One of the best ways to enhance your online marketing (or Internet marketing) efforts is to publish your own newsletter. It may first seem intimidating and labor intensive but marketing your message out on the internet is well worth the effort.

Here are a few tips that make the newsletter writing process much easier.

Name:  Decide what name you are going to use for your newsletter. Place the name in the subject line of your emails so people immediately recognize it as coming from you. For example, my newsletter is called "ScyberBiz Internet Marketing Tips," and the subheading is Internet Tools and Resources for the Home Based Business Professional. Make sure to include some of your keywords and domain name if possible in the title. This will help for Search Engine Optimization.

Time Schedule:  Determine how often you can reasonably take time to create your newsletter. With all of the other writing and posting of new information that we do through ScyberBiz, monthly newsletters come around faster than you realize - so monthly it is! There are often tidbits though that we'd like to share with our subscribers more frequently, so we offer a weekly ScyberBiz Online Marketing Updates sent out every Thursday. Even if it is only 1 paragraph, it's a good way to stay in touch with your subscribers.

Topic & Content:  Keep your subject matter related to your website content. Use your newsletters to provide highlights of your industry, ideas and techniques that might be helpful, and keep them light yet educational. When you have something very technical and detailed, provide a link for them to view that information. According to the internet experts, your line length should be limited to 65 characters.

Active Links:  When recommending other resources, always check them to make sure they are still in business and that the link you are providing is reaching their website.

Resources:  Offer new resources each newsletter that correspond with the content of your topic. Make sure that you offer at least one free one for each "fee-based" one. Keep your newsletter newsworthy and beneficial, not a continuous sales pitch. I receive one newsletter that the entire content is always selling something. Just when you think you're getting to something good, you have to purchase the rest of the information. That's fine as a promotional piece for marketing purposes, but not for your newsletter.

Stories:  Tell your readers a story of how the recommended resources and the subject matter of the newsletter have helped you in your business or endeavors.

Simplicity:  Keep your language light and understandable. Avoid fancy and technical terminology. Explain what you mean. And, keep it brief as possible without destroying content.

Deliverability:  Did you know that only a small percentage of emails actually reach the viewer's email inbox? Have you noticed that you receive a lot of "junk" that should be considered as Spam, but you aren't receiving emails that you've requested or expected to receive from friends, family and business associates? I quit using 4 different ISPs (Internet Service Providers) email systems because they were pre-screening cusotmer's emails without our knowledge and consent. I take offence to that. There is no reason that a 3rd-party filtering service should have the right to decide what I receive and what I don't. For your information, Gmail (provided by Google) has been the best so far at allowing me to receive all emails. Some of them end up in my spam box but at least I can go get them out. To open an email account, you must be invited, so if you don't know of anyone using Gmail, contact us and we will send you an invite.

Post Instead of Email: One of the best ways to make sure that your subscribers receive your newsletters and updates, send them a brief email with a link to click on to view the entire article, update or newsletter. A good place to post your writings are forums, blogs, or on a page of your web site.

Professionalism Use your spell checker to at least catch the obvious mistakes. Some errors will normally slip through, but at least proof-read your work, or let someone else proof-read it, at least once. It's a good habit to never send a writing until the next day. After resting, your mind is again clear and creative, and I often find errors first thing in the morning that I didn't see the night before. Be professional, but don't get caught up in perfectionism.

Formatting: After publishing, review your writing one last time to see how it fits on the web page, blog, etc. Some html formatting changes may be needed to make it fit correctly in the space. Hint: When a line won't fill up and there's a big hole at the end of the line, look for   in your html code. It means that a space should be there, but what it does it hold 2 words together as one word forcing them to the next line. Manually, delete and 6 characters and press the space bar. Magic! It now looks right!

Congratulate Yourself:  Make sure to give yourself credit for a job well done instead of criticizing your work. When you write from your heart and your experiences, it will touch those who needed to read it.