I’ve been watching my e-newsletter new subscriber stats for a while now, mostly because the number of subscribers had been increasing even though e-newsletter open rates have been declining — according to most industry reports.

In the last year, the number of people who subscribe to my e-newsletter on a daily / monthly basis has doubled, as has the overall number on the list.

The number of subscribers started increasing when I added my e-newsletter subscription form to this blog — which generates more traffic now than my DH Communications, Inc. Website.

Because I have a field on my subscription form that asks people how they found me, I’m able to see which marketing tactics generate the most subscribers.

Hands down, “search” is the number one method of driving traffic and subscribers. Over 89% of new visitors to the blog came through Google organic search alone (for the period 1/1/09 to 6/15/2009).

For the time period cited, approximately 25% of all newsletter subscribers came via search.

Writing articles for other blogs, portals, and e-newsletters is the second best way to drive traffic and subscriptions. For example, an article I wrote for Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Newsletter netted over 100 new subscribers in 24 hours.

And today (June 25), MarketingProfs featured my blog post about “Plug & Play Website Templates” in their Get to the Point e-newsletter — which is driving e-newsletter subscribers even as I write!

What has surprised me the most, however, is the number of subscribers who come in from *comments* I’ve left on blogs — as well as links to this blog from other bloggers.

I’m surprised for two reasons: I didn’t really think people followed blog links, and two, blogs were supposed to supplant e-newsletters when in fact, it’s blogs driving the traffic — and subscriptions.

I’m not quite sure what ideas or analysis I can derive from my numbers except for this:

Despite the number of blogs to which I’m subscribed and don’t have time to read, I always seem to find time for e-newsletters and this is because the e-newsletter arrives in my inbox — whereas I have to open my blog reader to access new blog posts, something I don’t do often enough.

An e-newsletter is like a good sandwich — quick and easy to digest.

Done well, e-newsletters give me a quick tip or two I can use. Most important, they arrive in my inbox without me having to do much of anything — except subscribe once.

If you read still subscribe to and read e-newsletters, please tell me why. I’d love to know.

I read lots of articles about why Twitter makes good business sense. However, I find few articles explaining why I don’t need it. Here are my top 10 reasons, in no particular order.

1. You don’t want to connect with the movers and shakers in your industry.

2. You don’t want the movers and shakers in your industry to connect with you.

3. You’re too busy to schmooze with the people you already know.

4. You don’t need to meet more people because your Rolodex is already huge.

5. You don’t want to understand how the “rock stars” such as Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott and Jeremiah Owyang think.

6. You really believe Twitter is all about what people are eating for breakfast or dinner.

7. You believe Twitter is a fad.

8. You prefer to get your news 24 hours after it happens.

9. You don’t need to be alerted to new industry reports, ground breaking research or articles.

10. You are G-d and everyone already knows you.

Feel free to add more reasons to this list.

While in college studying for my Masters degree in English, I was fortunate to have a wonderful professor who literally beat us over the head with regard to pruning wordy copy.

She absolutely hated sentences that began with “there are.” My papers would come back with this phrase crossed out in red ink. I learned pretty quickly to not use it.

Beginning a sentence with “there are” takes away the power in a sentence and the thought being expressed ends up sounding weak.

Plus, beginning a sentence with “there are” is just plain lazy — especially if you call yourself a writer.

Next time you write something, go back through the piece and search for the “there are” constructions and eliminate them, then reconstruct your sentences. I guarantee your copy will read 100% better.

Having just secured my Facebook branded URL, I was reminded again why using the same “brand” across all social media properties is important.

When it comes to business and marketing, one’s good name has always been a sterling asset, and with the rise of social media, it’s imperative you “own” your name and use it in order to build your brand and reputation — whether you work for a company or you’re in business for yourself.

What follows are five basic strategies for building your brand online.

1. Purchase your name as a URL

If you are like me, you have a number of people across the U.S. who share your name. (I’ve found five people named “Dianna Huff” on Facebook, for example.)

If you haven’t already, buy your name as a URL — i.e. www.janesmith.com — from a registrar such as GoDaddy.

Buying your name allows you to then point this URL to your existing Website or use it as your Website URL if you’re in business for yourself.

I use “www.dhcommunications.com” as my primary URL because that’s my business name, and I point “diannahuff.com” to my site. This means that if someone types “diannahuff.com” into a Web browser, they’re taken to my site automatically.

