Top 5 Best Web Hosting Companies in Kenya

February 17, 2025July 25, 2020 by OnlineBizz Buddy

In this article, we take a look at the best web hosting companies in Kenya. Every online business in Kenya requires a reliable web hosting provider to host their website on the internet. If you need a provider that have their servers in Kenya your business gets the advantage of local hosting and proximity which can help in faster page uploads.

When you have developed a website for your business, the next step is to make it accessible for the world. Web hosting is a kind of internet hosting service that allows people and organisations to host their websites and make them accessible to the world via World Wide Web. Usually these companies have data centres with mega servers (owned or leased), where they host the customers’ data and website. They offer space and connectivity to the servers located in their facilities.

These top 5 web hosting companies in Kenya gives everyone from bloggers to business owners the tools and support they need to build a professional, reliable website, at any budget in Kenya.

1. Host Fiti

HostFiti Website Builder is a Kenyan company whose target clientele is mainly Kenyans.

Click here to Register Your Domain with HostFiti Today

Host Fiti’s mission is to help small business owners create an online presence by providing them with an easy to use website builder where they can create their professional websites at affordable rates.

2. HostPinnacle Kenya

HostPinnacle Kenya is the leading premium web hosting company in Kenya with over 20,000 clients from all industries. Thousands and thousands of developers flock their website every week in search of great web hosting packages.

Click here to register your domain name @ 1990Kshs only:

They have a web hosting package tailor-made for everyone. You will fly through the internet with HostPinnacle’s powerful network of state-of-the-art dedicated servers that have powerful CPUs and are located at very secure data centers.

All data across their servers are stored on RAID arrays, this protects client data from ever going offline due to a failed hard drive. Gone are the times of having to wait hours or even days for your website to be restored from backups due to a hard drive failure.

Gone are the days of having to buy expensive domains seperately, gone are the days of having to buy SSL certificates that are so expensive and cumbersome to deploy. At HostPinnacle Kenya, you are fully sorted; free domain and free unlimited SSL certificates at a click of a button.

3. Bluehost

Bluehost is one of the largest website hosting providers and powers millions of websites. Choosing a reliable and affordable web hosting provider isn’t an easy task if you need to host your website. In terms of web hosting companies, Bluehost is one of the top-rated hosting providers which is even recommended by WordPress itself.

Bluehost plans offer their customers 24/7 live chat, unmetered bandwidth, and five email accounts. Similarly to many other website hosting companies, they too offer their new users a free domain for the first year. Their plans start from $2.75/mo and include improved security, backups, and free SSL certificate. These help to keep your blog or website protected and safe.

Overall, their last 24-month performance has been good. Bluehost is clearly at the top with its uptime (99.99%) and a fast load time of 405ms (0.4 seconds).

4. Kenya Website Experts

Kenya Website Experts Ltd is the best website hosting company in Nairobi, Kenya that offers; cheap web hosting services in Kenya, domain registration in Kenya, co.ke domain names, email hosting services in Kenya, G Suite Emails for work, asp .net windows web hosting, dedicated servers, website builder and reseller web hosting services.

They offer ultra fast, reliable, affordable and secure shared website hosting services, email hosting, cloud hosting and SSL certificates. We make registration of Kenyan domain names (.co.ke, .or.ke .ac.ke) and international domains (.com, .org, .net) fast, simple, and affordable.

They offer linux web hosting plans great for any type of website! Their packages include powerful features and tools and 99.99% uptime reliability. Whether you have a low traffic, brand new blog or own a popular business site, Kenya Website Experts has got you covered! Whether you’ve never run a website before or are a professional developer, rest assured they have a web hosting solution to meet your unique needs!

5. Safaricom

Safaricom provides Website and Email Services that enables you to create and own a unique business domain address, business email addresses and create your business website with an easy to use FREE Website Builder. Some of the features of website and e-mail includes;

Domain name
Website builder/wizard
E-mail addresses
Unlimited bandwidth

With Safaricom Website and E-mail service, you can

Change to a professional e-mail address such as info@learnerscoach.co.ke and maintain a professional outlook.
Build your own website with our easy-to-use website builder for a professional outlook.
Market your business online with your own website.

