List building requires traffic. You need people to see your squeeze page, if you want them to join. Blogs will help with that because the search engines love them. They're mainly text, so search engine spiders can view them easily, rather than having to navigate around complicated java scripts, flash, or too many images. They just breeze right through. If you post every day, you'll soon rank high. Stick to a theme in your blog. So, if you're writing about dogs, don't go off on a tangent and write about the basketball game last night. Stick to dogs, include words that are germane to dogs in each post, and you'll gain ranking. On of my blogs came out a PR5 within just a few months! If you don't understand the significance, let me explain.
Of course, page rank depends on a lot of factors that we don't want to get into here, but let's say that on a scale of 0 - 10, a PR5 is pretty solid. The higher your page rank, the higher your site will show up in the search engines, and the more traffic your page will receive. Of course, the first three pages are the desired real estate, with the first page being the highest goal. The number one spot on that page gets the most traffic of all. And here's the great thing: It's all free!
But let's address your worries:
You're afraid you can't write.
Well, you can. Anyone can. If you need something to help you, get a home study course and learn it. Then, sit in front of your computer or a blank sheet of paper, and just sit there. Soon, you'll begin to form ideas. Write them down. Do this for one hour, at the same time, every day. Eventually, you'll train your brain to think, "It's writing time!"
Or, find content from other places on the web. Go to one of the free article directories, like Ezine Articles or iSnare, and find content that's pertinent to your niche. Be sure to use the whole article, if you do this. Add a paragraph of introduction at the beginning and a paragraph after the author's bio box at the end, and wrap the article in your own words. If you use other people's words any other way, be sure to use less than 10% or you're plagiarizing. If you want to use any more than that, ask the author. And always give credit where credit is due.
But if you're still not convinced that you can write even a paragraph, hire a ghostwriter. You can find people at Elance.com or Craigslist.com who will do the writing for you. When you buy their work, be sure you're buying "all rights," which means you can use the work any way you wish. You can rewrite it. You can put your name in the byline. You can alter the article to suit your purposes. All rights even means you can sell it and keep all the money. If you can afford a ghostwriter, it will save time.
You don't know how to set up a blog:
Sure you can! You have to have cPanel hosting with Fantastico, but if you do, it's a snap. Just go into cPanel and look for "Fantastico." The icon is a big smiley face. Once inside, you'll see something that says, "WordPress 2.0" If you click on that, you'll be asked to fill in a few blanks, and BINGO! You have a brand new blog on your server. Simple! Customization might be a bit more difficult because it requires knowledge of HTML.
So, if you don't know how to do these mechanical details, hire a technician to do it. You can find them online, too, at places like RentaCoder.com. Tell them what you want done and pay them to do it for you.
You think you don't have the time:
You don't have time NOT to have a blog. Blogs are great for many reasons. First, as mentioned above, search engines love them. By placing a link to your main site on your blog, you're getting a one-way link back to your site, too. That's also great for search engine optimization because search engines look at links like votes. The more one-way votes you have, the higher your site will rank. But the best thing about a blog is the traffic you'll get. Sign up for some Web2.0 sites, like StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, and Spciy Page, and book mark your posts there, too. You'll get tons of traffic!
People need to see your squeeze page to sign up for your list, right? If you don't take some action to make this happen, you won't get a very big list, so get that blog going and put a link back to your squeeze page in every post. Join some Web 2.0 sites on blogging, too, like MyBlogLog.com, Technorati.com, or FeedBlaster.com. You'll see your traffic pick up. Maybe overnight!
Tellman Knudson is CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc. and knows how to build massive traffic. He gets results! If you'd like to learn more ways to drive traffic to your site, visit MyFirstTraffic.com ( traffic.overcomeeverything.com ).