If you work for a company, you can use your URL to send and receive personal “branded” email — a good thing should you have to find a new job. Think about how this email address looks on a resume, “joe@joeschmo.com” versus “joeschmo@gmail.com.”

You can also use your URL for a blog (where you showcase your industry expertise) and send prospective employers to it in addition to your LinkedIn page.

2. Complete a Google Profile

When I first learned of Google Profiles, I didn’t think I needed one since it’s easy to find me via a Google search.

However, I changed my mind pretty quickly when I learned another “Dianna Huff” had nabbed “my” name. D’oh! (I ended up having to include my middle initial for my profile.)

Having a Google Profile also ensures you show up on the first page of the Google search results (albeit at the bottom) — an important consideration if you share a name with a famous person (i.e. Liz Taylor) who hogs the first and even second page search results.

If you do share a name with someone famous, do what David Meerman Scott does and use your middle name or your middle initial to set you apart. (And don’t forget to buy the URL of this version of your name.)

3. Use the same name across all social media

I’ve noticed some consultants will use a Twitter screen name that describes their services. While doing this tells people what you do, it doesn’t tell them who you are — and I don’t know about you, but I remember people by name, not by job function.

To help people remember your name and to connect the dots across social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, use the same name everywhere.

And, don’t forget to use your name when commenting on business blogs, too.

(Quick tip: When developing your Twitter profile, add your first and last name to your Profile under “Settings.” This makes it easy to find you via Twitter’s “People Search” function.)

4. Become an expert

I read somewhere that expert status isn’t bestowed on you, you have to claim it for yourself.

To become an expert, learn about a niche or specific aspect of your industry. If your target audience is lawyers, for example, learn everything you can about them, and then become the go-to person who knows everything and anything about lawyers and marketing, lawyers and HR, lawyers and building a practice — whatever it is that you do for lawyers.

How do you learn? Read. Everything.

My good buddy Mac McIntosh once said that you can become an expert in five years if you read one hour a day on your chosen topic. You can cut that time in half by reading two hours a day.

I repeated this advice to my other good friend, Tom Ahern, a few years ago, and he’s now one of the top fundraising consultants in the U.S.

(You can listen to his success story by downloading my podcast interview of him.)

5. Talk about your expertise

Write e-newsletters about your topic, publish articles on other sites, start a blog, speak at conferences and develop how-to guides and white papers.

Consider publishing an e-book that addresses an industry challenge or that takes a contrarian point of view — or do as my client, Dora Vell, CEO of Vell Executive Search did: publish your own data that the press then writes about.

Once you get your name out there, people will associate it with your area of expertise, making you the expert — which then translates into more links to your site, and if you’re a consultant or business, more sales.

You can do lots of other things to build your online brand. Please feel free to share your particular strategy.

I’ve been working on a complete Website overhaul for a dentist and noted, while cruising around the Internet, that many dentists across the U.S. use templated or “out of the box” Websites.

For busy dentists, these types of Websites make sense: you get a template with all the pages you need and you simply plug in your content via a content management system (CMS). The CMS even shows you where to add in your name and local keywords, such as the towns from which your patients come in order to help with local search.

The danger with these sites, however, is that they come with “hidden” code. Because the dentist has no clue about HTML or SEO, they don’t know that their source code is filled with stuff like this (name changed to protect the scumbag company):

Copyright 2009 Scumbag, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This software, source code, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and all other content and code is copyrighted
by Scumbag, Inc. and may NOT be copied, reproduced, translated, reverse engineered, reduced to
any electronic medium or machine-readable form without the prior written consent of Scumbag, Inc.,
except that you may use it according to our Terms of Use agreement. Terms of Use may be
modified at anytime, and you agree to be bound by such modifications.

As small business owners find, much to their dismay, the scumbag company could construe these terms to say they own your site and your content. Afterall, the copyright is there in the code.

According to my Web designer, Jim Somers at Sonora DesignWorks, he gets calls all the time from companies that learn they don’t even own their own domain names because they went with a Web marketing company offering a “turnkey Website solution.”

In addition to the above copy found in one dentist’s source code, I also found that the scumbag company also included links back to its site via the image alt tags. Nice — for the scumbag company!

Key takeaway for small businesses: You get what you pay for. If you have no clue about Website design, SEO, online marketing or anything else, get help. Don’t settle for the cheapest alternative or a DIY site. You’ll end up paying much more than if you had simply went the professional route the first time around.