think 10 emails is probably too long to wait for the first product promotion. You're right not to want to start too quickly, of course. I normally put a promotion in the third/fourth email, something like that.

For me, in all my niches, "promoting too quickly" is a huge mistake. It feels good, at the time, because you get some very fast sales from it, but it's all fallacious reasoning, really. Here's the point: the people who will buy immediately will buy a few days later anyway, so you're not gaining anything from a fast promotion: what you're doing is immediately cutting the future open-rate by about 20-40% by looking "just like any other marketer", and in the long run (and in a business, the long run is the run that matters) that has a hugely negative impact on your income.

It's very closely related to the "quality vs quantity" issue, but this one is the "quality vs speed" issue.

Here are 6 threads which may really help you a lot, between them, (this last question, above, is kind of discussed in the second) ...

What are the essential things to know about list building?

Lists: How Long to Presell - Averages

Where to get reports to give away on opt in page?

Website or squeeze page

Autoresponders vs. Broadcasts

Sick of Emails Not Being Opened?


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Hi Joe,

Bula from Savusavu, Fiji! As a guy who Blogs from Paradise, congrats on starting a new blog.

1: Start publishing today. Write your first post, publish it and go live. Starting your blog, and gaining real world experience, counts more than anything else I could tell you.

2: A free eBook works awesome. Preferably, one you've written. I'd write a chapter every few days. You can have 15 chapters in a month. For people go subscribe, you want to give them someone you've created, yourself, to gain their trust.

3: No. If the content is good, topical, totally relevant, and just plain serves your ideal reader, people will subscribe.

4: Yes, 10 times over.Or, if it's free, make sure it's super clean, like my theme. Include PLENTY of whitespace, and focus on creating really, really, really in depth content.....forget the money making bit for the first 2 to 3 weeks. No ads. No products. That screws with 99.9% of all blogger's creativity, worrying about outcomes, like making money.

5: Your call, but until I know Joe Brown absolutely delivers, like 800 word posts, or 1500 word posts, and really knocks my socks off, I probably ain't buying Seriously, you can start selling a few emails in, but only with a few sentences at the end of the post. 98% of the post should be solving problems, then follow with your call to action.

All the best dude. I'm sharing these tips from my experience, and since I'm writing from Savusavu, Fiji, things worked out OK for me.

Enjoy.

Ryan