Become Part of the Online Community

Build and Use a Mailing List

Build your mailing list from guestbook entries, comments, and inquiries. Invite visitors to join the list. Newsletters are a good way to stay in touch and keep your site in mind. You can use them to announce new or updated content or features. Be sure though, to give readers the option to be removed from your list so it won't seem like spam. Remember, occasional mail can be fun, too much is annoying.

Email and Newsgroup Signatures

Most email packages allow up to six lines of copy for an electronic signature. Include URLs, a short description, phone number and address, if relevant. Tag lines can be interesting, but skip the cute ascii art. Whatever your online activities, this is an excellent source of promotion. Click through rates can be astonishingly high. Let your contacts know what you do, and how they can see it. An example:

Jeffrey H. Clark           mailto:jeff@internetbrothers.com
Free web site development tips and tutorials.
Internet Brothers: Helpware for the Cybercommunity
----->     http://internetbrothers.com     <-----

Join Web Rings

Webrings provide the Net with a different way to organize sites. They are a facility for grouping together sites with similar content by linking them together in a circle, or ring. The idea is that once you are at one site in a webring, you can click on a "Next" or "Previous" link to go to adjacent sites in the ring, and — if you do it long enough — end up where you started. The best way to locate a webring that will suit you is to visit RingWorld, the online directory of the webring systems. Chances are you'll find one that will interest you, either to surf or to join.

Online Advertising

Even small Web sites can advertise online, in a lot of cases at low, or no cost. There are several excellent advertising banner exchange programs. Your ad banner is shown on member sites, in exchange for displaying their banners on your site. Link Exchange is the most popular, and has a large membership. If there are only a few member sites, the exchange may not be worth the effort. The better ones have content rating categories such as suitability for children. Find out who the other members are that you will be trading with. Is the group compatible with your online image? Determine the banner exchange click through ratio, and construct an eye-catching banner. Shop carefully, advertising is a valuable online commodity, you should expect a fair return whether you swap or buy.

Continued

The Internet Brothers have implemented hierarchical menus for navigation. Easier done than said.

The hierarchical menus were created using Peter Belesis' © Dynomat DHTML scripting tool from Webreference. Give them a visit, you'll like what you learn.

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