As most of my long term subscribers will be aware, my most recent and all-time best selling product, reveals how you can copy my systems and strategies to generate 100 targeted, revenue generating subscribers every single day.
It’s aptly titled 100 Subscribers Per Day and if you fancy having a read then click the link and pick up a copy. It’s less than $10.
Anyway, since I released that guide I’ve been working on another strategy that has made me realise that 100 subscribers per day is just small fry. In fact, generating 500+ subscribers daily in just one market is certainly within reach.
And it can be done for virtually free, apart from a few dollars to get set up (such as domain, hosting and an autoresponder).
In this blog post I’m going to reveal a fantastic plan that I’m in the process of implementing to start generating 500+ subscribers daily for free.
A Prerequisite
This is not a short term strategy. It’s not for lazy people. It’s not for those of you wanting instant results.
This is for people who want to build a highly targeted email list of prospects that grows at an exponential rate. This is for people who are prepared to work to achieve results. For people who won’t give up if they aren’t rich after a few days.
If you think you’re up for this strategy, then let’s get going… 
An Overview
Most people build email lists like this…
They set up a squeeze page and then they try to drive an immense amount of traffic to this squeeze page.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and I strongly recommend you DO use this strategy.
There’s just one thing you miss out on if you go this route…
You’ll never get any noticeable traffic from the search engines.
Google loves content. It tries its best to rank the best, most useful and most relevant content at the top. If someone searches for “how to lose weight”, you’ll most likely find that the top results are all articles discussing how to lose weight. It won’t be a squeeze page where visitors have to enter their email address to find out this information.
Therefore, if we want to get traffic from the search engines we need content.
This strategy involves creating content that pulls in targeted prospects using the incredible power of the search engines, and then encouraging these visitors to become subscribers.
Here’s how we do it…
Step #1
Content Ideas
The first thing we need to do is come up with some article ideas. What we’ll be doing is creating content based on very specific keyphrases that people in our market would type into Google.
Let’s say for example that we want to build a list of people interested in skin care. Once we have them as subscribers we can sell skin care and beauty guides and products for getting beautiful skin.
The majority of people interested in skin care won’t be typing things like “skin care tips” into Google. They’ll be typing much more specific things. It’s now up to us to find these searches.
To do this I’d go to the Google Keyword Tool and type in something like “for skin”. I’d select “Only show ideas closely related to my search term” and I’d choose “Exact Match”. I’d then click on “Global Monthly Searches” at the top of the column to order it by most searches.
This will show keyphrases being searched in Google that contain the specific keywords “for skin” and it will show me exactly how many searches each phrase gets each month.
Now I’m going to go through every single one of these keywords and make a note of any that I could write an article about. Here’s just a few from the top with their respective number of global monthly searches.
Home remedies for glowing skin > 8100
Olive oil for skin > 8100
Coconut oil for skin > 8100
Best foundation for oily skin > 4400
Tips for fair skin > 3600
Almond oil for skin > 2900
This search actually yields 80 results for keyphrases getting more than 100 searches per month and I assume about half of them I could write an article about.
From the keyphrases I also see that a lot of searches involve the specific keyphrases “dry skin”, “oily skin” and “fair skin” so I type each of these phrases into the search box and replicate the search. I make a note of any phrases I’ve yet to see.
I also notice that a lot of the results refer to an oil for skin, such as olive oil or coconut oil. So I type in “oil for skin” in the search box and replicate the search. This produces 399 results and gives me keyword ideas involving castor, jojoba, argan, grapeseed, sesame, avocado and vitamin E oil for skin.
After a few more searches I could easily have over 100 or more article ideas with each one targeting a very specific keyphrase getting 100+ searches per month and with some getting close to 10k per month – over 300 per day.
And as you search more and more you’ll realise that there are an abundance of related keyphrases that don’t actually contain the word “skin”. For example, people interested in skin care may be searching for keyphrases like “face mask” and then a search for face masks will reveal that “honey face mask” gets nearly 2,000 searches per month, oatmeal face mask gets 1,600 searches per month and that there are 800 more results each with one more keyphrase you can write an article about.
Spend a few hours and come up with at least 50 article titles. You can always get more ideas in the future.