Key Benefits of Website and E-mail

Free Website Builder
Online self-provisioning of service.
Easy to use, affordable and no hardware or software purchase is required.
Websites and email hosting.
You can provide email accounts to your employees.
Payment is made once off annually and upfront (in full) before service is activated.

6. InterServer.net

InterServer.net has been providing the same services for the last 16 years! Although the technology has changed from the time they first opened in 1999. Their core principals of quality service and support have remained the same. Over the years interserver has expanded its product offerings to include dedicated servers, colocation and other managed services.

As a technology and product innovator, Interserver is able to provide its innumerable customers with innovative products and services designed to complement their existing businesses. They serve customers ranging from individual freelancers to Fortune 500 companies in many countries including Kenya. Over the years, Interserver has built a solid reputation for commitment to security, reliability, technical expertise all while providing outstanding customer support.

Summary

It’s good to note that most web hosting companies in Kenya actually resell services from top tier hosting providers like Softlayer, Rackspace, Hostgator ,GoDaddy, BlueHost, Siteground, Kinsta, Domain Racer, iPage, InMotion Hosting, LiquidWeb and WP Engine

The factors listed below make a web hosting provider the best.

Server Up-time Guarantee (i.e. 99.99% Must need)
Reliability and Bandwidth
Web Hosting Plans
Data backup and Disk Space
Responsive Technical Hosting support

Top 10 Social Media Marketing Platforms

February 17, 2025July 24, 2020 by OnlineBizz Buddy

Social Media Marketing includes various social media platforms to reach new customers, promote their business, create brand awareness, and increase sales.

Some most common social media platforms that we frequently used in social media marketing are given below –

1. Facebook

Daily active users – 1.45 billion

Monthly active users – 2.20 billion

Facebook is the best social media marketing platform, which is founded by Mark Zuckerberg on February 4, 2004. It allows us to invite and connect with our friends, relatives, colleagues, and customers by sending them messages, images, audios, and videos.

It also allows us to like and comment on the posts, which are shared by them.

Most of the small as well as large organizations use Facebook as a “center” of their social media marketing. Organizations use Facebook to promote their brand, create awareness about their product, and reach out to a wider audience. Facebook also helps the audience to see our latest content, our working hours, write their reviews on a particular product, and also see our organization’s location on a map.

There are the following advantages of using the Facebook platform for social media marketing –

Facebook helps us to easily reach the targeted audience.
It allows us to share budget-friendly ads to the audience.
Using Facebook, we can learn and use a new market strategy at a low cost.
It provides various marketing platforms.
It allows organizations to communicate with clients

2. Twitter

Daily active users – 145 million

Monthly active users – 320 million

Twitter is one of the most effective, popular, and fast-paced social media marketing platform created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and launched in July 2006. It is an SMS-based communication platform, which allows registered users to read and write small messages called “tweets.” Using Twitter, marketers can easily reach hundreds and thousands of customers to share the latest news and promote their brand. The main disadvantage of using twitter is that we can use only use 280 characters for the message.

There are the following advantages of using the Twitter platform –

It helps us to increase customer satisfaction.
It allows us to continuously send information in the form of small messages called “tweets.”
It helps us to establish a stronger relationship with customers.
It improves organic search engine ranking.
It is a very efficient platform for gathering feedback from customers.

3. Instagram

Daily active users – 500 million

Monthly active users – 800 million

Instagram is maintained by Facebook. It is an effective tool to reach the audience and allows the marketer to share images, memes, and videos to promote their business. According to a survey, 80% of accounts follow a business on Instagram. It works flawlessly on mobile phones and tablets. Recently Instagram introduces a new feature that is shared stories every day. This feature helps marketers to easily update their customers about new products on a daily basis.

