Chances are, you are making at least one of these two mistakes as well. If so, I urge you to fix them as soon as possible. I promise you'll be thrilled with results.

MISTAKE 1: Sign up form missing on home page...

For over two years my main page did not contain a signup form for my email newsletter. Sure, I had a link to my sample issue, which contained a signup form, but I never got around to adding short form to my main page.

THE FIX: I added a short sign up form with a testimonial on my main page and my new subscriber signups nearly doubled, from 300 a week to close to 600. If I had smartened up a year ago I could be at 50,000 subscribers now, instead of 35,000.

Learn from my mistake! If you are not using a signup form on your main page to collect email addresses of your visitors, you are making a big mistake. It really is as simple as asking for their email address using a "formmail" script on your web server. Most web hosts offer that basic script for free.

MISTAKE 2: Including same signature file with all outgoing emails...

A signature file is simply a short "footer" (usually 3-5 lines) that you write yourself. The signature is included in at bottom of each email message you send and it is an excellent way for potential customers to learn about your products and services. When done properly, your signature can constantly make sales for you.

So, I'll bet you're excited to learn this new promotion method that brought in all this email right? Well, before you get too excited, let me tell you this... it's one you should never even _consider_ using.

You see, that windfall of email was not from potential prospects and customers. It was from angry netizens - all recipients of unsolicited email. No, not spam from me, but spam that caused a nightmare for me none less. And it shut down site that was responsible, before they even realized they did anything wrong.

The rest of this article shares few sordid details, including how YOU can avoid similar trouble...

It seems that a company in New Jersey who was new to online marketing game decided to try some "email marketing". So they bought one of those email lists that bulk email companies sell as "targeted email addresses" and had their host load it to their server.

One posting later their business was bombarded with complaints from angry recipients of message. Not long after, their website was shut down, all because of one email message.

As for me, my own problems started when spam hit my autoresponders. My "Welcome to Bizweb eGazette" autoresponder appeared on list no less than 17 times. The autoresponder was one I used when new subscribers asked to be added to my newsletter.

Well it seems that list of 30,000 addresses had been set up as an unmoderated discussion, and every angry spam recipient was free to reply to entire list, snowballing problem into a mass of junk mail in seconds. When my autoresponder replied to list of 30,000 angry spam recipients over and over with "thanks for subscribing", many of spam victims figured I was culprit in whole mess! And let me tell you, there are more nasty people out there than I imagined.

If I had a nickel for every cuss word and threat that came in over weekend I could retire today. And I can understand why so many of these people were upset, but unfortunately their anger was misdirected at a fellow innocent bystander.

Now let's get to main point of this whole story. I'm sure I can keep at least a handful of newbies from getting themselves in hot water like this website did.

I can also prepare my fellow "experienced" web marketers for day when THEY are recipient of misdirected anger due to spam.

OK, first lesson for newbies...