The debate rages on! OK, maybe not that intensely but it will be a “back & forth” for a long long time to come. Should you use a real name or “pen” name, when doing business online? Especially with article writing…

Some will say that fake names are better for a variety or reasons, such as; it’s harder for your competition to find you or they’re afraid people might not take them seriously because there name is Becki or Bobbi or Chrissy, etc etc, you get the idea.

To this I say BAH!…

I am one that disagrees wholeheartedly with using “pen” or fake names. Now, I’m not saying these fears are foolish or stupid, they truly believe them, and from time to time they may run across it; BUT, these folks are not looking at the BIG PICTURE…

Your lists are your LIVILIHOOD! Care for them greatly. The following is the simplest yet one of the most important tips you could follow. It’s also one that most list owners just plum forget about…

I realize telling you to always use spell check might seem like an obvious no-brainer, but many still don’t do it, among other things…

Now that that’s outa the way, here’s a little tip that’s just as important, if not more so…Always put yourself on your own list!

It may sound silly, but among other things, it enables you to catch things quickly that you may not notice otherwise. For instance…

Last February I just sent a quick Happy Mothers Day email to my list (and no, I didn’t tack on some cheesy sale to “celebrate” it), but what I did do is I wrote “If you’re celebrating the day with your mom like I am, wish here a great one for me!

I read a great email a while back. It gave an awesome idea of how to take advantage of those certain emails that we all get 20 a day of, mostly jokes.

You know when you scroll down to the bottom of some emails, you’ll often see a link to HotMail, Yahoo or whoever the webmail provider is? Basically any free email provider will have their ad at the bottom of outgoing emails, right?

Wouldn’t it be cool to have your link there?

It would be fantastic!

Of course, how useful this technique is really does depend on your niche, but as long as you’ve got a fairly wide appeal - I can’t see a reason why you should pass up this opportunity to get your link in front of some prospective customers.

Everyone who has a website knows, or should know, that to have sales, sign-ups or whatever; you must have traffic, but not just any traffic it has to be TARGETED TRAFFIC.

What is Targeted traffic? Simply put, it is visitors to your website that are actually interested in what your website is about.

For example, people interested in buying jewelry will find jewellery websites interesting.

I know I know, you’re thinking “duh, no kidding!” well, you’d be surprised to find out how many don’t follow the simplest of logic. How do I GET the targeted traffic? Ah yes, the 64 thousand dollar question indeed! The following are just a few of many tried and tested methods. Certainly enough to get you started…

Forums: Subscribe to forums that discuss your topic. Answer questions and join in the debates there. Become an expert in the field. Then with each article reply you write have a discreet link to your website in the signature file.