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            "The Ebook Marketer Ezine"

Issue 22 - October 2004 Published by Dirk Dupon

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The "Instant Info Products" package offers a collection of  amazing Ebooks with Full Resale Rights, so you can sell  then from your own site in minutes. Go check it out now... Go check it out right there

Hello,

Thanks for being with me again, and a warm welcome 
to all the new subscribers.

Let me start with an important tip...

"Microsoft's security patch gives problems with Ebooks..."

You may know that Microsoft has released their SP2 
security patch for Windows XP users recently. 

Fine, I support updates that help to make my system 
safer, but there's one thing that I absolutely don't like 
about it...

... some .EXE formatted Ebooks can't be opened 
anymore after installing the security patch...

The options at this point for people who can't read their 
.EXE Ebooks anymore, is to uninstall the SP2 patch. 

Everyone who does this will immediately regain access 
to their .EXE ebooks. 

Todays issue contains an interesting article about 
having your own online forum, and how people use 
them to drive lots of traffic to their web site. 

But for those who do not have the intention to set up
an online forum, there's also good news...

Garrie Wilson's "The Forum List" contains over two-
dozen categories of the best active forums, where you 
can find tons of new ideas about any possible subject. 

Need help about setting up a web site, creating a script, 
or even about where to find a nice (and cheap) place to 
spend your next holiday, you'll find someone in these 
forums that will help you out.

With "The Forum List", you can quickly read through 
the alphabetical index listing of forums. Then simply 
use the search function of your reader to jump to the 
category...

=> And for a very limited time, I'm also giving you Full 
Resale Rights with this Ebook, so don't miss it! ;-)

Best regards, 

Dirk Dupon
mailto:editor@ebooks-made-easy.com 

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"Pro's And Cons Of Having A Discussion Forum" 

Before going into the pros and cons of having a forum on 
a site let's first explain what forums actually are. 

Most of you are familiar with them but mightn't have 
heard the term 'forum' before. 

Well forums are just another name for discussion boards, 
message boards and other names. They enable users of 
a website to interact with each other by exchanging tips 
and discussing hot topics related to a websites theme. 

Forums save information posted on a particular topic for 
other people to see at any time, this creates a discussion 
environment. 

Everything that gets posted gets read again and again. 
The fact that the discussion isn't real time means that 
it rarely turns into heated arguments as people are given 
time to research and consider their comments before 
replying, this makes for mostly high-quality discussion. 

Forums allow you to create robust online communities 
even with low traffic volumes since people often return 
to the site on a regular basis to catch up on whats 
happened since then. 

Now to continue onto the main bulk of this article, forums 
have five major benefits to a webmaster which include: 

- Allowing you to get educational information on your site. 

- Allowing you to increase traffic through repeat visitors. 

- Allowing you to capture email address and details of posters. 

- Allowing you to gain more creditability. 

- Allowing you to build relationship with visitors. 

Having a medium to high traffic forum on a website will 
increase the value of it as members of forums are very 
knowledgeable about the topic at hand and they'll usually 
try to show this in their posts thus creating lots of 
information and tips which visitors to your site can use. 

With lots of information and discussion being exchanged 
in your forums visitors will return again and again to see 
replies to their posts, read others posts and basically to 
see if anything has changed. 

This creates a sticky website which is what every 
webmaster wants, as new members join your forum 
your traffic will gradually grow week after week. 

In most forums people who want to post have to register 
by giving their email address and names, this allows 
you to follow up and email them in the future with 
information about your product or service. 

They won't consider it as spam because they know 
who you are. 

Forums allow you to gain creditability with your websites 
visitors as you can reply to posts that are looking for help 
and by doing this you're letting everyone know that you 
are an expert on the topic of your website. 

They're much more likely to buy from you if you know 
what you're talking about!

Building relationships with your visitors is easy with forums. 
If you post regularly and actively discuss different topics 
with your forum members then gradually you'll get to 
know them and more importantly they'll get to know 
you. 

People are much more likely to buy a product or service 
when someone they know sells or recommends it. 

Onto the downside of having a forum. 

Creating successful forums is not by any sense of the 
word easy, they involve a tremendous amount of work 
to get them started. 

Nobody likes to post on an empty forum so you've to 
actively promote it and create lots of topics for 
discussion yourself, if these topics are interesting 
then you should get a few replies. 

You've to do this self posting on a continuous basis 
for months, sometimes weeks but mostly months 
before a steady flow of topics and replies are posted 
by your forums members.

That's only to get people talking, next you've to administer 
it or moderate it as it's usually called. This means making 
sure posts are appropriate and that members are not 
spamming your forum. 

This has to be done on a daily basis and if your forum 
gets busy it's going to be very time consuming. Once 
again the main disadvantage with forums is the amount of 
time and effort required to get them started and maintain 
them.

However don't let that put you off the idea, forums are 
great for increasing your traffic and increasing the 
profits you make on your website.

After the initial time involved to start it up and the time 
it takes to get people to talk you'll start to see the 
benefits that your forum is bringing and the time 
needed to maintain it will seem less and less each 
time you see your traffic and profits going up. 

David Callan is an Internet marketing professional and 
owner of http://www.akamarketing.com/webmaster-forums  
Visit his forums for the latest discussions on search 
engines, website authoring and Internet marketing 
related issues and topics.