Step #2
Site Set Up
Essentially, what we’ll be building is a content site using the platform WordPress. Most people associate WordPress with blogs but it can also be used to build fully functioning, beautiful content sites.
I’d love to go into detail here about exactly how to set your site up, but I normally pay others to do it for me. I’m rubbish with technology.
You can hire someone for about $100 (maybe even less) to set everything up for you. If you have a spare $60 then I strongly suggest getting the Genesis Framework. It makes setting up and editing your WordPress site much easier and it optimizes it perfectly for the search engines.
If you don’t get Genesis then it is essential you get an SEO plug-in, such as SEO Title Tag. This will enable you to title your posts with the keywords you are targeting to improve your search engine rank.
Get a domain, get hosting, set up WordPress and now we’re ready to get going.
Sidenote: Here’s the WordPress official guide to getting set up and customizing your site: http://codex.wordpress.org/New_To_WordPress_-_Where_to_Start
Step #3
Your Opt-In Incentive
One last bit of preparation we need to do is to create an opt-in incentive, such as a free report. Don’t worry this is really easy.
We want to build a list of prospects interested in caring for their skin. Therefore we write a 5-6 page guide titled something like “25 Quick Tips For Beautiful Skin”.
And to get the majority of those tips we just have to go through our list of keyphrases and find search terms that could also be tips. For example, one keyphrase is “jojoba oil for skin”. We research why jojoba oil is good for skin and how it works and then we put it as one of our tips.
Easy.
We also need to create a compelling paragraph that encourages readers of our articles to enter their email address to download this 25 Tips report. Something like…
“If you’ve enjoyed this article and would love to discover my top 25 tips for beautiful, radiant, younger looking skin, then enter your email address below and press Submit. Your free report will be emailed to you instantly.”
This paragraph can be pasted, along with our opt-in form, at the end of each article we write and publish.
Step #4
Let’s Get Posting
Go back to your list of keyphrases and pick one that you’d like to write an article about. For this example we’ll use the keyphrase “castor oil for skin”. It gets 1,300 searches per month – 40+ per day.
Write a 400-600 word article all about the benefits of castor oil for skin, how to use it and where to buy it etc. Make it the best article it can possibly be.
Log-in to your WordPress dashboard and make a new post. Paste the article in and paste your “opt-in paragraph” with your form at the end.
Make sure you insert the main keyphrase “castor oil for skin” and one or two more relevant keyphrases in your Title Tag field when you make a new post.
I’d go with something like:
Castor Oil For Skin | Benefits Of Castor Oil For Skin
The latter keyphrase gets 140 searches per month and would be a nice little bonus if you could rank for that phrase, too.
Publish your post and then move to step five.
Step #5
Promotion
Our main aim is to rank number one for our main keyphrase for each post. So if we make a post about “castor oil for skin” then we want to rank number one for that keyphrase.
If we can achieve that, then we can expect to achieve about 50% of the total search traffic. That means we would be getting 650 visitors per month to that page. Plus we’ll rank for other related keywords as well which we never would expect anyone to type into Google.
In order to get to the top of Google we need to get backlinks.
Backlinks are pretty much the key to getting to the top. If you can have a large number of high quality, relevant backlinks then you will shoot to the top of the search engines.
So how can we get these backlinks?
Firstly, and most importantly, we should guest post on related, popular blogs. Write a 400 word, quality post that includes the words “castor oil for skin” somewhere within the article. Hyperlink those keywords and link it back to your castor oil for skin blog post. Contact a blogger and see if they will publish your article. Repeat with as many blogs as you can until you hit the top of the search engines. Note: bloggers will usually only take unique content so you will need to write a new article for each blogger.
There are a couple of blogs I guest post on that send me 200+ visitors within 24 hours of publishing my content. That’s a nice instant traffic boost and a chunk of that traffic will join my email list.
Secondly, another great way to get backlinks is with article marketing. Write a few articles and submit them to EzineArticles.com again with the anchor text “castor oil for skin” hyperlinked. Not only will you get a backlink from EzineArticles.com but other bloggers and website owners will publish your article with your backlink.
You may also want to try a few variations of the anchor text so Google sees a bit of variety.
