10 Easy Tips to Improve Your Ezine

Copyright 2002 Terri Seymour

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!!