Having an in-house opt-in list is one of the most valuable assets any business can have. And it is the secret to repeat affiliate profits that grow over time. If you are planning on becoming a super-affiliate on any niche, you’ll want to start your own list by offering a free report, an ezine or a newsletter to your visitors…

Why? Simply because having your visitor’s names and e-mail addresses gives you the ability communicate with them constantly and build a relationship with them. And by doing this, you also build trust – which is a key factor to generating sales (online and off).

Some people try to do this by offering a free report that is will be sent to the visitor with an autoresponder. This works sometimes, but you don’t want the permission to contact visitors only once… you want a full permission to speak with them and become their friend. So be sure to mention something about that in your opt-in forms.

Giving them good and valuable information they can actually use will make them see you as an expert on the subject and this will earn you their trust. Once they trust you as an expert, a good percentage of those opt-ins will feel comfortable enough to buy the products you recommend (You are the expert after all… right?).

And if you keep giving them good information and treating them good as your customers, they will repeat-buy the products and services you endorse. And that’s where the real value of your business is.

When a user first visits your website she will scan through it for 8-15 seconds. And if your site caught her attention she will stay an average of only 3 to 5 minutes in total… that’s not a lot of time you know? Certainly not enough time to earn someone’s trust and sell her something.

For this reason, it is critical that you get their permission and their email address so you can follow up with them and build credibility. A good way to encourage them to do this is by giving them a freebie (like an e-book or a special report). You should tell them that if they want the free stuff they will get both – the e-book and a free subscription to your newsletter.

Once you have them in the list, contact them periodically to stay fresh in their minds.

Can you see the value of a good list? Your opt-in list is worth gold! If I were to be shut down today and could keep just one asset of my entire business, I wouldn’t keep my site or my product, I’d keep my list! Having it with me can help me start a new business tomorrow and make money with it almost instantly. You can not replace the trust of people with *anything*!

The best service I’ve found so far to develop and manage an opt-in list is called aweber. Their system lets you easily create opt-in subscription forms on your website and manages all the user handling automatically; it also allows you to send email to your lists in text and html formats and all this is done via a very friendly web-interface. I use aweber to handle all my affiliate lists (a single account can handle as many mailing lists and autoresponders as you want).

Once you start developing your own opt-in list, you should always remember something: Give users good value and useful information. Many list owners fall into the mistake of sending only sales messages to their subscribers.

Sales! Sales! SALES! That’s all they can think of. Remember that it’s their trust you want, not their money. When (and only then) you’ve earned their trust it is that they’ll feel comfortable enough to buy from you… not before.

By now, you know exactly what you should do to build a killer affiliate site or blog. This is the only kind of site that will bring you more sales from *any* affiliate program you decide to join. If you follow my advice you will make killer sales even in programs that have thousands of other affiliates… why? Because now you understand what really works…