So you’ve decided on a method to get people to your blog, you’re working that method and more people are showing up. Now you need to get them to get their ticket to jump on the bus tour. (AKA sign up for your opt in list) You do have an opt in list ready right?
Whether you’ve got your freebie ready or not, create your opt in box and get it live on your site. You can start off with just providing blog updates, it’s ok. The most important thing is that you have a way for them to “buy into the bus tour”, and your list is it.
Today I’m going to share with you some ways you can improve the rate at which people will join your list and therefore be on the bus! (This is also known as joining your list/opting in/ and the rate at which they do that is the opt in rate.)
Put your opt in box in more than one place.
Having your opt in box in your sidebar is important. However, that’s not the only place you want to have your opt in box. The more places you can put it the better ~ as long as it doesn’t become the only thing you see on your site of course.
I had no idea there were so many places to put your opt in box until I read John Chow’s free report last week. I must admit I have never read John Chow’s blog before, but Gideon Shalwick did such an excellent review of this free report I grabbed it. He talked about 5 or 6 different places to put your opt in box on your site. (BTW ~ this is an excellent report. I learned a lot. Especially the chapter on building your list. I did get a little overwhelmed by the final chapters but … it was good information, just a little more than I’m willing to do at this point ~ although I probably should. Anyway… you should grab it and take a look at his indepth analysis of getting people on your list ~ it’s really good.
Where Else Can I Put My Opt In Box?
Sidebar ~ of course. The prettier you can make it the better. Here’s a post on how to do that.
The lightbox. The lightbox is the opt in form that pops up once someone gets to the site and blacks out the site until they do something with it ~ either opt in or click the x to make it go away. You get the code for this opt in box from your autoresponder (Get Response is currently having a 33% off sale until the end of June ~ I’m just sayin’) and then add the code to the footer of your site before the </body> tag. It’s controversial I know. I resisted it for a LONG time ~ years. I find them very annoying… but here’s the deal. They work.
Here’s an example. I added the lightbox to this site last Thursday. It’s only been a week. Last night I looked at the stats from June 10-15 (the week before I added the light box) and then from the 17th -22nd (the same time period after I added the light box) Here’s the results. It’s pretty amazing.
10-15: 9 opt ins (yeah, pretty miserable right ~ I have not been doing a great job of getting opt ins)
17-22: 48 opt ins (yeah, huge difference.)
The only difference was the lightbox. That is one simple change that makes a big difference. A lot of these opt ins are coming from older pages on my site that get traffic from the search engines. These are people who I would never have had any future contact with… but now, they get my email series as well as updates when I post to the blog. I get to pull them in, let them get to know me better, and hopefully they turn into raving fans of the blog and me!
Because the lightbox is so intrusive you want to make sure you set it to only show up once. It would be over the top annoying if it showed up every time someone landed on your site, but once isn’t too bad, and it really helps make your opt in box the main focus ~ at least for those few seconds.
Footer:
You may have seen some blogs lately with a little opt in box in the footer of their site. It looks really cool right? It’s another great way to bring your opt in box into focus. They do that will a plugin called Ultimate Footer Ad This little plugin acts like any other plugin, just upload and activate and you can create a unique opt in box in your footer. You can also use it to get more followers at twitter. This is less intrusive, but still pretty noticeable. It will help with “ad blindness” where people just don’t see the opt in box in the sidebar anymore, it will get your opt in box noticed.
Here’s an example:
After someone comments:
If you’ve got people leaving comments you’ve got yet another way to increase your opt ins. I haven’t yet implemented this one, but I can see where it would be really effective. There’s a plugin you can use called Optin Comments. This plugin works together with your autoresponder software. It will send out a quick email message to the person who just commented on your blog. You create this email, and can ask them to grab a copy of your free report ~ or whatever you are giving away to build your list. If they agree they will be added to your list from the email.
This is a great tactic. The person has just taken time, been engaged enough to take action on your site and leave a comment. Chances are they liked what you were talking about, and would enjoy your freebie. Especially if you’ve created a very related freebie.
This plugin will also give you the option to put a check box under your comment box. If the person checks the box they will automatically be added to your email list. It also has other features and is something worth looking at.
In your RSS feed:
There’s yet another plugin that will help you with this. It’s called Feed Footer. It will allow you to add advertisements to your RSS feed. So people reading your site from a feed reader will get the messages as well. You can use regular ads or you can encourage them to get your freebie and join your list. (When your feed numbers get high enough you could even sell this ad space!)
This plugin also allows you to add a copyright notice to your RSS feed ~ which is nice.
Facebook:
If you have a facebook page you can add an optin form to your fanpage by using the fbml option. This is somewhat complicated, but it can be done, and each time someone visits your fanpage it’s yet another opportunity to get them on your list where you can start building your relationship even more.
This is a lot… I know. You may not feel comfortable adding all of these options, and that’s ok. I am not either ~ at least not all at once. You know how “they” always talk about “testing” ~ this is one of those times you can easily do that. Add one thing ~ start with the lightbox, or one of the other options. Add that one thing and then wait a week or two. Make sure to check your stats and see what changes have happened in your subscriber rate. If there’s no change… give it another week and see. If there’s a big change hooray!
As time goes on keep adding these opt in elements, and keep checking on what effect the new element has on your site. These are simple changes you can make and as you’ve seen can create a huge influx of subscribers, and subscribers are what we’re after to create a profitable blog and bus tour.
It’s time to get started. What are you going to do first? I can’t wait to hear what it does for your site. Make sure you come back and let me know!
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