I see two questions here: How to build an email list without a finished product/service and How to build an email list without a website.

Both of which are fairly easy questions – so thank you!

Building an email list without a finished product/service is called “pre-selling” and there are a number of ways to do it.

One way is to offer an exclusive discount to those who signup earlier … or better yet … pay for the product at the discounted rate before it even exists.

Another way is to have an email series in place that essentially “keeps people on the hook” for as long as it'll take you to develop your product/service. A lot of online courses follow this technique where they'll launch like 3 introductory videos, drip them out over like a 3 week period, and build the course as people go through those videos.

As for how to build an email list without a website. There's a million ways to do this. Most email autoresponder tools have a feature that allows you to create a landing page through their site where they'll host everything for you. Albeit, these landing pages tend to be very simple and not the most attractive; however, it's free.

I'm not sure if you have a Facebook page or not, but there are a number of ways to add an opt-in form to your Facebook pages. Most email autoresponder tools will let you “push” an opt-in form to your page.

Then, there are other tools like LeadPages and unbounce that help you create beautiful landing pages that they host and support; however, they come at a price.

I hope that answers your question!

I don't know that I can quite answer the first question as I'm not sure what your business is; however, I can answer the second part!

Firstly, the most important aspect in regards to whether someone will open an email or not is “Who is it from?”

If the email is from someone they WANT to hear from … they'll open it no matter what the subject line is. Think about it. If you get an email from your best friend, you're going to open it. Plain and simple.

The “goal” is to become that person/business people WANT to hear from. And, it's really, really hard to do. It's not impossible … but, it sure as heck ain't easy … it's typically done over a long period of time where you're providing value after value after value.

Note: It doesn't have to be over a long period of time … in some instances, the individual just WANTS to hear from you. For example, my uncle subscribed to a random Bible verse email newsletter. He doesn't know the person sending the newsletter, and he doesn't care to. Yet, he opens every single message because he want's his daily Bible verse … which in a way, is that value … it's just much quicker.

Up next you have the subject lines. So, if someone doesn't know you or doesn't really want to hear from you … you have to “entice” them with an awesome subject line. The gold standards these days with mobile devices is to have your subject line under 49 characters.

So … in 49 characters or less, you need to convince someone to open your email.

There's literally millions of articles on subject lines, so I won't go into it here. But, if you're having a hard time getting people to open your emails … spend your time here.

Also, become familiar with split-testing. Nearly all email autoresponder services have split-testing capabilities where you can test different subject lines on different segments to see which performs better.

The next aspect to focus on is the first sentence in your email. Most email clients will show the first 50-100 characters of an email … basically the first sentence. In this first sentence you need to try your hardest to “hook” the individual so they want to read more!

So, those are two aspects I would focus on right away – subject lines and the first sentence of your email – all the while building a relationship with that individual in an attempt to become “friends.”

I've actually answered this question before in a post entitled “How To Optimize Your Sales Funnel“.

Before I hop into what I'm about to say … first and foremost … you need to be offering something people actually want. If what your offering … no one cares about … the rest of this podcast is all a moot point.

Anyway, to answer your question – you need to first think of your website as a system.

It's not just “one thing” – there are many, many, many moving parts and they're all connected. If one part is broken, it's going to impact other parts.

At the beginning of your system (or your website) – you have your traffic source … which is arguably the most important aspect in regards to how well your site will convert.

If your traffic is bad … it does not matter how great the rest of your system is … no system in the world can turn garbage into gold.

So, traffic source is the first “best way” to increase your conversion rate.

The second best way is through optimizing your landing page. If you're unfamiliar with that term – a landing page is simply the page someone “lands” on after clicking through to your site … whether through an ad, a search result, a social share, or whatever.

If your landing page doesn't deliver clear guidance, have solid copy, etc. It's going to hurt your conversion rates and it will need changes.

So, that's what I would look at next.

Thirdly, if you don't have one already … you will want to have email autoresponder series in place. And, you'll want to ensure it's optimized as well.

Those are the three things … in that order (traffic, landing page, email series) … I recommend enhancing/optimizing as the “best” ways to increase a website's conversion rate.