Online Publishing

A story of health, wellness and success
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And how it may better the marketing industry’s reputation
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Convert a Content Management System into a state-of-the-art Content Marketing System without spending a dime on software. … Continue Reading »

7 strategies for content marketers
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We have found that many in the publishing industry today don’t want to be labeled “a publisher”. Having spent over 30 years in the publishing industry, Don Nicholas, our editor-in-chief, wants us to clear up any misgivings or misconceptions about this label. … Continue Reading »

This webinar will teach you all the PR and link building tips you’ll need
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Increase visibility without spending extra time and money
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Two online publishers are added to the Mequoda Hall of Fame, recognizing their achievement in the advancement of successful online publishing and marketing best practices … Continue Reading »

Have you brought your online publishing business to terms with the fact that you are not alone in this digital ecosystem?
Have you also pondered whether everyone else is adapting more easily than you are?
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This week we’ve been at the Mequoda Summit in Boston, and covering it live just for you!
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“The only things more important than your brand are your customers, your ‘passionistas’”, noted Don Nicholas in this session on Digital Brand Strategy.
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Kim Mateus of Mequoda Group shows attendees how to write a rapid conversion landing page for free reports
Kim Mateus, Senior Partner here at the Mequoda Group led this session on keyword research and how to create landing pages using that keyword research.

Here are the steps that Mateus gave for writing a landing page that supports a free special report:

Choose the source and the voice – Who is it coming from?
Write the deck
Write the headline
Write the subhead
Address the audience
Write the lead
Transform your report into paragraphs
Write the order form copy that asks for the email address
Write the close

“Essentially what you’re doing when you’re writing your landing page, is excerpting the book that you’re promoting. You can excerpt paragraphs from the report and use them in the landing page,” Mateus told the audience.

Mateus also noted that Mequoda’s most popular white paper, that has the best search engine penetration and attracts the most traffic is 12 Master Landing Page Templates.

She divulged that the reason we named it with the word “templates” and not just 12 Master Landing Pages was because once we did the keyword research, it turned out that tons of people were searching for the keyword “landing page templates” and there were very few pages in Google that addressed that keyword phrase, which gave us a sweet spot to target.

On the landing page for that report, the keyword density is between 2-4%, five asks for the persons email, and 1610 words. In eye-tracking studies, we’ve found that almost no one looks below the fold so it’s key to put your first ask for an email above the fold. … Continue Reading »

David Pyle of Interweave explains their approach to taking their most passionate beaders, artists and knitters and turning them into “passionistas” for his brands
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“It’s about learning who you can partner with in your space, before your other competitors beat you to it,” Don Nicholas notes in this session about conducting an Online Market Analysis
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Take-away #1: Build your online audience and your subscription sales will follow … Continue Reading »

Discover how to meet the challenges of 21st century online publishing with real-world, hands-on skills using free or low-cost software tools and reports.
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A sneak peak at some Q&A from the Mequoda Pro forum on search engine optimization and digital product development.

“Ask questions and receive detailed answers from Don Nicholas and the Mequoda Pro Research Team.”

That’s one of the big promises we made when we launched our online training library, Mequoda Pro membership earlier this year.

We don’t typically go ahead and divulge what’s “behind the wall” so to speak, but we’ve gotten quite a few really good questions lately and I wanted to share a couple with you, our fine Mequoda Daily folks.
Question on our Digital Product Development seminar:

I am coming from a traditional print business. We’ve published a monthly newsletter for over 20 years and occasionally pull together books and miscellaneous items. How do I inspire my print staff to adapt to the digital world and start coming up with more innovative ideas to create with our brand and expertise?
Mequoda Pro Answer:
In order to build a well-oiled machine, you may need to convince your existing print staff that these things are now part of their job description.
Try holding an impromptu content development meeting with your staff.

First, start simple with an existing product. Hold it up. Ask your room full of smart and talented people to think of ways you can turn this single product into other products quickly and cheaply.
Second, give your people some pride and let them take responsibility for their ideas. If someone pitches a great idea, tell them that they are now the lead on this project and ask them to research the associated costs for production (if there are any) and how much time is required of other staff members to get this done. People work better and more diligently when they “own” an idea or a project.
Third, pitch some new ideas. Do a group brainstorm that starts with a topic. It might be your lead topic, or a subject you haven’t yet started building on. Take that topic and ask your staff to explore the content and products that can be created from this single idea. Our topic is roses, how many rose products can we create?

Handing over control to your team gives them incentive to be creative and take ownership of their ideas. Inspire them to think out of the box!
Question on our Search Engine Optimization seminar:
What’s the SEO best practice for labeling images?
Mequoda Pro Answer:

Web-crawling spiders can’t read images, so it’s essential to create alternative text tags (“ALT text”); these also will appear when mousing over the image.The best practice is to name the image with the keyword you are targeting in the article. If your keyword phrase is “growing roses indoors”, you could name the image “growing-roses-indoors.jpg.”

Additionally, give the image an ALT description tag that includes your keywords phrase.

