It seems as though everyone is telling you that you should have an ezine for your web site, heck even if you dont even have a web site! But why?

There are several good reasons to publish your own ezine, the not the least of which is to keep in touch with visitors to your web site. Here are several more reasons:

(1) Staying in contact with customers on a regular basis so they remember your site amongst the billions of web sites on the Internet today.

(2) Site announcements

(3) Staying in contact with potential customers (Maybe one of the most important reasons)

(4) Updating your affiliates

(5) Sending information in the form of articles and editorials

(6) A mechanism to deliver results of a survey or contest

(7) Establish yourself as knowledgeable in a field

(8) Increase your Search Engine ranking

(9) Add content to your web site

(10) As an advertising vehicle

(11) Earn revenue through selling ads

(12) Gain writing experience

Those are a few of the main reasons that I can think of off the top of my head. So let's discuss a couple of them, shall we?

It is very important to stay in contact with both visitors (Potential customers) and current customers. The trick is finding that perfect balance between being helpful and delivering value and information with your ezine and being a pest by sending too many issues, notices, ad sheets, and classifieds.

On a side note:

Don't be a baby bird!

One of my pet peeves (And probably a lot of other people's as well!) is the "You gotta try this!" email every single week from some publishers.

Every week, sometimes several times a week, I get this breathless email from some publisher that is extolling the virtues of yet another "Joint Venture Letter Writer", "Make Super Money as a Super Affiliate" ebook, or pop-up generating software.

Enough already!

Just because the different affiliate programs you are a member of all send you a new "Solo Ad", "Classified Ad", etc. doesn't mean that it is the greatest thing since sliced white bread! There is nothing that will make me unsubscribe faster than a publisher that claims I "Absolutely can't live (Or do business) without X, Y, or Z product every other day.

Especially when all of the products are just variations on a theme and I see the same ad from 4 different people (Each "customized" to make it look like it came from them!). Don't you think your subscribers read more than one ezine?

Don't get caught up in this advertising frenzy or you will lose that list of subscribers you worked so hard to gain the trust of. Just because you reach that magic subscriber base # of 5,000 or 10,000 people doesn't mean that the focus of your ezine should suddenly switch from providing information to being your private cash box.

So, don't sit in your "nest" with your mouth continuously open waiting to be fed like a baby bird chirp, chirp, chirping away all day!

End of Rant :)

The main reason you are sending out your ezine is to showcase your knowledge (Or humor, or artistic ability, whatever your "thing" is) and as you provide valuable information, tutorials, articles, resources, etc., every week you gain the trust of your subscribers.

Then, when you mention that you use "X product" to achieve "Y results", your subscribers will listen to you and if you provide a link, they may even reward you by buying your product!

Some of the Less Obvious Reasons to Publish an Ezine:

Another great reason to write an ezine is to boost your search engine ranking by archiving your past issues online. Later in this series we will be discussing exactly how to do that step-by-step, but for now, let's just assume you know how to add your issues to your web site.

Search engines just love content. Instead of filling your web with other people's articles use your past issue to boost your sites value. I'm not saying their articles are bad or even that having them is bad, but don't you think your visitors will be more impressed with more content written by you in your site than by others? Plus, you have the added bonus of looking smarter!

Your past ezines are definitely on the same topic as your web site which will make a search engine like Google very happy when its spider finds that large group of web pages all on the same general topic. Be sure they are all interlinked, to each other and to the home page. Here's a couple of ways to link them:

1. List the "Articles by Title" down the left side of the page. Link them using the title as the link. This is a much bigger boost in page rating than the "next article" link. Keywords used as the text of the link itself - it doesn't get better than that - baby!

2. Have a navigation bar across the bottom of the page

3. Have "Next" and "Back" links, plus a little arrow icon pointing left and right respectively. Use the "Alt" description for the picture to stick a keyword in the page. Not a bunch, one per is ok...

If you use FrontPage or other WYSIWYG editor, right click on the picture, click on properties, then type in your keyword where the space for the "alternate text" goes.

Include the word "arrow" too, in case your picture pulls a no show or someone has their graphics turned off the text makes sense. Like for our fishing magazine example (Article #2 in the Series) you could use "click arrow for next fishing article" as your alternate text.

We will cover this topic more deeply in the "How to Archive Your Past Issues" Article further along in this series. But for now,just keep it in mind.

And the final reason we will discuss in this section is writing experience. What better way to gain experience and find your writing "Voice" than to write an ezine every week? If you have ever contemplated writing your own ebook, special report, short story or novel, an ezine is great writing practice.

You have to do research, proofread, type, (Unless you have "you talk it records" software that is!) and keep a schedule. All great warm-ups for you true project, whatever that is.

So there you have it, a nice even dozen reasons you should get up off your rear - or sit down on it as it were - and start writing your own ezine.