There are the following reasons to use Instagram platform –

Instagram’s Global rank (Worldwide rank) is 5th on the internet.
Instagram helps marketers to enhance their branding.
It is a marketer-friendly platform.
It helps marketers to drive traffic and grow their business.
It helps marketers to acquire customers easily.
On Instagram, content is available in the form of images and videos, which helps customers to understand the product in a very simple way.
Instagram’s brand engagement and visual content are ten times higher than Facebook.

4. LinkedIn

Daily active users – 562 million

Monthly active users – 303 million

LinkedIn is the best B2B (Business 2 Business) social media marketing platform, which was founded in 2002. It allows us to create profiles as a fresher or as a professional. It is a place that helps us to search for jobs, stay connected with professionals, recruit new employees, and discuss business ideas with experienced employees to promote our business. A company profile on LinkedIn not only helps us to generate the local leads but also helps us to draw global leads.

There are the following reasons which make LinkedIn as a very effective platform for social media marketing –

It provides an opportunity to stay updated about new technologies.
It helps us to display and update our resume to search for new job opportunities.
It is a free platform that mainly focused on career development.
It helps to build and promote business brands.
It is used to generate more leads.

5. Pinterest

Daily active users – 320 million

Daily active users – 120 million

Pinterest is a combination of the two words “Pin” (Thumbtack) and “Interest” (Interesting). It is quite different from all other social media marketing platforms. It is an image-pinning website introduced in 2009. Currently, Pinterest becomes one of the largest visual social networks to share and discover ideas, images, recipes, videos, new brands, infographics, and more.

There are the following reasons to use Pinterest for social media marketing –

Pinterest is the fastest-growing platform for online content distribution.
It is mostly used to create brand awareness and increase website leads.
Its user-friendly platform allows us to create a visual profile for business and publish news.
Its visual-heavy social network helps us to build more traffic on our website at a low cost.

6. YouTube

Daily active users – 1 billion

Daily active users – 2 billion

YouTube is an excellent free video-sharing platform for social media marketing. It was created in 2005. YouTube helps us to create and upload our videos on the valuable content and deliver it to the audience in the form of tutorials. YouTube is like a platform where we can show our talent to attract the audience. In YouTube, content mainly available in the form of Podcasts, Infographics, Presentations, and video series.

There are the following advantages of YouTube in social media marketing –

YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine and the 3rd most visited website.
It is the best and easiest way to learn new technologies.
It helps us to promote and sell our products worldwide.
It is completely free to use and helps to acquire qualified traffic.
It will expose you to connect with a huge audience.

Note: YouTube is a mixture of both social media marketing and content marketing

7. Tumblr

Daily active users – 71.6 million

Monthly active users – 64 million

Tumblr is a network of millions of user-generated, personal Web sites. It’s part blogging platform (like WordPress, Blogger or Posterous) and part social networking service, letting users create and post their own original content.

Written entries, photographs, video clips or links to other Web sites — you can share all of these things with your friends and followers. Users subscribe to as many other users’ pages as they like, which show up on the user’s feed, or Dashboard.

It’s also possible to give “notes” to other subscribers in several forms — you can reblog someone’s content on that user’s Tumblr site, “like” it, or reply. To further the social aspect, authors can opt to post their Tumblr entries simultaneously, or at least link to them, via other services, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Tumblr refers to itself as a platform for short-form microblogging, also known as tumblelogging, a name that predates Tumblr itself. As of 2012, Tumblr hosts more than 64 million “tumblelogs.” More than 13 million people visit Tumblr a month, most of them with their own active blogs.

Each day, 25,000 new users sign up for the site, and altogether, 71.6 million new Tumblr blog entries, photos, videos and audio files are posted each day. Although you don’t have to be a registered user of Tumblr to read others people’s Tumblr blogs, you do have to be registered if you want to leave notes.

8. Snapchat

No. of daily active users – 210 million

No. of monthly active users – 360 million

Snapchat is a great platform for adults. It is free to download. It allows us to create a new type of social media on a network. Snapchat mobile app is used to share photos, videos, and doubles as messaging services for users. It is most known due to the fact that messages and content disappear on it. Users can either send the content directly to another user or upload this content as their “story,” which is viewable to users till the next 24 hours.

