Designing Media Websites

Computerworld.com has overcome the hurdle of letting their print roots go … Continue Reading »

The Mequoda Website Scorecard encourages you to score your website on each of the 14 Mequoda Best Practice Guidelines, add them together and arrive at a cumulative score. The goal is to emphasize the importance of balanced, usable websites. Your website should achieve respectable scores in all areas, rather than over-emphasizing a single area or two or omitting other areas completely. … Continue Reading »

Website Design Reviews are written by the Mequoda Research Team, based on our Website Design Scorecard that features 14 website design guidelines, and focuses on the websites of today’s top publishers.

To create the 14 website design guidelines, we’ve reviewed hundreds of websites and interviewed dozens of website publishers. We’ve conducted a series of expert usability reviews and actual user tests to determine what we believe to be the top 14 best practices for successful website publishing. … Continue Reading »

Components you should have within your periodical website hub … Continue Reading »

One take-away from this in-depth session on landing pages and website conversion architecture, were all the different types of ads and placements that publishers can place on their site
“Email Conversion Rate (ECR) is a direct driver of email circulation,” said Don Nicholas, explaining the importance of collecting email addresses from multiple places on your website. “The better your conversion rate, and the more contextual opportunities you offer them to give you their email address, the larger your email list will become.”

Nicholas suggests building out as many Rapid Conversion Landing Pages as possible that offer free special reports. The more products you can give away in exchange for an email address, the broader of an audience you can attract.

Nicholas showed the audience different “conversion” ads you can use on your site:

OFIE (Order form in editorial): An OFIE is an embedded subscription form that appears on web pages either to order a product or service, or more likely to sign up for an email newsletter. This order form appears within editorial content on a website, most often found on Article Landing Pages. This is because it’s easier for a publisher to get more subscribers or sales by placing OFIE’s on a page that is most indexed by a search engine.

Example:

OFIN (Order form in navigation): These online order forms appear in the navigation panels of a website. The customer/end user fills them out to order a product or service or to sign up for an email newsletter. While they are usually smaller in size than OFIEs, an OFIN’s strategic intent is the same: to quickly capture your visitor’s name and email address in order to grant access to a free special report or a free copy of a magazine or newsletter. Some publishers may also simply offer a list of all their free reports, which is what we at Mequoda do.

FLOATERS: Named a floater because it appears to float onto a webpage. This was a method created in order to fight back against pop-up blockers. While it may look like a pop-up, a floater does not open in a separate window and therefore cannot be blocked or banned.

The floater order form is a tactic for increasing landing page conversion rates and may be used at nearly every entry point on a website, though it’s usually better to set a cookie to let the floater appear to the user only once upon entry to the site. Floaters on average have about an 8% conversion rate.

Example:

TEXT AD: An online advertisement block that uses text links, or text-based hyperlinks, without graphics. These are found within editorial content to sell a product or to point directly to a Rapid Conversion Landing Page that collects an email address.

Example:

Nicholas noted that “known users” shouldn’t receive these types of ads once they are logged in. You might substitute them for ads that promote paid products, or you might leave them out all together. … Continue Reading »

Create an all-inclusive tag/keyword/glossary page so that your website architecture gives Google one single arrow to follow … Continue Reading »

Keyword rankings and search optimization result from deliberate website architecture
The simple website architecture requirement that virtually guarantees your offer will be found and indexed highly by Google
… Continue Reading »

How to create an OFIE that effectively turns website visitors into email subscribers

We’re big fans of acronyms over here at Mequoda, and the conversion architecture element we affectionately call the OFIE is no exception. … Continue Reading »

Thirteen best practices to consider when testing the elements of your website landing pages.
… Continue Reading »

Website Design: 9 Items a User Should Immediately See On Your Blog when Designing Above the Fold

Twenty years ago, “above the fold” only referred to the upper half portion of a newspaper. Now, above the fold can be applied to many things, especially website design, and the first screen of content a user will see when they go to your URL. … Continue Reading »

Creating websites that convert visitors to subscribers is the heart and soul of Internet database marketing

Making money online requires converting your casual website visitors into paying subscribers or customers. That means you must take all the traffic coming to your website and start relationships with those visitors that will eventually result in product sales.

