If you own a home based business then generating web site traffic is probably the primary thing you spend your time worrying about. The reason this is such a concern for you is because online competition is stiff and it is a huge effort to get your web site noticed among the thousands of others. However, there are several tricks you can do to differentiate your web site and set it apart from others. One such thing is providing a newsletter to subscribers.

Most business people on the web subscribe to at least one newsletter, if not more, that focus on different aspects and markets they are interested in. Because of this, it is important for your company to also have a newsletter that provides viable, relevant, and current information and that also markets your product or service. The more relevant your newsletter is to your target market consumer's needs the more likely they will visit your web site.

When it comes to material for your newsletter, take a look at some of the most popular newsletters in your field and see what makes them good and what makes them bad. A good question to ask yourself is would you subscribe to this newsletter and if so why or why not. From these, you will be able to take the formats that work and skip the ones that don't. Because, when it comes down to it, you want your newsletter to become very popular and direct more and more traffic to your site on a daily basis. It has been proven that 70% of sales are made after the third, fourth or fifth contact, meaning your newsletter has to be good enough for the subscriber to read at least 5 articles before you get a sale.

When it comes to newsletters, you will need to have a reason why people will want to sign up. Most of the time people are not out searching for a bunch of newsletters to subscribe to, but for the right reason they will. For example, if you provide access to a business toolkit, e-book, free gift, or some other equally tempting award, people will sign up to receive the newsletter. Now, here is the key, once you have people signed up you want them to stay signed up and not only receive the newsletter but also read it. So, once people begin signing up you will need to make sure the newsletter is professional and provides helpful and relevant information for your particular market. If you are providing this information people will continue reading it and tell their friends about it, if not they will hit the unsubscribe button and you will lose a potential customer.

Although setting up a newsletter might sound difficult to you, it really is not and is something you can do in a couple hours every week as long as you have decent writing skills. Make sure you cover hot topics, give advice, and use customer questions about your product, market and the like to make up the newsletter. If you are confused or not quite sure how to get started, get a newsletter software program that will guide you through the process as well as create a professional looking newsletter.

Once you have a newsletter developed and ready to distribute you will want to have an automated subscribe and unsubscribe program. This will allow people to sign up or asked to be removed from the newsletter and it will automatically happen. The last thing you want to do is spend your entire day adding and removing email addresses. This is a waste of time that is better used by you focusing on expanding your business.

Once your newsletter is set up and automated, if you are providing a good newsletter with plugs for your services and products, you will be sure to see a rise in traffic and purchases.

Copyright 2005 Chris Stirling