Example:
<img src=” growing-roses-indoors.jpg” alt=”Growing Roses Indoors”>

Join Mequoda Pro today and get your questions answered by the Mequoda Team. You’ll get access to over a dozen on-demand seminars and archived webinars, plus downloadable tools like the Google Visibility Report, which is our exclusive Excel spreadsheet template for monitoring and targeting your SEO keywords. … Continue Reading »

Pack your brain with online publishing and marketing smarts. 14 seats left. 5 days left to save. Register… now!
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Nine new speakers and five bonus sessions announced for the Mequoda Summit Boston 2009 … Continue Reading »

Learn proven strategies to maximize profitability when you register for our webinar tomorrow that covers the ins-and-outs of creating audio conferences and webinars
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Have you been thinking about starting a webinar or audio conference program, but aren’t sure where to begin, or which format is right for your audience? … Continue Reading »

Audio conferences, web conferences, webinars, video conferences, and on-demand playback, oh my!
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Come to Mequoda’s Online Publishing and Content Marketing Summit to discover the possibilities of an effective online publishing system when you model after publishers who are doing it right
If you’ve been thinking about the Mequoda Summit, or looking for the one conference you should attend this year that will ultimately prepare you for 2010, this is the last week to register for the Mequoda Summit at our most discounted rate.
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Webinars now available on-demand in Mequoda Pro, our training library for online publishers and marketers … Continue Reading »

Is converting to online publishing a good excuse or good business model?

Are the days of old really gone, no more morning paper and cup a joe? Will all print publications convert to online subscriptions and RSS feeds? Well, if they haven’t started maybe they should.

In the last year, over 400 traditional newspapers, such as the 150 year old the Rocky Mountain News, and magazines, like Vibe, have stopped their print publications all together. As traditional print seems to be disappearing rapidly, can converting to online publishing and calling “going green” be the answer? … Continue Reading »

We travel dozens, hundreds, or thousands of miles to network, collaborate and build better online publishing businesses
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A frank and earnest question from a respected colleague challenges us to create a new online document
Introducing the Mequoda Best Practice Guidelines, soon available to all Mequoda Summit 2009 attendees, Mequoda Pro Members and Mequoda Consulting Clients … Continue Reading »

A valuable conference should reach three goals: #1 great sessions, #2 great take-aways and #3 great attendees.
We’ve got #1 and #2 covered, come to the Mequoda Summit and be a part of #3!
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Take the Mequoda Reader Survey and let us know what topics most interest you
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Grooming and training your online business team to encourage great ideas and follow through with new digital product development … Continue Reading »

Ten free whitepapers for turning your print publishing company into a successful online publishing company
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All information products will be digital by the year 2025.
Warning: Your staff will need to acquire new skills to create these new digital products
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Seven reasons why all your new information products should be digital
It’s imperative that you begin now to create the digital products that will eventually replace your physical products
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Google’s Andrew Madden talks about how they are becoming more and more invested in working with online publishers and becoming content distribution partners
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Six best of the best new product development ideas in online publishing shared by publishers
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PON.Harvard.edu, an educational publisher, relaunches their site with the goal of becoming a true online publishing resource for people interested in negotiation
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Don Peschke, founder of August Home Publishing, discusses how his company is meeting its mission of “surrounding our customers with service” … Continue Reading »

VidaySalud.com, a Spanish-language public health initiative from La Doctora Aliza, launches with a mission to inform the Hispanic community and enhance the relationships between Latino patients and their physicians … Continue Reading »

Three paths to an online market audit of your online publishing niche
What should you do when you realize you don’t have the resources to go “multiplatform” in all your markets?
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Do you have the online publishing resources to go “multiplatform” in all your markets?
There’s a realignment happening in the publishing world. Even the largest publishers, with the deepest pockets, realize they must focus, consolidate and specialize.
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Titling, categorization and tagging rules for online publishing with Wordpress blogs

When publishers pull apart their archived content and start putting it up on their blog, they have a variety of style options to choose from when posting.
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How does a book make our list of “Top 20 Online Publishing Books”?

Over the past couple of months, we’ve been busily scouring Amazon.com for books on the topic of online publishing. There are 5,000+ books on Amazon that one could read to better their online publishing business. … Continue Reading »

Online Publishing 101: Creating and selling blockbuster digital white papers, special reports and handbooks is a core skill for many successful online publishing companies. With low production costs, no inventory and higher price points, these digital downloads are a key product strategy. … Continue Reading »

Magazine publishers discuss how they’re going to save their brands through online publishing

This week I was in Chicago attending and presenting at the FOLIO: Growth Summit.

“It’s not enough to make drastic cuts and then hunker down,” said Tony Silber, general manager of FOLIO:. “You need to be taking the initiative, looking at doing the things you do better, looking at doing new things. That’s what this year’s FOLIO: Growth Summit is all about.”

And that it was. … Continue Reading »

Uncommon sense about when to link and how much to quote

Protecting intellectual property is every publisher’s responsibility

There is a firestorm of controversy growing over how much content can be excerpted from one website and used on another. … Continue Reading »

What it means to be content-driven, Google-friendly, email-centric and profit-minded.

What are the characteristics that publishers and marketers should think about when designing their online business? In our view of the online world, there are four primary traits that all successful online publishers have in common. … Continue Reading »

Panelists share digital revenue percentages and thoughts on how they might increase those in the coming months and years

For The Knot, digital has always been their center. It represents 80% of their total revenue and 50% of that is ads (30% national and 20% local).

“We’ve always been in start-up mode and have always learned how to make the best product at the lowest price tag,” said Carley Roney, Co-Found & Editor-in-Chief, The Knot, Inc. … Continue Reading »

Editors gather for a candid discussion about what’s working online and what isn’t

Jacob Weisberg, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief of The Slate Group, opened this session by asking: Why aren’t magazines better online? And how can we turn it around? … Continue Reading »

Google’s Analytics Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, tells magazine publishers why some of their sites “suck” and what kind of thinking is required to fix them … Continue Reading »

How to write a white paper that dazzles the socks off of any first-grader

There’s something about writing complimentary products that get publishers all in a tizzy. Should it be repurposed content? Should it come from the blog? Should some of it be new? Should it come from your paid products? Yes, yes, yes and yes. … Continue Reading »