Chapter Four...
Web Promotion Using eZines

In this chapter I'll be discussing all things ezine.


First of all, what is an ezine? An ezine, or newsletter as they are also called, is simply a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly email message sent out by someone to a group of people who have requested it, or 'subscribed' to it.


They're kind of like mini electronic magazines.


There are thousands of ezines on the Internet pertaining to just about any topic you can imagine.


Most are free to subscribe to.


You see ezines all over the place. Most web sites offer their own ezines as a way to keep in touch with visitors.


You should start your own ezine about whatever your site is about. We'll talk about this more later.


There are several ways to gain traffic to your site through ezines. Namely:


1. Writing articles for other people's ezines

2. Buying cheap ad space in other people's ezines

3. Starting your own ezine


Before we go any further, I need to discuss something important. There are two types of ezines.


1. Opt-in ezines. In which people have voluntarily subscribed to the ezine. These people have asked to receive email from the list owner.


2. Unsolicited bulk email. In which people have NOT subscribed to an ezine. And have NOT agreed to receive email from the list owner.


The first, opt-in ezines are what we will be dealing with.


The second, unsolicited bulk email should be avoided at all costs. If you send out bulk email to a group of people that haven't asked to receive your email, you will get in trouble with your web hosting provider, and you will probably lose you web site and internet connection.


We call this SPAM. Don't do it period.


A quick distinction should be made here. A few chapters ago when I told you to find other web site owners and email them asking to swap links, that is not considered spam because you aren't sending BULK mail out to complete strangers. With the link exchange, you are directly emailing a single person personally with a specific question about their web site. This is completely ok for you to do.


Ok, so back to ezines and how they can increase your site traffic. Once again, there are several ways to get traffic from ezines:


1. Writing articles for other people's ezines

2. Buying cheap ad space in other people's ezines

3. Starting your own ezine


Number 1, writing articles for other people's ezines. Whatever your web site is about, you probably know quite a bit about it. So write some page long articles about whatever topic your site pertains to.


At the end of each article put a small signature (like your message board signature but a little bit more in depth).


Head over to your favorite search engine and search for ezines that relate to your web site. Make a big list of these ezines and subscribe to them all. Spend a couple weeks reading the ezines to get a feel for them, then write articles that will fit in with the ezine.


Email the owner of the ezine and send them your article and ask them to print it in their ezine. Many will, especially if your article will be beneficial to the other ezine subscribers in some way.


Ezine editors are regular people like you and me. Every week they have to send out their ezine. Often they don't have anything to write about and will GLADLY accept your article.


Overnight your article, and therefore you signature ad, can be seen by thousands of targeted people at a cost of ZERO dollars to you.


Just like posting to message boards, don't write an article that's nothing more than a big advertisement for your site. Put yourself in the shoes of the readers. What would interest them? What do they want to know about? Write about that.


If your article is informative and helpful, those readers will check out your web site as mentioned in your signature file at the end of the article.


You can look at other articles that have been printed in the ezine to see what other writers put in their signature. Emulate their signatures.


A normal signature might look something like this:


*************************************************
Article Written by Mary Weirdname Permission to reprint
This article granted as long as this signature remains intact.

Mary Weirdname is the owner of http://www.DogLover.com
Where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know
About dogs, dog training, dog nutrition, and dog grooming
*************************************************


You get the picture. Find as many ezines as you can, submit your articles weekly. Keep at it, it may take you a while to find ezines that will accept your articles but when you do it will really pay off.


The Second way to gain traffic with ezines is by purchasing ad space in them. Many ezines sell ad space very cheaply.


One ezine I recently purchased ad space in went out to over 180,000 subscribers twice a week. I purchased a 3 line classified ad that went out in 2 issues of the ezine and it cost me $30.


Yep, 30 bucks gets my small ad seen twice by over 180,000 subscribers. Not bad huh?


Granted all ezines aren't sent out to that many people. And all ezine ads aren't that cheap. A 6-7 line top sponsor ad in the same ezine I just mentioned costs around $300 dollars...still a pretty good deal.


Ezine subscriber bases can be anywhere from 500 readers to several hundred thousand. No matter what the readership number, you'll be hard pressed to find a cheaper way to get the word out about your web site.


I could write an entire book about writing good pulling advertisements for ezines, and that's not really a newbie thing to talk about so I'll leave it at that.


The third way to gain traffic using ezines is to start your own ezine. Every time someone comes to your site, offer them the chance to sign up for free to your ezine.


Get their email address and first name. Then every week or two send out a small email newsletter to all the people on your list.


This is a GREAT way to stay in touch with people who you already know are interested in your site.


This way you can contact them whenever you add new stuff to your web site that they may be interested in, or if you come out with a new product, you can use your ezine to sell it to those people.


I could write an entire book about starting your own ezine as well, and it goes way beyond the scope of this book, so I'll just tell you to look into starting your own ezine.


Your list of subscribers will become your number one asset online. And also, once you get enough subscribers, you can start selling ad space as well!


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