The "magic" of search engine optimization.

Sometime about 20+ years ago a publisher told me his bright young college student reporter told him that the "key to wealth and success" for them (they were covering Federal government research opportunities) was to "be sure we use the word 'satellite' at least twice in every story and get rich on LexisNexis searches."

This story returns to mind when I consider the question of search engine optimization. SEO sounds a bit like alchemy ... a magic formula that will bring your newsletter to the forefront of internet searches.

Setting out on an information search for the first time ever, I felt a kinship with Warren Buffet who, I understand, won't invest in any company if he doesn't understand what it does.

Looking for enlightenment, I found a couple of online sites that provided information. Search for Vaughn's 1-pagers and look under both Google and I got more information than I could easily assimilate about what to do and not do in the area of SEO.

And, as I suppose I should have expected, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies is not only already in print but in its second edition (May 2006). It's $15.74 new from Amazon.com.

PC Advisor gives it a nice brief review, but it is 406 pages which, without having seen it, sounded like a lot for this dummy.

SEO research

However, all this surfing and reading tells me that this old dog isn't going to master the arcane vocabulary--meta-tags, spiders, and so forth--overnight so I set out into the field to do some "research."

How are newsletter publishers doing? I thought of a dozen newsletters that have been featured in NL/NL profiles and asked a search question that I thought should or might lead me to their websites.

Result? Almost zero. I made a dozen. One of them was how to write speeches for your boss. I was aiming for Ragan Communications' Speechwriter's Newsletter. But a workshop for McMurry, which also publishes a newsletter on speeches, came up. Otherwise, bupkus. I was amazed that a question about building your cremation business didn't lead me to Funeral Service Insider, because when I was there I swear we wrote that story at least every 3rd issue.

Perhaps I wasn't asking the "right questions," but we're in trouble if we have to depend on prospects to know exactly how to seek info about our newsletters.

Maybe I was just being "too clever" so I went down the list again, this time simply putting in "newsletter for funeral directors" etc., and struck out again. Catnip from Tufts came up first on a search for "newsletter for cat owners." Otherwise, 0 for 11.

Ask the experts

At this point I was reminded of an anecdote told by newsletter industry legend I.F. Stone in which he commented, "I realized I needed to get myself an expert."

I found some suggestions from Jason Billingsley of Elastic Path Software [e-mail]. He writes about consumer products and has some relevant suggestions. Don't just say "Nautica Dockside sheets," or "Nautica Dockside yellow cotton waterbed sheets." A typical website product description might be "100 percent cotton, 300-thread count, cross-woven machine washable."

"People search similarly to how they speak," Billingsley says. He might suggest:

These winter white soft bedsheets will whisk you off to a comfortable dreamland every night. No other luxury bedding will make your bedroom as regal as the Queen Collection's 300-thread count, 100 percent cotton sheet set. The only trouble with a luxurious, warm and comfortable set of sheets like this is having to get out of your dream bed each morning.

"These words are more persuasive and contain sets of phrases shoppers are actually looking for: soft white bedsheets, luxury bedding, comfortable set of sheets, dream bed."

Which made me realize that while newsletter X might regularly cover A, if the stories weren't available on the website, asking that question wouldn't lead me to them. So funeral directors looking for tips to build cremation business will only find your site if you give the stuff away free on the web.

On the other hand, what the hell

After reading much about SEO, I see at the Search Engine Strategies Conference that one panel of "experts" recommended simply, "Write descriptive web copy and design simply for the consumer." It was also recommended to "avoid using technologies just to get a quick boost on search engines."