If you're new to the internet marketing club, you may have heard about "Ryze." What is that, you wonder? Ryze refers to the Ryze Business Network at http://Ryze.com.

Ryze is where entrepreneurs, marketing professionals and webby types go to meet other marketers, share stories, swap trade secrets and basically form their professional support network.

The Ryze Network is driven by keywords, although you can tell by 70% of the member profiles, that this hasn't occurred to them. Once you begin Ryzing and riding the links that connect one person to another via location, interest, mutual friend or occupation, you may notice that Ryze is like a mini model of the net itself. One link to another. That's Ryze in a nutshell.

When you sign up to become a Ryze member, you will immediately receive your own Ryze "home" page. Add your name, contact info, interests, company name and other affiliations. All of it's hyperlinked, you'll notice. That's why keywords bring the most traffic to your page. So it makes sense to be uncreative with your profile description, and choose words that are common in their category which will "hook you up" with other people who have chosen the same words.

After you set up your Ryze page just the way you like it, you may notice that no one has come by to visit you except maybe the head of Ryze. Why is this? It's because no one knows you're there yet. Much like real life, Ryze requires you to "step out and get noticed." You will do this by opening up your availability for other Ryzers to communicate with you, and by joining networks where people will see your name.

To set your contact options, go to the preferences screen on the LEFT, and set them so that anyone can contact you. Other Ryze members will be able to communicate with you in 2 ways:

1. Private messaging you (it's like having a Ryze email box).
2. Signing your guestbook (somewhat useless but a good way to see who Ryzed by your page).

Now, for anyone to notice you, you must snazz up your Ryze home page and join networks. There are thousands of networks. You can explore them by clicking the NETWORKS TAB at the top of your screen.

Let's say you're a web designer. Some networks you might want to join might be (I'm making these up): Web Design 101, The Internet Connection, Web Heads... so on and so forth.

Once you join networks you can see which other Ryzers belong to the same ones as you. When you click on someone's hyperlinked Ryze Member Name, you get transported to their Ryze Page. There, you can read all about them and maybe put out a friendly invitation to connect if you like what you see.

Lots of folks just meander around and "Ryze by" other people's pages in a seemingly pointless way. This can be aggravating for at least half the time... but again, it's a lot like real life with its aimlessness and pandemonium. The other half of the time, you'll feel very grateful for the network. There are many, many intelligent people there from all over the world, with good ideas and friendly advice to help solve the new web marketer's every conundrum.

Ryze is free to sign up and about $10 a month to add some images and copy to your Ryze page and also start up your own network. When you get there you may be a bit shocked by the "otherworldiness" of Ryze, but I assure you it's worth the money.

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.