As many successful and self-proclaimed experts can attest, Number One way to promote your site is by writing and placing articles for ezines, newsletters and other sites. The cost is your time and expertise. The payoff is enormous and substantive. And no other marketing tool - including advertising and search engine listings -- comes close for creating name recognition, establishing you as an expert and building your credibility.

Write an article for right ezine and you can get your name and your URL seen by as many as a million readers or more. Write for ten smaller ezines and achieve same result.

The majority of now more than 100,000 ezines and newsletters published on Internet are looking for high level content. Master technique of writing articles and there is a huge market ready for your material.

Instant Credibility Most online publications carry guest articles. And at end of articles are a few lines about author, giving his or her site's URL, generally with a live link.

You give a publisher permission to publish your article in exchange for inclusion of a short bio which essentially endorses you as an expert.

Tips and how-to articles are particularly popular. The key to being successfully published in ezines is to make your content really useful, and not to write an advertisement for you and your services. If your article convinces readers you know your stuff, they'll seek you out.

* Increased credibility * Leverage for profitable Joint Ventures * More exposure through article reprints, for example * An additional source of income through advertising sales

While publishing a newsletter can be a very profitable venture, fact of matter is, they're also a lot of work. Here are a few things to think about before you get started.

__1. What Type of Newsletter Do You Want to Write?

The type of material you include in your newsletter is as endless as your imagination. Some suggestions include:

* Featured Article * Useful Website Pick * Reader Q&A * Letter to Editor * Surveys or Polls * Product Reviews * Suggestion/Help Column for Subscriber Websites or Products * Tip of Day * Inspirational Quote

__2. Where Will You Get Your Content?

Will you write all content yourself, get others to write it for you (ghost-writers), or use 'recycled' articles from other writers?

Fresh, original content is best. It gets tiresome when you see same article in 7 different newsletters! If you don't think you can manage writing *all* of your content, perhaps you can compromise: mostly your own writing, with occasional third-party article thrown in.

__3. How Often Do You Plan to Publish?

One of advantages of offering a free ezine is opportunity to build a relationship with your readers. They come to know you and trust you, and you, in turn, learn what types of products or services they're interested in.

A newsletter that's published too infrequently runs risk of being forgotten by its readers. On other hand, one that's published too often may annoy its readers and cause them to unsubscribe or delete message.

Many popular ezines are published once a week or once every two weeks. Use that as a *guideline* for determining your own publishing schedule.

__4. Can You Afford a Professional List Manager?

A list manager automates tedious task of subscription management. In other words, it automatically handles subscribe and unsubscribe requests from your readers.