There are the following reasons to use Snapchat in social media marketing –

It allows us to share and collect snaps from specific events to create stories on the social media platform.
It is used to add a filter on photos to make them more attractive.
It allows customers to interact with other experienced customers to know about the pros and cons of a product.
Using Snapchat, customers can directly communicate with companies.
It is a user-friendly platform for newcomers.

9. Starbucks

No. of daily active users – 10 million

No. of monthly active users – 19 million

Starbucks is one of the engaging brands on Facebook. The main objective of introducing Starbucks is that it helps to build an online community of loyal fans and engage with them.

Recently, Starbucks introduced a strategy to launch new variants of its existing products based on consumer’s suggestions on their Facebook page, so customers not only enjoy the clicks-ins, photographs put by marketers but can also enjoy live audiences on Facebook.

10. TikTok

No. of daily active users – 150 million

No. of monthly active users – 300 million

TikTok is one of the best social media marketing platforms launched in 2018. It is a popular video streaming and sharing app which allows us to create and share a 15-second video on a particular topic.

There are the following reasons to use TikTok for social media marketing –

It targets a huge audience in the easiest way.
It creates better user engagement.
It allows us to create a small video and share it with their followers to get more likes and comments to grow our business.
Recently, Tiktok launched its own advertising platform to advertise business using Tiktok ads. Now, Tiktok advertisement becomes the best platform for producing and launching new products as well as services.

How Search Engines Work

February 17, 2025July 20, 2020 by OnlineBizz Buddy

What is a search engine?

A search engine consists of two main things: a database of information, and algorithms that compute which results to return and rank for a given query.

In the case of web search engines like Google, the database consists of trillions of web pages, and the algorithms look at hundreds of factors to deliver the most relevant results

How do search engines work?

Search engines work by taking a list of known URLs, which then go to the scheduler. The scheduler decides when to crawl each URL. Crawled pages then go to the parser where vital information is extracted and indexed. Parsed links go to the scheduler, which prioritizes their crawling and re-crawling.

When you search for something, search engines return matching pages, and algorithms rank them by relevance.

Here’s a diagram from Google showing this process:

The work of the search engine is divided into three stages, i.e., crawling, indexing, and retrieval.

Crawling

This is the first step in which a search engine uses web crawlers to find out the webpages on the World Wide Web. A web crawler is a program used by Google to make an index. It is designed for crawling, which is a process in which the crawler browses the web and stores the information about the webpages visited by it in the form of an index.

So, the search engines have the web crawlers or spiders to perform crawling, and the task of crawler is to visit a web page, read it, and follow the links to other web pages of the site. Each time the crawler visits a webpage, it makes a copy of the page and adds its URL to the index. After adding the URL, it regularly visits the sites like every month or two to look for updates or changes.

Indexing

In this stage, the copies of webpages made by the crawler during crawling are returned to the search engine and stored in a data centre. Using these copies, the crawler creates the index of the search engine. Each of the webpages that you see on search engine listings is crawled and added to the index by the web crawler. Your website should be in the index only then it will appear in the search engine pages.

We can say that the index is like a huge book which contains a copy of each web page found by the crawler. If any webpage changes, the crawler updates the book with new content.

So, the index comprises the URL of different webpages visited by the crawler and contains the information collected by the crawler. This information is used by search engines to provide the relevant answers to users for their queries. If a page is not added to the index, it will not be available to the users. Indexing is a continuous process; crawlers keep visiting websites to find out new data.

Retrieval

This is the final stage in which the search engine provides the most useful and relevant answers in a particular order in response to a search query submitted by the user. Search engines use algorithms to improve the search results so that only genuine information could reach the users, e.g., PageRank is a popular algorithm used by search engines. It shifts through the pages recorded in the index and shows those webpages on the first page of the results that it thinks are the best.

