If you are a start-up, a small established business or even a large scale company, you need to have a strategy on your website in order for your visitors to sign up to your email list. Having a website is completely obligatory in the age that we currently live in being 2017. We live in what is called the information age, meaning that when people have questions, they turn to the internet to find their answers. Before you worry about getting your email campaigns opened, you must first compile an email list!

If you are not active in the online world and using it to promote your business, you are simply losing out in the full potential your business can achieve. However, if you already have a website, which is why you are here, then you are ready to find out how to maximize from it. We are going to show you 4 ways to use your website to collect email addresses for your list!

1. Easy to Read Navigation Bar

Your Navigation bar is the bar atop your site which allows your visitor to navigate through your site. Make sure your website has one or find out how to add a Navigation Bar. Plain and simple, you want to create a button here that reads “Sign Up” or “Join our List”. This is just the best real estate on your website for your email sign up offer to be. It is the first section that your visitor sees and you want to make it very easy for your visitors to sign up to your list. The more hidden your button to sign up is, the less people will actually sign up. Believe me, people aren’t looking for your email sign up button when they land on your page.

However, if it is right in front of them once they open your site, chances are everyone will see it and a higher percentage will sign up. Simply because the button was easy to find and if your business and website pleases them, then they will most likely give you their email addresses.

2. Hold a Contest or Newsletter Offer

The best way to get your visitor’s attention for this is to have it on the sidebar or as a pop up ad. If you go with a pop up ad, most visitors will see this as long as they don’t have a pop up blocker. You want to remember that most people dislike pop ups. Therefore, you want to make this message as enticing and as exciting as possible! Understand your customers and visitors and understand why it is that they are navigating through your website.

Once you believe you fully understand who your visitors are, hold a contest or a newsletter offer. Things you can place on a pop up ad can be of the following:

• Offer a Free gift or discount for a product or service you sell
• A short survey that will help you understand your customers better and allow them to claim a prize for filling it out
• A submission to the monthly raffle you hold at the end of the month for a free item or discount
• A Onetime Offer for all new customers

The objective is to get your visitor to pause and truly understand that they will miss out on a great opportunity by closing that pop up ad. What’s the catch? None! All they have to do is provide their email address to you and they can claim their prize. Keep it catchy and eye-appealing and remember to make the offer revolve around them and not you!

3. Maintain a Blog

Having a Blog on your website is crucial in this age of information we live in. Not having one is one of many email marketing mistakes you can make. As stated earlier, people turn to the internet to find answers to their questions. The internet makes it so easy to simply go online and Google whatever it is you want to know or find out.

Therefore, having a Blog about your business or line of work will benefit the niche your business falls in. A Blog on your site should be all about your business, company, line of work and basically anything that can relate to the products or services you sell. Your Blog should answer any questions or concerns your customers or potential customers may have. Make your Blog interesting with great content such as videos or relevant to trending topics. Also make sure that you also provide proper SEO strategies for your articles or hire a SEO company to optimize your articles so they can be easily found in search engines.

Your Email Sign up forms will go below every single Blog Post you write! Why in the bottom of the posts? You want to build credibility. If you write great articles with great content, your visitors will read the entire content. If they like your content, then most likely than not, they will sign up to your mailing list.

Do not place the mailing list offer on top before the Blog Posts. Reason being is because you have not sold your image to your visitor yet. Even if they like your posts, by the time they reach the bottom, they have already forgotten about the email list offer you placed at the top. Most likely, your visitor forgot about it and won’t scroll back up to find it. Place your email sign up offer at the end of every blog post so that readers who enjoy your information will then sign up after being convinced that you are a problem solver and so is your business.

4. The About Page is Important too!

Many people think the “about” page is just a page one should have in a website but it always feels like a filler page. People feel that it’s just a page to make your site more official. However, this is a very bad perception of what it truly is and what it can truly do for you. The about page is the place where you sell yourself, your brand and your image overall. The about page is where you should convert visitors into customers!

Things you should place in your about page should consist of the following:

• State how your products or services add direct value to your customers
• Show exactly what makes your company stand out from the competition
• Should express your interest and care for your customers versus yourself
• Add an Email Sign Up form at the bottom of the information

Just as your blog, your about page should also contain a section for your visitors to sign up to your mailing list. Also, just as your blog, you should place the sign up form below the page. This is for the same exact reason that you want to sell yourself to your audience before even offering to join your list. No one signs up to anything without being convinced of the direct benefits they will receive by doing so!

Wrapping Things Up!

Remember that in order to attain email addresses, you must not just ask for them. You must show and explain what your subscribers will gain by signing up. Make sure you are crystal clear and show the direct benefit there is to be a part of your mailing list. The more explicit and specific you are of the benefits, the more people will trust you and the more subscribers you will get. Remember to be honest and keep your word. Show that you care and your customers and potential customers will also care for you and your business. If you keep these things in mind, you can apply these four strategies and benefit from them and collect email addresses in no time!