Getting your newsletter into search engines. (Online Publishing).

We at Internet Production Inc. make software that newsletter publishers use to create their websites. Since 1994, we have helped create more than 50 publications' websites. In doing this, we began to develop practices that got our publishers' sites listed in search engines.

What is so important about getting in search engines? You want people to subscribe to your newsletter, don't you? When they are looking for some information on "employment law," for example, M. Lee Smith Publishers wants them to find articles from their newsletters; and when they go to Yahoo.com and search for "office management," David Foster wants them to find content from IOMA.

If they find your article through a search engine, the link should give them a summary. Because your editorial is so good, they will then subscribe to get the complete article.

Two simple search engine rules

We made some observations years ago that helped cause the stories from our customers' sites to get picked up by search engines. There are two simple rules:

1. Put your stories in static HTML pages.

2. Put the title of the story in the HTML<TITLE> tags.

Until recently, I could not support these observations with any research. I recently, however, reviewed "Unfair Advantage Book on Winning the Search Engine Wars," published by Planet Ocean Communications. The people at Planet Ocean do ongoing research about search engine behavior. They came to the same two conclusions.

Static vs. dynamic pages

Let me explain these two points. Sometimes the techie in me jumps to techno-speak without realizing it. What is a static page? Open up your browser and go to your publication's home page. Pick a link that goes to a story. Look at the URL, the address of the story. Does it end in .htm or .html? If it does, you have a static page.

If you have something that looks like article.cfm?id=2000, or something even longer, like (?command=search&db=dArticle. db&eqheadlinedata=Like%20a%20 Tree%20Standing%By%20the% Water), then you have a dynamic page.

When a search engine like Yahoo.com or Google.com comes to index your site, it uses a simple process that begins on your home page. The process goes like this: Read the page, index the content. Each time it finds a link to another page, it puts it in a list. It repeats this process for each page that it finds. When a page is indexed, it is stored with its title and the URL of the page.

Search engines will not read pages that are dynamic. They read only pages that are static. If your entire site is managed by a system that uses dynamic pages, none of your content is being indexed.

Your IT people will tell you that a dynamic system is better "technology" because it is database driven, object oriented, and flexible. Translation: expensive, complicated, and slow.

Next let's look at HTML <TITLE> tags. Are you still on your article page? Look at the very top of your screen. There will most likely be a blue bar that contains some text. The text is the title of the HTML page. This is the title that Yahoo and Google will pick up when they come to call. This should contain the title of the story. It is even better if it has the title and some key words from the story.

What about "meta tags"? Everyone says that meta tags are the most important thing relating to search engines. They should be, but there is this issue of volume. Let's say you were given the task of indexing one zillion stories a night. Would you take the time to read the entire article? No! Would you take the time to read the summary? No! You would index them based on titles. If the article is well written, the title should have the main point.

That is exactly what Planet Ocean said. The most common thing to get indexed on the page is the HTML title. Who cares if you understand techno-speak? Tell your techies to put the story title in the following HTML tags: <TITLE>The Story Title</TITLE>. Do that and you will be light years ahead.

To see a good example of this, go to Yahoo.com and put in the search term "galley pumps." The first reference that comes up is an article from a paid-access news-letter; Practical Sailor. You must subscribe to read the complete article. Since implementing this methodology, internet orders are now the largest source of new print subsriptions for Practical Sailor.

Stephen Laliberte is president of internet Production Inc., a software publisher specializing in web publishing solutions for publishers. Steve began his publishing career at McGraw-Hill, and he has been involved with online information services since 1997. He has implemented mare than 30 web publishing systems which host more than 50 titles. [e-mail]

Planet Ocean Communications can be reached at www.searchengine-news. Cam