White Hat SEO Techniques

White Hat SEO refers to the SEO techniques which are in accordance with the SEO guidelines set by the search engines. It means it uses approved search engine optimization techniques to improve the ranking of a site on search engine results pages (SERP).

Unlike Black Hat SEO, it mainly focuses on the human audience as opposed to a search engine. People who are looking for long-term investment on their websites rely on white hat SEO techniques. Examples of White Hat SEO include quality content, internal linking, link building, site optimization, social media marketing, Google Ads, etc.

A list of 6 popular white hat SEO techniques are given below:

Good content
Proper use of title, keywords and metatags
Ease of Navigation
Site Performance
Quality Inbound Links
Mobile Friendliness

Good content

A unique, well-written content makes your website appear more trustworthy and valuable to search engines and human visitors. It optimizes your website for search engines, which helps you get higher ranking on the search engine listings as search engines offer the most appropriate website to the end-users for their search.

Proper use of title, keywords and metatags

The information contained in the HTML code is known as Metadata. It provides crawler the information about the site for classification and indexing purposes. So, proper title, keyword, and metatag should be incorporated in the metadata.

Ease of navigation

Search engines also consider the ease of navigation while assessing the usefulness of a site, so avoid the irrelevant links and use universally recognizable links. It is not only important for the users but also for the crawlers who index the sites.

Site Performance

Site and page performance is another factor considered by search engines to assess the sites. The unavailable sites or the unavailable pages cannot be indexed by crawlers of search engines; a week or even a day of non-performing site or pages can adversely affect the site traffic. So, make sure your site loads fast and is accessible all the time.

Quality inbound links

The site must have quality inbound links as search engines regularly assess backlinks for their relevance. If a site is found to have irrelevant backlinks, it will be discounted or penalized by the search engine, e.g., a website about fishing in Kenya containing a number of links from Asian websites about technology will be degraded by the search engines.

Mobile Friendliness

Mobile-friendliness has become an important SEO factor as Google started emphasizing mobile results since 2016. The reason for this is that there is a tremendous increase in the mobile users browsing content on their mobile phones. So, make sure you have a mobile-friendly site.

What is Affiliate Marketing

February 17, 2025July 20, 2020 by OnlineBizz Buddy

Affiliate marketing is a word or words we hear so much about in this territory of online marketing, but still, there are a lot of business owners and online entrepreneurs who are not yet familiar with the impact that affiliate marketing can have on their business. So, what is affiliate Marketing

It’s also true that affiliate marketing has evoked much dispute over the years because some people seem to be all up for it while others stand right up against it.

The position you take on the debate about affiliate marketing depends significantly on whether you know how affiliate marketing works or not.

Then again, there are also those who would like to know more about it, however, haven’t had the chance to delve into affiliate marketing, or thought it was too complicated and gave up trying in the first place.

To shed light on this powerful internet marketing tactic, I have created this article to provide more information about what affiliate marketing is and how it can help you increase your online revenues.

Let’s begin!

What is Affiliate Marketing

There are many ways for an online business to earn more money, and affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative methods.

Affiliate marketing is an online sales tactic and a business arrangement between a vendor and a third-party business by which the vendor pays commission to the business (or a third-party website whatsoever) for business leads or sales generated from its promotional efforts and direct referrals.

In other words, an affiliate would promote a product, and every time a referral registers on the vendor’s website or buys a product, the affiliate would receive a monetary amount as remuneration.

Affiliate marketing is a low friction-to-market opportunity because affiliate partners don’t need to create their own products or services to earn money. However, selling anything will require a significant investment of both time and money. The truth is that without traffic, someone will struggle. This is likely the problem that many would-be affiliates face today.

