An ezine, or newsletter as they are also called, is simply a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly email message sent out to a group of people who have subscribed to it.

They're much shorter than paper magazines and are generally can be read in one sitting.

There are thousands of ezines on the internet pertaining to just about any topic you can imagine, and they are an incredible method of promoting your website absolutely free.

The two free ways to utilize ezines to promote your site are to:

1. Post Articles

Post articles containing brief promotional footers with a hot link back to your website. Doing this allows people who enjoyed your article to click on your site. It also creates an incoming link from the ezine to your website. Incoming links enhance your search engine ranking.

Most ezines offer free subscriptions, and are hungry for quality content. That means any well written article will receive a warm welcome if sent to the appropriate ezine (more on that later).

Your topic should be something that would interest your customers, and you should work in as many of your website keywords as you can. One to two pages is a good length for an article.

I mention the keywords because a major ezine website may have much higher rankings with search engines than you do, and your keywords may land people on your article, rather than your new, small website. The reader then may click through to your website.

You, now an expert article author, should develop a signature. Look at mine at the bottom of this article, for example.

So, where do you find the right ezines? The link below contains dozens of ezine directories that will take you weeks to wade through.

http://www.new-online-bookstore.com/ezine_directories.html

2. Start Your Own Ezine

Start your own ezine on a topic that would interest your potential customers. Selecting your topic can be a challenge. For instance, I run an online bookstore. What do readers have in common? They like to read stories. So, my ezine is one short story per month. Short story submissions pour in. I add a brief promotional header, and send the monthly publication out using an autoresponder.

The autoresponder automatically keeps track of who you