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An online community could be a chat room, e-mail discussion list, discussion forum or other technologies that allow groups of people to communicate at your web site. When you have a popular online community it will increase your traffic and sales. Below are ten ways to attract people to participate in your online community.

1. Tell your visitors that you post a new, free offer every day, week or month in your online community. The free offers should be attractive to your target audience.

2. Regularly schedule experts or famous guests to participate in your online community. You could design it to be a virtual class or a question/answer session.

3. Post testimonials on your web site from people that have participated in your online community. The testimonials could be about what people have learned or liked while participating in it.

4. Don't allow blatant ads in your online communities. If people decide to visit your online community and see a ton of ads they most likely won't be back.

5. Post all the benefits of participating in your online community on your web site. You could write it like you're writing an ad for a product you're selling.

6. Submit your chat room, e-mail discussion list or discussion board to online community directories. You can find them by typing " the community type" with the word "directory" in any search engine.

7. Create an e-zine just for people who participate in your online community. Allow them to subscribe for free. When they receive each issue, it will remind them to come back and participate in your community.

8. You (the owner of the online community) should participate regularly. Post information that will benefit the other people. This will show them you care about your online community members.

9. Have plenty of people to monitor your online community. They could remove postings that turn away people like profanity, spam and other off- subject postings.

10. Your online community should contain user friendly features, like a search option for archived discussions, easy posting or chatting options, email updates or digests, etc.

Copyright 2004 Rudy Cline