However, by keeping a few principles and steps in mind, someone can dominate in the world of affiliate marketing and earn money while they sleep.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

To better understand how the affiliate marketing process works, you need to consider three main components: The vendor, the affiliate, and the customer

Vendor: The vendor is usually a company or a business owner who runs the affiliate program, and is the creator of the product/service that the affiliate promotes. The vendor is you, and the product is what you sell online, subscriptions, or related services.
Affiliate: The affiliate is the company or person who promotes products or services of the vendor and gets a percentage of the sale made. This person is often called ‘associate’, ‘partner’, ‘referrer’, ‘ambassador’ or, only, ‘promoter’.
Customer: The customer is the business prospect who is interested in buying the vendor’s products, which are promoted by the affiliate. This is the ‘end user’ in the affiliate marketing funnel. The customer gets referred to the vendor’s website either to find out more about their online courses or to buy one.

This three-party business relationship is shown in the graph below:

The three parties involved in affiliate marketing Image Source: Neil Patel

As you can see, the picture shows the three parties that are the critical components in describing any affiliate marketing channel.When affiliate partners agree to the affiliate program terms, they are required to abide by the rules and use best practices to promote the vendor’s products.

10 Reasons Why You Should Start Affiliate Marketing Business in Kenya

Understanding the Affiliate Marketing Process

Αffiliate marketing allows your partners to promote your online business in several ways. The detailed process of how it works is described in the legal documents which define the partnership between the vendor and the affiliate partners.

The primary way for affiliates to promote your online business is by placing a link on their website that drives web traffic to your products.

Each affiliate receives their unique link known as the ‘affiliate link’ which they can use to promote your products. The affiliate link points to the URL of your homepage (or other pages on your website), and it has a parameter appended to it.

The parameter (which essentially is a unique affiliate id) passes data to the
affiliate management system so that the system interprets where the traffic
came from and can attribute the right commission to the correct affiliate.

An affiliate link would look like this http://www.yourdomain.com/?aff=id.

Every time a prospect clicks on an affiliate link, they are referred to your website. The click is tracked throughout the marketing funnel, and when the prospects complete a purchase, then you generate revenue, and a portion of it is added as commission to the account of the respective affiliate.

The vendor gets the sale, the affiliate earns a commission, and the customer receives the product they ordered. All three parties are happy.

Typical Affiliate Payout Methods

Now, let’s dive into the different payout methods typically associated with affiliate programs so you have the complete picture of how affiliate marketing works and you know what you’re competing against.

The following list contains key terms which can help you understand the different affiliate compensation methods:

Pay per sale:

This is the case where you agree to offer a fixed rate on the sale price whenever the affiliate partner manages to sell your product. It is strictly based on purchases upon your products, and as the vendor, you have to be concerned not only about the quality and the number of people you have in your network, but also the quality of the advertisers and their available resources, e.g., website.

Pay per click:

With this arrangement, you agree to offer money to the affiliate partner whenever a site visitor comes to your website following the affiliate link of the affiliate partner. The actions measure pay per click payments visitors make on your site, including clicks, impressions, and leads.

Pay per lead:

This is between the two options above. You offer money to the affiliate partner whenever a site visitor comes to your website and provides their contact information. In this case, payment takes place when a customer requests for more information about your products or when completing the opt-in form with their email.

Paying per lead is a rather tricky payment type considering that there is the risk of fraud prevention. Dishonest affiliates might autofill the form multiple times, causing financial problems to your business. A solution would be to hire a dedicated affiliate police partner to deal with these issues.

Pay per call:

In this agreement, you offer a fixed percentage on the sale price by the number of requests that come to you by customers who show an interest in your products. The commission is measured and paid out by the number of calls that come to you from your affiliate partner. Sometimes more specific factors come into play such as call duration and location.

Although this type of marketing sounds to be an old-fashioned approach, it is becoming more popular with the use of smartphones.

Pay per impression:

You agree to pay your affiliates based on the number of impressions ads that are served on the website and are viewed by visitors.
These are often seen in niche websites with a targeted audience and are more carefully guided.

For people who are outside of the online business world, these terms may sound new, but to understand affiliate marketing, you have to become familiar with them as they are part of how affiliate marketing works.

