Your Home Business and Newsgroup promotion

After you have gone throught the usual promotion avenues and submitted your home business website to the main search engines and directories, submitted to online classified ads and message boards, opt in lists and other free resources, it may be time to begin promoting on the newsgroups, also known as the usenet. A newsgroup is basically a kind of text only message board where users discuss very specific topics of mutual interest. Newsgroups are free if you use google groups or one of the other free services. Most e-mail clients also have newsreader. As many as ten million individuals have regular access to the Newsgroups. As a general rule, newsgroup subscribers are a different animal than the typical web surfer. They have often been around before the web became mainstream, and can be more cynical and jaded than other internet users. Not always, but often this is the case, With that in mind, you want to approach the newsgroups a little differently than other internet venues. For one thing, you do not want to be sloppy, and you certainly want to use proper netiquette. Do not cross-post (submit to more than one newsgroup at a time), for example. And you should only promote your site using the sig file or e-mail signature in a brief resource box at the end of your messages. You should only post commercial announcements in newsgroups that expressly allow it. On that note, you should read the individual charter of each newsgroup that you post to. There are literally thousands of newsgroups on every conceivable topic, from broad categories like business and home issues to specific groups such as New Jersey biking or dogs and cats.

It is a good idea to "lurk" in a newsgroup for a certain period of time, perhaps two weeks, before posting. During that time you should read the posts of others and try to just get the feel of that particular newsgroup. You want to be seen as an expert in your field, not an amateur. Note that some newsgroups are moderated (posts are monitored for content before publishing to prevent spam) and some are not. The ones that are not will often have plenty of ads, so be forewarned. To build a reputation as an expert, post relevant facts in your Newsgroup and reply to posted questions. Subscribers will soon begin to see you as an expert in your field, and you will get more new visitors looking at your home business website, which should be listed in in the signature file of all your messages. Used properly, the newsgroups can be an important weapon in your overall internet marketing attack, and will give you an advantage over other home business entrepreneurs who are not using it.