An ezine, or
newsletter as they are also called, is simply a weekly,
bi-weekly, or monthly email message sent out to a group
of people who have subscribed to it.
They're much shorter than paper magazines and are generally
can be read in one sitting.
There are thousands of ezines on the internet pertaining
to just about any topic you can imagine, and they are
an incredible method of promoting your website absolutely
free.
The two free ways to utilize ezines to promote your
site are to:
1. Post Articles
Post articles containing brief promotional footers
with a hot link back to your website. Doing this allows
people who enjoyed your article to click on your site.
It also creates an incoming link from the ezine to your
website. Incoming links enhance your search engine ranking.
Most ezines offer free subscriptions, and are hungry
for quality content. That means any well written article
will receive a warm welcome if sent to the appropriate
ezine (more on that later).
Your topic should be something that would interest
your customers, and you should work in as many of your
website keywords as you can. One to two pages is a good
length for an article.
I mention the keywords because a major ezine website
may have much higher rankings with search engines than
you do, and your keywords may land people on your article,
rather than your new, small website. The reader then
may click through to your website.
You, now an expert article author, should develop a
signature. Look at mine at the bottom of this article,
for example.
So, where do you find the right ezines? The link below
contains dozens of ezine directories that will take
you weeks to wade through.
http://www.new-online-bookstore.com/ezine_directories.html
2. Start Your Own Ezine
Start your own ezine on a topic that would interest
your potential customers. Selecting your topic can be
a challenge. For instance, I run an online bookstore.
What do readers have in common? They like to read stories.
So, my ezine is one short story per month. Short story
submissions pour in. I add a brief promotional header,
and send the monthly publication out using an autoresponder.
The autoresponder automatically keeps track of who
you’ve emailed and gotten confirmations from, plus it
will give you forms for your website so visitors can
subscribe. Place subscription forms all over your site
as a method of building a customer base. There are many
to choose from, but I like SendFree best because you
can load an unlimited sequence of emails to be sent
following a customer subscription. All customers who
subscribe to my ezine begin with Issue 1, and I keep
building more issues into the future, spaced 30 days
apart.
For your email campaign, I should mention that you
cannot send unsolicited, bulk, commercial emails, commonly
known as spam. However, an offer of a free subscription
sent to a few, targeted people, with an opt-in/opt-out
link, is perfectly acceptable. If the recipient does
anything other than opt-in to your initial offer, your
autoresponder will never email them again. However,
those who opt-in are granting you permission to email
them. Just keep the commercial content of your ezine
low and the interesting content high.
You can get content from site visitors (such as my
short story ezine) and also by pulling articles from
other ezines (most allow this). If you research and
write good ezine articles in your field, you are getting
the best form of free advertising on the web.
About the Author
Patrick Dent
New Online Bookstore
New Books by 21st Century Authors
http://www.new-online-bookstore.com/
info@new-online-bookstore.com
Patrick Dent is the founder of New Online Bookstore
and the author of Execution of Justice, the newest covert
ops thriller. Patrick is widely publicized in ezine
articles on the craft of writing and internet marketing.
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