Lead Generation Checklist for Beginners

May 30, 2023July 19, 2020 by OnlineBizz Buddy

Since it’s free to subscribe, those who are hesitant to spend money, may be willing to sign up, giving you the opportunity to convert subscribers into paying customers.

Use a web form generator to create a compelling sign-up form that matches your brand. The two most effective places to embed the sign-up form are in your website header section or just below it.
Include a convincing call to action.

If you offer a members-only area (paid or free), add a check box on the registration form to opt-in to your mailing list.

Your registration form should suggest that customers can get more value by signing up for free newsletters.
Offer sign-up options for various scenarios: customers who make a purchase, prospects who request a quote, readers who download a whitepaper or report.

Think about activities your target clients enjoy then choose the appropriate keywords to attract leads.

Target based on interests as well as demographics such as age, gender, and location.
Don’t direct leads to your home page unless it is optimized for conversion. Instead, direct them to a landing page with a special offer and your email sign-up form.

People who already follow your Facebook page are perfect targets. By offering a chance for a discount or prize, you increase the likelihood that they will buy from you later.

Offer the right to enter a contest or sweepstakes. In exchange, the contestant provides their email address and agrees to subscribe.
Use a Facebook voting app to select a winner. Contestants will urge their friends and followers to vote – driving more traffic to your fan page.

Read Also: How To Optimize Your Landing Page

You can create an incentive by providing a simple discount code for those who sing up for your list.

Use a unique discount code, sent after each email sign-up, in order to track the number of people who subscribe to get the incentive.
If you sell services or information products, you might offer a free report, whitepaper, or infographic.

Ask customers for their email address at the end of their purchase, always indicate that you’ve added them to your email list and let them know how to optout if they want to.

Another version of this strategy is to collect email addresses at the end of customer service calls. A satisfied customer won’t mind!
Use the confirmation tactic: a thank you email and a discount code.

Your valuable service, combined with an enticing incentive, can inspire users to refer friends to your list, leading to rapid list growth.
People tend to trust the services their friends tell them about.

Add a field to your sign-up form where new subscribers
can indicate who referred them.
Design a webpage for subscribers who want to refer customers.
Give each referral partner a customized link for their use
in email or social media. When a visitor signs up from
that link, the subscriber gets credit for a referral.

If you get a plug from a well-known list owner who has lots of subscribers, you can get a tonof new subscribers.

Make a list of your skills and talents. Contact list
owners and suggest a trade: your services in exchange
for promoting you to their subscribers.
Guest posting! You provide content for a large blog
or newsletter in exchange for a brief bio and a link
to your site.

When you write comments in discussion forums, it helps to increase your credibility. This way as an expert you can deal with topics that interest your client base, which
will drive them to your site.

You can’t advertise your email list directly, however
you can place a signature below your posts that can
include a link to your sign-up form.
Include a link to content on your site that contains
information relevant to the discussion. Make sure
a sign-up form is nearby.
Cultivate one-on-one relationships. When you have gotten
to know someone, mention your email list and suggest
that you subscribe to each other’s list.

Add a QR code to your printed materials to make it easy for customers on the go to reach you.

Redirect users to your Facebook page, mobile-friendly landing page or sign-up form.
Make a scan add you to their phonebook instantly (vCard), send you an email inquiry or enter a contest, etc.

Summary

List building dos and don’ts checklist

DO: build clear and informative signup forms

Mention:

Who you are
What you’ll send
How often
They can unsubscribe anytime

DO: use secure forms with captcha and confirmed opt-in

To avoid:
Spam bots
List bombing

DO: regular list hygiene, and remove unsubscribes, bounces, and spam complaints.

Use GetResponse, hubspot or mailchimp to automatically clean your list
Keep on top of list cleaning and re-engagement

DON’T: buy, rent, borrow, or accept handme- down lists

Avoid:

Unavailable or non-existent mailboxes
Email addresses designed for one purpose or job role, like info@,
team@, listserv@…
Known complainers or anti-abuse professionals
Publicly available lists or hacks