Newsletter Writer Tips: Setting Up Your Newsletter Listing

Tips for Newsletter Writers on Setting Up Your Listing

Hello Writers, here are some details and tips to help you optimize your newsletter listing so you can be more easily found in searches and increase your subscriber conversion.

1. NEWSLETTER NAME... include your own name

If your own name isn’t already in the title of your newsletter, then many writers do include their own name in the newsletter name field, like “Developing Views, by Jessica Webster”. This just helps readers to find or identify your newsletter even faster.

2. SUMMARY DESCRIPTION...super important 

The summary description is limited to 250 characters, so make them count.  This little blurb is what displays in the list of search results; you’ll want to highlight whatever is most important for future readers to know. Also, what you put in the summary is “indexed” for our search algorithm, so if there are any key terms you think people will search for which should pull up your newsletter, either make sure that they’re in here or that they are in your keywords (which are also part of what is searched. 

3. LONG DESCRIPTION... explain and pitch

This just allows you more space to tell people more about your newsletter, what is unique about it, what value people get out of it, and why they should subscribe. You can be both informative and salesy. It can flow directly from the summary, so you can think of it as just an extension of the summary if that’s helpful.

4. KEYWORDS for the search... use wisely

You may select up to 10 keywords that best represent your newsletter. You can always update them if you think of better ones in the future. These, along with the summary description and the name, will be indexed. **Be SURE** that your name shows up in at least one of these locations so your newsletter will show up if someone searches for your name. If the publisher is different than the name of your newsletter or different than your name, we also recommend having the publisher as a keyword as well.

5. EMAIL... you can ignore

There must be an email address (long story). You can change it from the one that is there or leave it be; it’s irrelevant because email is never sent to it and it is not visible to anyone. Emails from narrowSCALE are only sent to the email listed on your ACCOUNT, not on the newsletter page. 

6. URL... give people a place to go for more

We recommend that you post a URL that would take people to where they can learn more about your newsletter.

7. ADDRESS... you can ignore

You’re welcome to input the information, but it does not get posted anywhere for the public to see.

8. ADDITIONAL FIELDS... filling these out makes it easy for readers to skim

With all of the additional detail fields (ex: when your newsletter is sent out, the average length, if there is a paid subscription, more about the writer, etc), you have a great opportunity to give more details to your potential readers and increase your legitimacy. Even if you covered these details in the summary or long description above, readers may miss what’s in a block of text. The “structured” data style of the additional fields ensures that this important information stands out clearly when readers skim.

9. WRITER(S)... handling multiple writers

We recommend that if you have multiple people that write the newsletter, you either write out all of their names or you could just write “Various” if there isn’t a limited set.

10. SEO SECTION... can only help, when you have a moment

Generally SEO seems a little overwhelming. You can set it up now or later -- don't stress. It's here to help you get found more easily when people search for things on the internet related to your newsletter. You are able to edit all of the SEO options at the bottom of the newsletter listing page.

- SEO Title: This often includes the name of the newsletter, writer(s), and sometimes publishers. You may choose to include the topic or industry as well.

- The Page Name: General rule of thumb is leave it alone.  If you change this, it will change the actual URL that people use to find your listing. If you've sent out any emails to subscribers asking them to review your newsletter DO NOT CHANGE the Page Name or it will break their old link.  Unless there's strong reason to change it, we recommend just leaving it be. 

- SEO Keywords: You can add in whichever keywords you think are important for SEO. If nothing else, add in the key words you created above for the site search and also the categories. You can add meta keywords by separating them with commas.

- SEO Description: It's worth add a keyword-rich meta description of your listing page -- at a bare minimum, throw in the 250 word summary from above if your brain is exploding or you don't have time for anything else for now. Something is better than nothing. Nice work. 

You've got this.

And if you're curious about anything else, we're here for you: support@narrowscale.com.