Copyright 2003, The Write Exposure

Newsletters are magical things--they can attract customers, increase company profits, establish expertise and much more. But, did you know they can also help you increase your search engine rankings?

Your newsletter can help your search engine ranking by specifically focusing on your keyword phrases. Perhaps easiest way to keep each issue of your newsletter relevant to your keyword phrases is to make a list of phrases you target and brainstorm article ideas for each phrase. Then, as you write each article from your list, try to incorporate keyword phrase into title of article, and, of course, use it regularly throughout your article (caution: don't overdo it or your article will be awkward to read).

By posting archives of your newsletter on your website, you'll be keeping each targeted issue available to search engine spiders. If you archive issues by subject (using your keyword phrases, of course) instead of date, they're likely to help your rankings even more. Also, when archiving issues, make sure you use a standard HTML link (instead of JavaScript) to help search engines catalog each issue.

1. Stick to big names: The two largest directories: Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com) and Open Project Directory (http://www.dmoz.org), and two largest search engines: Google (http://www.google.com ) and Inktomi (used by MSN search (http://www.msn.com) and AOL (http://www.aol.com)) are likely to deliver 80% of your traffic, so concentrate on those and don't spend too much time on anybody else.

2. Yahoo and Open Project Directory are administered by humans, so an editor will inspect your site before it's added. They receive so many submissions that it can literally take months before your site is reviewed, and nothing (not even paid subscriptions) guarantees that it will be listed. It's worth to keep trying, though, so check back every month or so and, if your site isn't listed, submit it again.

3. Google and Inktomi are robots (software programs) that "crawl" (find and read) millions of sites on web, and add them to their index. That's why it is not absolutely necessary to manually submit your site to a search engine, since they may find your site and add it automatically when they find a link to your site on another page.

4. You don't need to submit all pages on your site. Once search engine finds your main page (homepage), it will find other ones by following links. To improve chances of your secondary pages being found, create a link called ‘site map' in your homepage, and have it point to a page that is nothing but a collection of links to all pages on your site. This way, search engine will follow link and "suck in" all your pages. Try putting this link as close to top of your homepage as possible, since it will have a better chance of being picked up by search engine.