Publish past issues as ordinary pages on your own website, edited into one topic per page with plain titles. They can then be found in search, and they show new visitors what signing up would bring.

Written once, read once

A monthly newsletter takes most of a day: choosing the topics, writing them, finding photographs, testing the layout, and sending it to the list.

Some subscribers read it that week. A few keep it. Then it sits in the email service's sent folder, finished and unseen.

Yet it often holds the most useful writing the business produces all year: seasonal advice, answers to common questions, stories from real jobs.

None of that is on the website, where people searching for exactly those answers might find it.

What an archive does

The second does the most for the list itself. A sign-up box that says join our newsletter asks for trust; three past issues beside it earn it.

A page, not a PDF

The tempting shortcut is a page of links to the copies the email service hosts, or a PDF of each issue.

Both keep the content off your site. A hosted copy sits on the email service's web address, so whatever it earns in search goes there rather than to you.

A PDF is awkward on a phone, rarely links to anything, and has no menu or sign-up box around it.

An ordinary page on your own site, in its design, with your menu and contact details around it, is the version worth making.

Editing an issue into a page

An email pasted straight into a page reads like an email. A short edit turns it into something that stands on its own.

Remove the greeting, the personalised first name, the view-in-browser line and the unsubscribe footer.

Remove anything that only made sense on the day it was sent: that weekend's hours, a reminder about a deadline that has passed, an event that is over.

Then read it as a stranger arriving from a search would, and add the context they need.

One topic per page

Most newsletters cover three or four things. As a web page, that becomes a page about nothing in particular.

Split each issue so every useful piece becomes its own page, with its own title. A short news item that cannot stand alone can simply be left out.

Each page should then link to the service it relates to, since somebody who has just read about a problem is close to asking for help with it.

A worked example

A kite shop in a beach town has sent a monthly email for four years. Each one explains a single topic: choosing a first kite, flying safely on a busy beach, patching a torn sail.

Forty-odd issues sat in the email service. The website had the shop's hours, the brands it stocks and a contact form.

The owners went through the archive and found about twenty pieces that were still accurate, or could be made accurate with an hour's work each.

Each became a page with a plain title naming the question, a line at the end linking to the kites it mentioned, and a sign-up box.

Issues tied to one season's sales and events were left out. New issues now go on the site the same week they are sent, so the archive grows without a separate project.

Titles that say what the page is

Subject lines are written to be opened: a teaser, a pun, a question. On a web page, the title has a different job.

Somebody searching types the question they have. A page titled May tips will not be found; a page titled which kite suits a beginner might be.

Rewrite each title to name the subject in the words a customer would use, and leave the clever version in the email.

Dates and expired details

Show the date each page was first published, so readers can judge how current it is.

Where a fact changes from year to year, such as a rate, a deadline or a price, either update the page when it changes or describe how to check it instead of quoting it.

Never republish a subscriber offer. An expired discount found through search produces an awkward conversation at the counter and nothing else.

The sign-up box beside every issue

Each archive page is a sample, so the sign-up box belongs on it: at the end of the article, not in a pop-up over the top of it.

Say what subscribers get and how often, in one sentence. Monthly, one topic, no sales pitch is a more convincing promise than stay in the loop.

The form still needs what Canada's anti-spam law expects: an active choice to subscribe, the business clearly named, and a note that people can unsubscribe at any time.

Links, tracking and names

Links copied from a sent newsletter often carry tracking codes added by the email service, or pass through its click-counting address first.

Left on a web page, they make Analytics report visits from your own pages as newsletter traffic. Replace them with plain links.

Check for customer names too. A story that named a client in an email to subscribers may need fresh permission before it is public.

Where it sits on the site

The pages work best as an ordinary section of the site, called something a visitor understands, such as advice or articles, rather than newsletter archive.

List them newest first, grouped by topic once there are more than a dozen or so. A visitor looking for one answer should not have to scroll through four years of issues.

The counter-case

Not every newsletter suits an archive.

One made mostly of sale announcements and short reminders has little that outlasts the week, and publishing it adds pages nobody needs.

Some businesses make the newsletter itself the reward, with material only subscribers receive. They can still publish a few sample issues and keep the rest for the list.

Where the writing is useful beyond the week it was sent, though, publish it on your own site and let it keep working.

This month

  1. Export the past issues from the email service.
  2. Pick the ones still worth reading.
  3. Split each issue into single topics.
  4. Write plain titles that name the question.
  5. Remove expired details and tracking links.
  6. Add a sign-up box to every page.
  7. Publish new issues the week they go out.

Step four decides whether anybody finds the pages, because a title written to be opened in an inbox is rarely what anyone types into a search box.

Whether the list itself needs asking again is covered in re-permission emails and the Canadian list.

Frequently asked questions

Why publish old newsletters on the website?

Because they often hold the most useful writing the business produces. On your own site it can be found in search, linked by staff and read by prospective subscribers.

Is a PDF or hosted copy enough?

No. A hosted copy sits on the email service's address, so any search value goes there, and a PDF is awkward on phones with no menu or sign-up box.

What should be removed before publishing?

The greeting and first-name field, the view-in-browser and unsubscribe lines, expired offers and dates, tracking codes in links, and customer names used without permission.

Should each issue become one page?

Usually not. Split an issue into its separate topics so each becomes a page with its own plain title, and leave out short items that cannot stand alone.

What title should an archive page have?

One that names the subject in the words a customer would type. Subject lines are written to be opened, which rarely matches what anybody searches for.

Where does the sign-up box go?

At the end of each archive page, with one sentence saying what subscribers get and how often. The page itself is the sample that persuades them.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Four years of newsletters in a sent folder?

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