Almost every week, one publisher or another tells me, “We’re going to start charging soon for our newspaper’s Web site,” or “We’re going to start requiring registration on our Web site.”

I always ask the obvious question: “Why?”

Invariably, I get the same lame answer publishers gave a few years ago when they started Web sites: “Because we have to.” Or, “Because everyone else is doing it.” Or, “Because we should.”

There’s very little business logic in their thinking. No strategic planning, long-term view or even short-term practicality.

After I ask those publishers “Why?” the conversation usually goes like this: “Are you having any success selling online advertising?” I ask.

“No.”

“Are you trying?”

“Well, no, not really.”

If I had a buck for each time I’ve had that conversation, I’d retire early.

You can’t sell what you don’t try to sell. That’s the main reason I see for so much frustration with newspaper Web revenue. The paper’s not trying. In fact, it’s even afraid of success online, fearing such success will come at the expense of its more important medium, the print edition. Thus the Web effort (such as it is) fails because deep down, the newspaper wants it to fail.

Higher margins

But the Internet is here to stay, and it’s reaching entirely new audiences - audiences that are still growing, learning, and finding their favorite and most-valued information sources. Newspapers have to learn, too, how to serve these audiences.

Registration and paid-access-only are two interesting ideas for online newspaper profitability. One works. The other doesn’t - at least not yet.

A newspaper’s Web site should be a profitable endeavor, like most other services a newspaper offers. No one believes newspapers should provide sites for free as an altruistic gesture. Likewise, the concept that a Web site should be merely a promotional tool - as so many TV station Web sites still are - has happily been largely discarded, for good reason.

In other words, newspaper sites should make money; in fact, on many products, their margins should be higher than the print edition’s because their production and delivery costs are much lower.

So the question becomes not whether, but how, to make money.

No one has yet shown me a general-interest newspaper, anywhere, that is even remotely successful with a paid-access site. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are successful with paid services, but they’re specialized, high-value publications with direct ties to users’ financial fortunes. They’re not the Local Bugle or the Regional Gazette.

Still valuable

Let’s acknowledge, too, that the Local Bugle and the Regional Gazette offer very valuable content (especially unique local content, like obituaries and school news). They ought be concerned with making money, and have reason to fear cannibalization - where paying subscribers stop paying for something they receive online for free. So charging for online access may sound promising to a publisher who hasn’t yet made any appreciable money with his Web site.

Sounds good, but no one’s made it work yet. One of the most robust paid general-interest local newspaper sites I’ve reviewed generates about $100,000 annually in subscription revenue - annual, monthly and day passes.

Yet many equivalent papers with advertising-supported Web sites generate $1 million or more annually in online revenue, which the paid site has essentially locked out.

Indeed, you can sell advertising on a paid site. But those opportunities are much more limited and the audience much smaller than if the online newspaper remained open to all and the company made a sustained, business-focused effort to sell appropriate online advertising: automotive, employment, real estate, personals, even retail display and branding (banner) advertising.

Registration smarter step

Registration is a much smarter step toward profitability. It offers more immediate benefits than paid access and can help publishers generate revenue faster. Learning about your audience is essential to the ability to sell that audience to advertisers. Learning where your Web users come from, how often they visit, what they use, what they want more of are all essential to making your Web site a real business.

If you’re going to ask users to register, keep these two things in mind: First, make it easy. Gather only basic information you need, make sure you tell users what you plan to do with it, and explain why they should respond to your request.

Second, don’t just gather random information - use it. Make sure you have a plan for managing the data; matching it with your print subscription database; slicing and dicing it to use in ad sales, and generating additional revenue from it. If you do that, and actually sell what you’re offering online, you’ll probably be making enough money that the idea of paid subscriptions becomes moot.