3. If you use your own autoresponder, don't make it look like advertisement. You'll be accused of being a spammer. I used this message:

'If you found my email from a list or an email harvester, be assured that I will get your message. I will answer legitimate messages.

If you are interested in tools and information for your small business, send an email to: sbt2@sendfree.com '

What I've done is made message look like I am avoiding spammers and I get my advertising in if someone wants to look at it.

4. Personalize your message to guestbook owner. This takes some work. You have to look at owners pages to write a credible message to owner. If you do this, you will more than likely get a message back from owner thanking you for visiting.

All of messages I received came in way of a feedback form, so I know they personally visited my site. I can now keep a personal rapport with them because I have their email address. Who knows? Maybe someday they may need my services or sign up for my newsletter.

5. Don't use message to advertise your site, product, or service. You will be accused of spamming. Keep message about what you think about owners site.

6. Put address your message is on in a database to send to search engines later. After you have enough to put on a page, submit page.

This causes links to be spidered and you have more links on popularity engines. Because your link will stay on page for a long time. You don't have to be as hurried as you would doing same for FFA links.

I recommend these tools to speed up filling out guestbooks or any other form.

Gator http://www.gator.com/ads.html

AdWizard http://www.wavget.com/adwizard.html

Though this might seem to be a slow process, benefits are good. Your links stays up for a long time, you can gain a relationship with guestbook owner, s/he will be glad to have you post again months later.

So, how do you go about getting listed? Before you go straight to directories and try to get listed, take a look at your site. Does it offer secure transactions? This is paramount to getting anybody to shop online with you. With it taking average surfer two years to make a purchase online (Forrester Report), security is a must. Are you using shopping baskets? Do you clearly show your terms and conditions? Do you have a postal address for customers to contact? Have you been accredited by an assurance programme? Such as, Trust-On-Line.com or Web Assured. All of these points will greatly improve possibility that a surfer will get over their initial fears and take leap of faith that is tapping in their credit card number at your checkout.

After you've addressed these issues it's time to get listed in those shopping directories. You can find lists of them on Yahoo and all of other major search engines.

But what for future? Directories are going to get larger and larger with more e-commerce sites coming online everyday. This creates a problem in scale. The sheer volume of sites out there will mean surfers getting lost in a murky sea of cyberspace. As a retailer try to strike up relationships with directories, keep them informed about your web sites developments, products and special offers. The directory editor will be only too pleased to have a constant source of editorial at their fingertips, especially when they have thousands of shop-aholics waiting at end of an email just itching to spend their hard earned cash!