How to Create the Perfect Online Newletter for Your Website

Quite often the newsletter is an overlooked business tool. Many online businesses seem to consider a newsletter to be a waste of time and effort. The majority see a blog, to accompany the website and a presence on the social networks as sufficient.

A newsletter can be much more personal and reach out to your most valued customers or followers. It can almost be seen as a format in which to give something back to anyone who shows an interest in your business. A well structured and laid out newsletter is quite likely to be read, after all visitors to your site will of had to subscribe to your newsletter before they can receive it.

When creating your newsletter, try and get inside the mind of your typical subscriber. What message does your website give out that would have made them want to follow your newsletter? Try and write for the audience and be careful not to create a newsletter that is predominantly sales and marketing orientated.

Consider these points of interest before you create your first newsletter:

• Keep it Short and sweet. No one has time to trawl through a 20 page epic! Remember the importance of Quality not quantity.

• Create your newsletter in PDF format and simply provide a link within an email. Basic html format within an email is less likely to be seen a spam.

• Store your collection of PDF newsletters on your website, close to the root folder. This technique will mean that search engine spiders are more likely to crawl your content.

• Create your PDF’s using a text based program such as Microsoft word. This will make sure your newsletters are easy to crawl.

• Always be on the lookout for contributors. Check out LinkedIn and other industry specific forums to find writers. If you can manage to find regular contributors it means less leg work for you. Offer to write for others in return.

• Try and have a focused theme for each newsletter. This will make the content creation process easier.

• Stick to a clear and easy to read format. Fancy graphics and backgrounds may look nice but as far as a newsletter is concerned, let your content do the talking.

• Always provide plenty of resources leading back to your online assets. Links to your website, blog and other relevant sites for additional reading.

• Try and be as helpful as possible. Consider the following formats: Tip of the week, Top 10, Best and Worst, 3 ways to…,before and after (problem and solution) or simply a checklist format.

• Try and provide as much engagement with your readers as possible, it looks good and will set you up for future content ideas.

The above ideas should help you get a decent plan in place to how best proceed with your newsletter. Above all of these points, try and enjoy the process of creation and your enthusiasm will show within your content.