Once you have a website and you know how to use keywords to get traffic directed to your products, the next step is to make sure you keep those customers as repeat customers.

You do this by offering what’s called an opt in offer. An opt in means that the visitors to your website choose to receive (via email) a free gift or more information from you about what you have to offer them. This helps to keep you from getting tagged as a spammer.

An opt in is an important building block for your business. This is the tool that will let you continue to reach out to potential customers. The person who doesn’t buy after a first time visit to your website might do so once you’ve built a relationship and they’ve learned to trust what you have to say.

Not only can you reach those who sign up with an opt in, but if they like what you have to say, there’s a chance they’ll forward what you send them to a friend. For those customers who visit your site and buy from you straight from the site, you want them to opt in because they’ve already shown they’re interested in what you have and the odds are extremely high that they’ll buy from you again.

But you’ll still need permission to contact them. Once a customer leaves your site without purchasing anything, it’s highly likely that you’ve lost their business unless you have the chance to reach out to them again.

Of course, there are always those who read about your products or information, but because they’ve been burned before, they’re reluctant to trust anything – so you need the opportunity to show them that you’re different from the guy who took their money and their trust.

You have a chance to show them that there are still good people in online businesses but you won’t get that chance without them signing up to be on your mailing list. You want to make sure that your opt in box is at the top of your page.

The sad fact is that most site visitors don’t scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. You also want to remember that they have no reason to let you contact them. They know you want to talk about your products and try and sell them something.

So what you have to do is make sure that the opt in matters to them. Give them something they want or need in order to entice them to sign up. It can be something as simple as a short eBook or a report or a series of emails that you call a newsletter.

Whatever it is, make sure it’s worth the download and you’ll find that people are much more apt to listen to what you have to say when you do send out messages to your opt in list.