Ezine Envy!!!

By Terri Seymour
Posted Sunday, January 16, 2005

Ok, so you bought a new computer, learned the basics, got yourself a website and are ready for the bucks to come rolling in. You did some advertising with the free classifieds, listed your url in some directories and thought you were all set. After you manually submitted to the major search engines, you were sure the bucks were going to come pouring in. You waited and waited but only about 50 people visited your site and nobody bought anything. You see others around you becoming successful, but your business is going nowhere!

Let me tell you that you can make a lot of money with an online business, but I think that one of the major things you need to do for success is publish an ezine. With an ezine you can keep in touch with your potential customers and you can keep your site and products alive in their minds. But, to publish a successful ezine you must provide good content, not just a giant ad for your business. Have interesting, useful and entertaining information included in your ezine. After you have enough subscribers you can start accepting paid advertising and add to your profits.

By publishing an ezine you can also earn your subscribers' trust by building relationships and showing them that you know what you are doing and talking about. They believe what you say and have confidence in you and your business.

Starting an ezine is not as hard as you would think, although it is a lot of work.

Step 1-- Decide on your content and format. What kind of things do you want to include in your ezine. There are the standard disclaimers, contact information and subscribe- unsubscribe info. Then you want to have a good article or two, a section for ad swaps, resources, interesting facts, tidbits, question and answer column, classifieds, reader feedback, reader submissions, a little humor and fun, the list is endless for good items to put in your ezine.

To help you get started: (http://www.e-zinez.com) (http://www.ezineuniversity.com) (http://www.homebiztools.com/enews.htm)

To find good content for your ezine: (http://www.ideamarketers.com/) (http://www.makingprofit.com/) (http://www.ezinearticles.com/) (http://www.the-best-list-site-in-the-world.com/)

Step 2--Organize your first draft. Decide on your template design, organize your content and put your first ezine together. Move things around, make changes here and there until you are satisfied with it. Send it to a few friends to get their opinion. When you are satisfied with your ezine and want to get started, it is now time to start promoting.

Step 3-- Promotion. There are many ways to promote your ezine including ad swaps, free ads, message boards, discussion lists, announcement lists, email sigtag, paid ads, article writing, ezine directories, and more.

Ad Swaps:
(http://www.yoursalesoffice.com/Ezine_Joint_Ventures.html) (http://www.homebasedprofit.com/east/swaplists.shtml)

Free Ads:
(http://theslacks.com/webmaster/engines/classifiedfee.html) (http://www.free-ezine-advertising.com/)

Message Boards:
(http://www.forumone.com) (http://www.delphi.com)

Discussion Lists:
mailto:pubsonly-subscribe@topica.com mailto:Newbies911-subscribe@topica.com

Announcement Lists:
mailto:AAnnounce-subscribe@egroups.com mailto:000-ALLAnnounce-subscribe@egroups.com mailto:1st_Announce_Here-subscribe@egroups.com mailto:linksnlists-subscribe@egroups.com mailto:Advertise-Your-List-subscribe@egroups.com mailto:Aannounce-subscribe@topica.com mailto:ALLAnnounce-subscribe@egroups.com mailto:getmoresubs-subscribe@egroups.com

Ezine Directories:
(http://www.ezineseek.com) (http://www.ezinesearch.com) (http://www.ezineworld.com) (http://www.cumuli.com/ezine/) (http://www.ezine-news.com) (http://www.bestezines.com)

Step 4-- After you have gotten a subscriber base started it is now time to start distributing your ezine. You can do this manually, use a paid or free listserver, or purchase software to manage your list. I have my ezine at egroups and as of yet haven't had any problems. Before you send your ezine out to your list, always send it to yourself so you can check the format and spelling and so on. Always save your back issue, so when you start on your next one you can just remove the content to be replaced and keep the rest. This will save a lot of time.

Free Listservers:
(http://www.egroups.com)
(http://www.globelists.com) (http://www.milomail.com) (http://www.listbot.com)
(http://www.coollist.com)

Paid Listservers:
(http://www.internetmatrix.com/titan/default2.htm) (http://www.talklist.com/)

Listserver Software:
(http://www.add2it.com/mailman-pro.shtml?JTD) (http://www.softseek.com/Internet/E_Mail/List_Management/R) eview_26324_index.html

Step 5-- Keep promoting, providing good content, building relationships with you readers, and putting out a good ezine and your business will grow and you will profit!! This does not happen overnight. You must be determined to succeed and have passion for your work. You will be succeeding just as the others around you were and you will no longer suffer from Ezine Envy!!

About the Author
Terri Seymour owns and operates MyOwnEzine.com MyOwnEzine.com is a website, ezine and service which provides the resources, tools, guidance and more to help you start, publish and promote your own ezine. You can contact Terri at mailto:ter02@newnorth.net Subscribe at mailto:subscribe@myownezine.com or visit (http://www.myownezine.com) for lots more info.