Article Surfing Archive

Writing and publishing an ezine is a very important part of your online business so you want to make it the best possible ezine you can. I have made mistakes and changed and re-changed my ezine many times to make it the best it can be. I am still always looking for ways to improve MOE. Over the years I have learned a few simple ways to improve my ezine. You can easily implement these tips into your ezine.

1. ALWAYS, ALWAYS have your email, along with your name and url right at the top of your ezine. Unbelievably, I have read ezines where I could NOT find the email or even the name of the publisher!!! Also at the end of your ezine have name, address, phone number, and email and url again for easy access. Nothing is worse than trying to find contact info that for some reason is invisible!

2. Make sure you also always provide your subscribe and unsubscribe info as well. I would suggest putting this info at the bottom of the ezine. If you post your unsubscribe url right at the top of your ezine it is like you are inviting your subscribers to unsubscribe.

3. Provide a forum for your readers to interact with you and your other readers. A section entitled, Reader's Corner or Reader's Comments, where they can send in their comments, questions, feedback or whatever. This gives them a chance to become a part of the ezine. This also helps build the reader- publisher relationship that is very important!

4. Keep your ezine clean and sharp looking. Don't add too many of the squiggles and decorations. They may look *cute* but they sometimes make it hard to read your ezine, thus prompting the ole' delete finger to become activated!

5. ALWAYS provide some original content. Writing articles is a great way of doing this. If you are not yet comfortable writing articles, (Yes, you can), write an editorial in each issue. Talk a bit about yourself, the latest happenings in the business, what is going on around the net, etc., things of that nature. This is a chance to bring out your personality, the main thing that makes your ezine unique!!

6. Having too many ads in each issue is a great way of bringing down the value of your ezine. I would suggest no more than 4 or 5 per issue. Reading an ezine that has 20 or 30 ads (oh yeah, I've seen them) is not very interesting or realistic. Most people would not even go through the whole thing. Here comes that delete finger again!! You want your advertisers to get more value for their money and having a limited number of ads is one of the best ways of doing this.

7. I think adding a small section for this 'n that is a good idea also. Some humor, a little fun, interesting tidbits, jokes, stories, etc. We are business men and women, but we don't have to be 100% business, 100% of the time!!

8. Privacy Policy - Put a privacy policy towards the top of the ezine. Let your readers know their privacy is safe with you and your ezine.

9. Proofread - Always proofread and double-check your text. You do not want your ezine to look like it was written by a 10 year old. Correct all spelling and grammatical errors.

10. Give your ezine an interesting and pulling name. I have subscribed to most ezines just by the name alone. If the name gets my attention, I subscribe.

Names like:
Power Promotion Ezine
Marketing Mania Ezine
Web Success Ezine
are short and to the point. They also make me want to read more.

Names like:
Internet Marketing News
John Doe's Ezine
Home Business News
are more generic and do not get my attention! They lack the "oomf" that make me want to subscribe.

I hope some of these tips give you an idea of how you can improve your ezine and make it the best it can be. Remember that ezine publishing is one of the most essential aspects of your online success. If you are in this business, you should be able to say, "I have My Own Ezine! " ;-) Good luck and success to you all!!