If you own a business site, you need a newsletter. This article will show you why having a newsletter is so important to your success.

Publishing an ezine is the best way to build a good mailing list. Forget bulk email! Build your own list of people who WANT to hear from you.

The people that subscribe to your newsletter will remain loyal customers who will buy your product(s) again and again. Give your subscriber's quality articles to read and treat them right, whether they buy from you or not.

Soon, they will tell others about your newsletter. These new subscribers may buy from you and tell others also! This word-of-mouth advertising, along with writing articles for other ezines, is one of the most effective ways to promote your website.

Your subscribers will look forward to receiving your newsletter, time after time. They will actually read it, from top to bottom. Some may actually take the time to print it out, so they can peruse it at their leisure. Be sure to ask each of them for new subscribers, as well as possible ad exchanges.

You can easily exchange ad links with other webmasters. Do not clutter your website with links to possible competitors. Granted, the reader may click on one of your advertisers, but if you have a quality ezine, the user will come back to you.

Eventually, you can start charging other webmasters for ads. This opens up another income stream. In my opinion, you should have at least 500 subscribers before you ask others to pay for ads.

Eventually, some of your loyal subscribers will begin to buy your product(s). They might also recommend the product(s) to others. So keep your subscribers happy and you will get more subscribers. The more subscribers you get, the more sales you will have.

So how do you start an ezine? Take my advice and use the template you will find at ezine-z.com. I use it every month to fill out my ezines. It will save you a lot of time. Make sure you have no more than 65 characters per line. That way, most people will be able to read it using a standard email program. Put in an appropriate amount of whitespace. Your ezine does not need fancy graphics or colors. Content is the key.

What should you put in your ezine?

If you use the ezine-z template, you will have an ezine skeleton, which will include, for example, subscription information. Here is what YOU should put in your newsletter:

a. An editorial. Briefly summarize each article. Tell your readers what the next issue will contain.

b. The articles themselves. Be sure to put the author's resource box or byline at the end.

c. Any classifieds, but remember not to clutter your ezine with ads. This will detract from the content. To please both advertisers and your readers, place an ad between each article. That way, the advertiser is happy that his ad is more visible, and your reader is happy that he does not have to plow through ten or more ads.

d. Publish only QUALITY articles. Read over each one and ask yourself "have I learned something valuable?" If so, then publish the article. If not, there is a good chance that no one else will learn anything either.

How do you find good articles to publish?

There are many options:

a. Write your own articles.

b. Hire professional writers.

c. Search for free resources. Look on the search engines for sites similar to yours and see if anyone is offering free articles. You should have no problem finding free articles because publishing articles in other ezines is one of the best forms of advertising. It costs the writer nothing and can get him great exposure. Users will more than likely be curious enough to click on the author's signature box.

d. ALWAYS ask the author's permission before you reprint his article.

Now, how do you get subscribers?

a. Enter your ezines in every ezine directory you find. Ezine-z is one of them. Liszt (liszt.com) is another. Next, look up "ezine directories" in the search engines.

b. Subscribe to all ezines that have something to do with what you are selling. Carefully peruse each one. If the ezine is full of ads and little content, stay away from it. An ezine should have at least three good articles in every issue. A good newsletter should have no more than 5 ads per issue.

c. You can pay for top ads, exclusive (private) ads or classified ads. Forget classified ads; they will appear at the bottom among 10 or more other ads. The ezine publisher sends your exclusive ad to each ezine subscriber, with no other ads but yours! This is the best one, but is usually the most expensive.

A top ad appears at the top of the newsletter. This is usually less expensive than an exclusive ad, and almost as effective. Try both of these in three or four quality ezines. Be sure to track your results. You are looking for at least 2% of the subscription base to click on your link. If you do not get enough clicks, rewrite your ad and try again.

If you still do not get enough clicks, ask someone to help you with your ad. When you have a good ad, try placing it again in the same ezine. If you still do not pull at least 2% of the subscription base to your site, then you need to try another ezine.

d. Try exchanging ads with other similar newsletter publishers. Offer to place their ads more than once if they have a larger subscriber base. I have done very well with this strategy. Just be sure not to forget to include someone's ad!

e. Write good articles. You do not have to be an expert in the field. I have written mostly about my experiences on the Internet and how I overcame difficulties. Write what you know or have experienced. Then submit your articles to targeted quality newsletters.

f. I always thought that it was not worth exchanging links with an ezine that did not have much of a subscriber base yet. WRONG! You may miss extremely targeted potential customers. Just be sure it is a targeted ezine, but forget the subscriber base!

Also, you might remember that you were once just starting out with just a few subscribers. Try to help as many new ezines publishers as possible. Someone will help you in other possibly unexpected ways. It is the old Golden Rule!

I hope you see now how important it is to have a newsletter, both on your website and in email form. It tends to make you look like an expert in your field, especially if you publish quality articles and put a limit on how many ads you will accept.