Note: If you want a proven blueprint that you can follow to reach the top of the search engines then pick up a copy of Peter Garety’s Strategic Link Building Plan.
Step #6
Rinse and Repeat
I suggest you make a new post to the blog every two or three days. So make a post on day one and then spend the rest of day one and day two promoting the hell out of it.
Then on day three make a new post about “jojoba oil for skin” and spend the rest of the day and the next day promoting it.
And continue with this pattern.
After a few weeks assess how each of your main keywords are ranking in Google (I’ll show you how to do this in the ‘Tools I Use’ section). If you have one ranking just a few places shy of position one then do a little more promotion for it to bump it up a few places. It will make a huge difference.
Continue posting new content, continue promoting your existing content and your traffic will grow and grow and grow as each of your pages rises up the search engines.
And as your traffic grows so will the number of opt-ins you get.
Believe me when I say that you could easily get 5,000 visitors per day. Well, perhaps not easy. It will take some work – but it will happen.
If you publish good content, targeting good keywords and promote it well, you will get there. Not within a week, not within a month, perhaps not even within a year. But you will get there.
Let’s say for example you make 100 posts targeting 100 different keyphrases each with an average monthly search volume of 1,000 each. That’s 100,000 monthly searches that you can try to capture. And that doesn’t include your secondary and tertiary keywords and keywords that you would never imagine are searched for. And it doesn’t include traffic from article marketing and guest posts – of which there will be a lot. And from bloggers and forum posters sharing links to your content (which also happens a surprising amount). And from Twitter and Facebook shares.
If you can get to 5,000 visitors per day and you convert just 10% into subscribers then that is a cool, cash generating 500 new subscribers per day.
Don’t let these numbers freak you out. It may seem a long way off but take it one article at a time and you’ll start seeing fantastic results.
And here are a few bonus tips to help you increase your traffic, revenue and subscribers.
Bonus Tips
Share Buttons
Include Facebook share, Twitter Tweet and Stumbleupon Like buttons at the end of each of your posts. If your content is good then people will click those sharing buttons giving you a nice little traffic boost.
On my health blog Facebook.com is one of the most common referring sites. If enough people are reading your content, you’ll eventually get a few people clicking the Facebook share button.
To see an example of social sharing buttons, take a look at the end of this post on my health blog. Note: I’m currently going through a site redesign so there may be a few things out of place.
10 Natural Tips For Beautiful Skin
Amazon Marketing
If your content site is getting thousands of visitors per day, it would be silly not to monetize that content directly. Promoting Amazon products is the best way to do that.
Let’s say you write an article about Shea Butter for skin. Within that article why not link to a tub of Shea Butter on Amazon? A percentage will buy it and others will click your link, get cookied with your affiliate code and end up buying something else – sometimes something much more expensive!
More Opt-In Forms
So far I’ve just mentioned that you should have an opt-in form at the end of each of your posts, but we can maximise the number of visitors we turn into subscribers by adding more opt-in forms. Here are a few ideas.
Firstly, include an opt-in form at the top of the sidebar of your website (like on this website). This will be seen above the fold for all website visitors and will convert a small percentage into subscribers instantly.
Secondly, within your content you can link directly to your opt-in form. So when they click the link they are taken to a page showing only your form. This is useful if you are talking about something and then say:
“This idea is mentioned in more detail, along with 24 other fantastic skin care tips in this fantastic free report. Click here to download the report.”
And then you link that to your opt-in form.
Thirdly, you can create a pop-over web form in Aweber to appear on top of all of your content when a visitor visits your website. This is hugely effective but highly annoying and may minimize the chance of other bloggers, forum posters and social network users sharing your content. I’m not sure how Google feels about it, too.
Additional Traffic
Aside from search engine traffic, there are lots more ways to generate visitors and subscribers to your website. Here are just a few.
Blog commenting: Visit related blogs in your market and comment on posts with insightful, thoughtful comments with a link back to one of your posts.
Forum posting: Getting involved on forums is a great way to get traffic. I never used to bother, but one day a reader of my blog read one of my articles and shared it on a forum. Within 24 hours that forum sent me over 120 visitors. Imagine what long term posting could generate!
