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Make An Announcement
By: Jim Conley II, MerchantSeek.com

Since this week's feature article is shorter than what I
normally put out, I thought I would combine two great
marketing techniques into one issue. So this week you're
going to get a double dose of great ways to promote your
website.

A few issues back I talked about using news releases to
announce new product offerings, employees, or just
announce a new business start-up. Just as news releases
target editors and journalists, announcement lists target
webmasters. An announcement list is a list of new websites
and product offerings sent out via e-mail to a bunch of
subscribers who are looking to explore your newest
offerings. These groups of people are absolute gold mines
and can bring a large amount of traffic to your site in a
relatively short period of time.

Some really great announcement services you should
consider submitting to are:

* NetSurfer Digest - http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/index.html

* Hersh Web Site Observer - http://cyberjournalist.com/

* NetAnnounce - http://www.erspros.com/net-announce/about.phtml

* NetHappenings - http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/addserv/net-hap.html

To best utilize announcement services I would suggest
submitting to them every so many months after you've made
some changes or additions to your website. While the
traffic you will experience from this is not for the long term,
in the short term it can be a great boost to your sales, if they
are starting to slip.

When writing your listing steer clear from using hype.
People aren't interested in hearing a bunch of hype, they are
interested in resources that are going to help them. Keep
your site description clear and to the point. But you still
want to write it in a way that will encourage people to click
your link, naturally. Also, keep your descriptions short and
practice good grammar and spelling techniques.

Other important information you will want to include with
your listing is your name, e-mail address and website URL.
Some announcement list moderators may review your site to
see if it's worthy of a listing, though there are many that do
not. If you present yourself professionally you shouldn't
have any problems.

While this tactic won't generate traffic for you in the long
term, in the short term you can expect to see traffic levels
rise abruptly within a matter of just a few days. To make
the most of announcement services do your best to make it
worth while for the list readers to come visit your site.

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Jim Conley II is the CEO/Founder of MerchantSeek. MerchantSeek allows merchants from around the world to search FREE for a Merchant Account Provider that best fits their businesses needs and budget. Visit us at http://www.merchantseek.com/