You should also provide something FREE at your site. You could have FREE greeting cards, FREE resources, FREE ebooks, FREE downloads, or whatever you would prefer to have. A few sites for FREEBIES:

http://www.thefrontdoor.com/freestuff/ http://www.ebookdirectory.com/ http://download.cnet.com/

One way to keep visitors coming back is to get them involved with your site. Start a discussion board, have a weekly or monthly contest, have your visitors fill out surveys and draw a winner from all entries. There are many ways to get people involved. Be creative and always be adding fresh content to your site. Update regularly.

To let everybody know about your updates and new content, start your own ezine. This is easier than it seems. With an ezine you will be able to build relationships with your visitors. You will gain their trust and keep them interested in visiting your site. There are many sites to help you get started publishing an ezine. One of best I found is:

http://www.e-zinez.com

This site can help you get started with resources, articles, and a template.

Building, maintaining and promoting a website is challenging, rewarding and takes a lot of work. I have learned so much in 18 months that I have been on net and I know there is tons more to learn. I eagerly accept challenge and thoroughly enjoy rewards. You will have many ups and downs, but do not let downs deter you from your goals. Best of luck to you all.

So where do you get these articles? There are a number of sources:

Lists with specific topics:

http://www.egroups.com/group/aahome - Home and family articles http://www.egroups.com/group/aahealth - Health related articles http://www.egroups.com/group/aageneral - General articles http://www.egroups.com/group/aainet - Internet articles http://groups.yahoo.com/group/littlewebsitethatcould - Web articles

General article lists:

http://www.egroups.com/group/article_announce http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articles_archives http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArticlePublish http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content http://groups.yahoo.com/group/publisher_network http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishInYours http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SubPortal http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The-Article-Depot

There are also some web sites which offer same services.

http://certificate.net/wwio/ http://ezinearticles.com/ http://web-source.net/articles/ http://www.connectionteam.com/ http://www.ideamarketers.com/ http://www.marketing-seek.com/ http://www.womans-net.com/

Simply visit these sites and follow directions to receive your articles.

I must say that I really like this form of exchange, as I believe it is much better than your standard link exchange. The author gets to provide something of value to other webmasters all over internet, and in return gets a link. To me, this type of sharing is what makes internet such a great place to be involved with.

I would like to thank two authors who wrote articles on this subject. By reading their works I discovered these lists and began my own contributions, which I hope are of benefit to others. Lynne Schlumpf, whose website http://www.littlewebsitethatcould.net/ is one of best around, and Sheryl Ellis, who is webmaster of http://get-me.to/TrueCrime, and has written a few very good and humorous articles on subject.