Yahoo Answers: This one isn’t so effective now as I believe you have to move up a few levels to be able to post clickable links, but still answering questions on YA and linking to relevant content on your site can generate a handful of visitors.
Tools I Use
I don’t use many tools to be honest. Apart from the obvious: hosting (Bluehost), an autoresponder (Aweber) and WordPress, the only tool I use is Market Samurai.
The main reason I use Market Samurai is because you can add all the keywords you are trying to rank for and it will tell you what position you rank in. It’s great for having all your keyphrases in one place and it’s a lot of fun to update every day and see how they have moved.
You can get Market Samurai here, and I will be credited with an affiliate commission if you decide to buy. Just thought I’d let you know
Let’s Sum Up
In this rather long (approaching 3,000 words now) blog post, I’ve shared a strategy you can use to reach 500 subscribers per day. It’s not a quick strategy, but it’s one that works.
The numbers may seem farfetched now, but they won’t be once you get the momentum of this thing going.
And this will work in any big market. It’s just a case of finding those keywords and ranking for them.
I hope you’ve found value in this post.
It’s been a while since I’ve shared some great content. But by the same token I haven’t sent any promotional emails either.
I hope to share more and more good stuff over the next days, weeks and months. If there’s anything you want me to talk about then leave a comment below and I’ll try and cover it in the future.
In the meantime, if you liked this post then please share it on Facebook and Twitter. The buttons are below. I’d really appreciate it.
And if you want some more fantastic strategies (10 of them to be exact) to start adding hundreds of new subscribers to your niche email lists, then please download a copy of my best selling report 100 Subscribers Per Day.
I’m off to bed now.
I’ll be in touch again soon.
Thanks,
James Penn
Leave a Reply
08/22/2011
Best post ever.Will have to implement this , after all the money is in the list.
Awesome post James!
As usual, you come up with some solid tips to getting subscribers…
You never fail to remind me of the things that I should be doing more…
With that said – I’m off to write some blog posts
Cheers,
Coby Wright
Thanks! This really is a mini-course on how to build a big list fast…and your so right, Google will never rank a typical squeeze page well, and even if you buy traffic from Adwords, they’ll jack your ppc cost since its just a thin squeeze page you’re sending the traffic too. This is a better way, no doubt.
Great post, James!
While I don’t usualy comment on ‘nofollow’ blogs, this was just too valuable a post not to step up and congratulate you on the info you’re sharing, especially since motivated marketers can simply ‘rinse & repeat’ your steps to just keep building their targeted traffic.
Bravo – this post deserves to be read by everyone runnng any type of online business, especially affiliate marketers trying to build big lists to become super-affiliates!
To your success…
Doug Champigny.
This is perhaps the most insightful entry I have every read. If everyone read this, there would be half as little disappointments.
James,
You have just provided a masterclass in how to write a quality,content rich post.
I’m just hooking up my printer!
Ray
I have been trying to build my lists for a few months now, without success. The only problem I have is writing content, i simple dont have the time to write, and I was trying to save some cash by doing it myself.
Well, i have found out something, I’m getting nowhere!
So I will have to start outsourcing my content creation. I will have to head over to Fiverr, Freelancer etc to find some good article writers to finally get me moving
Very informative. The tip I consider most valuable for me is the discussion about keywords.
I have followed your internet marketing career since your days on Lee McIntyre’s very first forum. As a retired teacher, I find it exciting to watch the progress of young people. You exemplify the best of these.
Congratulations on completing University — something that might have been neglected because of your rise to Internet Marketing success.
Very nice post James, excellent actually. I swear we have the same thought patten. I do exactly what you talked about.
Build a blog, select 100 most searched keywords in the niche, outsource 1 article for each term and drip the content over a 3 month period. Building links to every page.
One thing… 500 subscribers/day isn’t realist from that kind of traffic. I would say you’re more likely to convert 5% into subscribers all the way up to around 7%.
But if you’re doing 10% then great, tell the world exactly how you’re doing it.
Thanks for some great content James. I have struggled with building a responsive list and this post has some very helpful pointers.
James,
As always, you wrote an excellent post. You should turn this into a short ebook and give it away, or even better, at least put it up on Amazon Kindle and sell it for .99 cents to build leads.
