DOES YOUR WEBSITE NEED A NEWSLETTER?

By Debbie J. Watson

Your website could be a personal site, a business site or a non-profit organization's site. Whatever category your site falls into, you probably already cover the basics of your site's set-up. For example, most sites include:

- The name of the person, business or organization
- The address and other contact details
- An overview of the products and services
- More detailed pages on these products and services

These certainly give a good round-up of what you are offering to your website visitors. But what will keep them coming back to your particular site? With literally millions of sites up
and running worldwide, you must do something to get your site's visitors to return. Ways to do this include:

1. Update your site regularly, displaying articles that would be of interest to those people who need your product or service. For example, if your site sells homeware products, what about an informative article outlining ways homeowners can keep
their interior décor up to date with today's trends. Your customers and customers-to-be will welcome helpful information such as this. Write the articles yourself or hire an outside writer who can not only write the articles for you, but provide
innovative ideas on what topics to write about.

2. Write a regular newsletter to send to your site visitors by email. On your site, include a box where they can subscribe for free. It is also free for you to set up the newsletter facility, by using a service such as http://www.egroups.com
[http://www.egroups.com] or http://www.egroups.com]http://www.topica.com. [http://www.egroups.com]http://www.topica.com.http://www.topica.com.] They provide everything you need to set up your own newsletter quickly and easily. In the first and future editions of your newsletter cover such things as:

- Company/Organization news
- Product releases
- Staff profiles
- Helpful articles related to your industry/area
- Discounts or specials
- Anything else you can think of!

Finally, have fun with your site and your newsletter. Think of new and interesting information to present to your site's visitors and they will keep returning, again and again.

About the Author

COPYRIGHT 2001 Debbie J. Watson
The author is a Freelance Writer,who writes articles for websites, e-zines, on-line magazines &off-linepublications. For more information,
visit http://www.debbiejwatson.com