Effective Ezine Secret #1:

Repeat after me: content, content, content!

Ezine Mantra: My ezine delivers valuable content.

Content is king!

I don’t care if you have 2 subscribers or 20,000, please deliver quality content. If you can’t write well, then get help, or outsource. If you can write, then continuously work to improve your writing.

Make your ezine interesting to read, and valuable to your readers. Never forget your readers are asking themselves, “What’s in it for me?” Provide them answers and give them opportunities to learn more. That’s why you’re doing an ezine in first place. It’s not just to show how much you know, but how much you care about them and are a resource to them.

Effective Ezine Secret # 2:

As they say in Hollywood, looking good is everything. Not only does an attractive design attract readers, but it projects image and in particular, branding image. Your ezine should not only look good (no typos, no misspellings, your logo and photo or colors that “brand” you), but it should look like your web site. And it should work: all links are alive and working, HTML message does not get delivered as garbled, it does not appear to be spam or use spam triggering words, and it is easy to read through use of subheadings and simple graphics.

Effective Ezine Secret # 3:

By Andrew J. Morris

RSS or 'Really Simple Syndication' is not just for Blogs and News sites. Every website can benefit from this newly popular technology. The term 'syndication' is what throws a lot of people off track. Syndication is like news articles, isn't it?

Well it can be. But think of it like this. If you had a bricks-and-mortar store and decided to carry a new product line, how would you let people know? You could advertise of course, but a better and free alternative is to send a news release to local paper. Their business section may carry your announcement free of charge.

Now back to our cyber-store in virtual space. If you add a new web page, or make substantial changes to existing pages, how do you let your customers (both former and future) know? You can email your former customers, but spam blocking software will prevent half of them from getting your message. And keeping track of mailing lists, unsubscribe requests and address changes is nothing short of a nightmare.

Instead, post a news release using RSS. Interested customers will have their newsreader programs watching for your announcements, and will get news as soon as you send it out. The announcement will include a link to new or changed page, and your customer can click on it if they are interested. True, fewer will click through than might read an email from you -- but those who do will arrive at your site in a much more receptive frame of mind. And those email readers still need to click through to your site to see your new page anyhow.

If you make frequent additions or changes to your site you should have your own RSS feed. Check out these sites to learn how to make your own feed:

Making An RSS Feed http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2175271