I’ll definitely bookmark this one. I want to go back through this and use it in my article marketing campaigns.
Thanks again.
Great post as usual and an extremely helpful reminder of the practical things I need to be doing NOW.
Thanks so much for so much valuable information.
James, good stuff as usual. If I wasn’t working with paid traffic, this is exactly what I would recommend. The only caveat is this: this method is not really free. You have to spend the time writing and researching. In business, it’s called ‘opportunity cost’. Your time is worth $$. In the beginning, however, this is the best way to get started. Once you’ve got money coming in, start looking at paid advertising. It’s *much’ faster (though riskier) than SEO.
Superb James.
And by the way thanks for the stonking [that means very good one and all] re: Andrew Hansen. Helpful guy.
Thanks all round; Cheers.
Excellent post. I’ve copied step one for future reference.
I was about to upgrade to a Thesis developer’s license but I’m now looking at Genesis. Any reason I should choose one over the other? I need something that’s totally flexible. And I still don’t get the parent/child part.
All comments,= and suggestions welcome.
Cheers,
Brenda
James
I appreciate your aggressiveness. But when you write a email with the header “This is my best post ever. Followed by This is the best thing I’ve ever written.” Well needless to say it better be good.
Well it is well written but it is just simple back to the basics stuff. Nothing wrong with that but if this is your best it doesn’t help me.
Thanks for your comment, Seth.
It may be simple. It may be basic. But it works.
I’d love to write a post sharing a magical, instant formula for producing riches, but unfortunately it doesn’t exist. Therefore sharing stuff that works, even if it does take time, is the best post I can make.
James
Really enjoyed this post and bookmarked it for further study. Intend to try this. Thanks.
Firstly, great post!
Not a lot of blogs out there that show and tell these methods. And even though it is a method that is shown a lot, i see not enough people use it.
The thing is, especially this year, people think you can take pill and get instant success. That is not the case, the reality of it is, it is a job, but with better rewards than a 9-5 job.
I do not use this method myself, because i use a quicker and free way of building my lists. However, once i have enough money i will be outsourcing some of my things, then i can improve in other areas, such as blogging.
And James, its not the best post you can make. Just reading above your reply to Seth. Its not your best, not by miles.
Its the start of something better. As you can write a post like this, i dread to think of the future ones. Which will be a lot better.
Hi James
You’re right- this is an exceptional post, and covers more ground than many paid rubbish courses. Your 1000Subs post is also a cracker.
keep it up, you’re right onto it.
Cheers
Stephen
PS I bought your 100SubsADay – great value for money because it really just provided very simple easy-to-follow steps that work
PPS Last time I recall you were sitting exams. How did they go?
James, while I’m not a long time subscriber to your list, I’ve seen some of your work and know this is the best post you’ve ever written since I came onboard. I believe the inability to build a list is the number one reason Internet Marketers fail. You’ve laid it all out on the line for anyone to see. The detailed instructions are simple to follow, yet effective to use. For many, using this one post will put money in their pockets. GREAT JOB!!!
~ Roy
Thanks for the nuts n bolts. I tried using Market Samurai but couldn’t get it to work, must be my computer. Just like I can no longer upload an image in Aweber.
It’s hard to find time to do quality posts as well as everything else. I have a plug in that gets articles but prefer to do my own and have control. Maybe there’s a better way somewhere.
You’ve done well here.
Janny
Hey James, excellent post. The only thing I find tricky in any of it is finding unique quality content. Where do you go to get quality content for niches such as skin care?
Nic
Hey Nic.
I either write it myself, or outsource it for about $10-15 per article.
Thanks,
James
I replied to this before but then I was thinking: ‘the post seems OK but I’m super-super-busy so regrettably, no.’
But it happens I have a subscription to Aweber – have had it the past 6 months or so and done zero with it. Nothing.
This is the opportunity to really cut my teeth at this stuff. I’m In. I’m doing it. Thanks James. Appreciated.
Great job on this post, James. You’ve managed to sum up in only 3,000 words what many completely fail to do in an entire course
Cheers,
Jacques
James,
This is a great post. I found it more useful than most of the WSOs I’ve bought. Keep ‘em coming and I’ll keep reading.
Thanks