Landing pages are the driving force for any successful Internet marketing program. A well-crafted landing page will maximize the possibility that a user landing there will take the action you desire and not click away. … Continue Reading »

Google Website Optimizer tips from SiPA’s 25th Annual Mid-Year Marketing Conference: Gain. Market. Share. … Continue Reading »

Justin Custoni of EpikOne explains why Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics work hand in hand … Continue Reading »

Why do Compete, AWStats and Google Analytics all report different web analytics? … Continue Reading »

Popular blogger Darren Rowse shows how floaters increased the number of subscribers to his newsletter from 40 to over 350 per day. … Continue Reading »

Most users are now broadband users, and they expect your site to load in 4 seconds or less! … Continue Reading »

How to design landing pages that convert visitors into subscribers and buyers … Continue Reading »

HubSpot was recently recommended to us by a couple of our Twitter followers and has a free Website Redesign Kit we wanted to share with you. In the kit, there’s an e-book called Website Redesign for Marketing Results that lists these 7 website redesign tips. … Continue Reading »

Sheryl Sandberg explained why it’s important (now more than ever) to get your content out where your users already are. … Continue Reading »

Slow loading web pages can mean turning customers away from your landing pages and ultimately from buying yor products. … Continue Reading »

How Computerworld drives traffic from their print product and supplies enough content to satisfy both users and sponsors … Continue Reading »

Building or looking to improve a newsletter website? Learn these 8 best practices for building profitable newsletter website templates. … Continue Reading »

How are you recommending related products on your shopping cart that both offer a helpful service and increase revenue at the same time? … Continue Reading »

Learn the 12 Webpage Templates Used by Today’s Top Publishers to Convert and Monetize Website Traffic … Continue Reading »

Should your homepage design offer full-length articles to increase conversions, or use snippets to increase clicks? … Continue Reading »

Looking for niche keyword phrases to amplify your results in search engines? How about a name? … Continue Reading »

RCRWireless.com offers content repurposed on many new platforms, increases community involvement, and opens an archive of over 150,000 articles to the public with their redesign. … Continue Reading »

Using big margins, print fonts and optimizing for search … Continue Reading »

Telling users who you are and what you do with your tagline or welcome blurb front and center … Continue Reading »

If your users are Hansel and Gretel, then your website is the woods, and your navigation is their breadcrumb … Continue Reading »

The web is quickly becoming an on-demand source at the fingertips of all of our users. While users without SmartPhones or PDAs might rarely see the benefit in surfing the web within an un-optimized environment, it’s plainly obvious to see that technology is escalating to this new on-demand standard, and we should be distributing optimized content on this platform. People want information, and they want it now. … Continue Reading »

Tips and tricks for increasing click-through rate on Google AdSense. One of Google’s corporate missions is to promote the creation of original content on the Internet, so finding a revenue model for quality content was a completely aligned goal. In June 2003, Google launched its AdSense program, through which a network of online publishers makes money directly off their content. … Continue Reading »

There are simple ways to solve huge computer security problems

It’s a crazy week at work. You’re the last one out of the office, cranking out work until 11 p.m. The last thing you do before leaving is lock the door. Without locking the door, your entire business would be vulnerable.

Luckily, there are only a few sets of keys to your office, so it’s well protected. But what if everyone in the neighborhood had a key? Or what if everyone knew that jiggling the handle would pop the door open? How safe would your business be then? … Continue Reading »

Links may be old, but they’re still vital

Although search engines have taken over most Internet navigation, outbound and inbound links on your website are still important. They are how users navigate your site, discover your products and are sent to your affiliates. Users are counting on your links.

There are many different opinions and guidelines on links, but this post will only focus two aspects: their appearance and their target coding. … Continue Reading »

The rules and guidelines to making better Lead Generation Websites

The Web may be confusing, but you can understand parts of it—and the more you understand, the more money you can make.

As we discussed yesterday, that task can seem daunting, but it’s not impossible.

Depending on how you want to monetize your website, there are various rules and strategies that will teach you about the Web and guide you to profitability. … Continue Reading »

Cutting through chaos to find success

There is no denying it: the Internet is a confusing place.

Commerce, piracy, debate, theft, publishing, networking, research, news, war—it all happens online. It’s chaos.

When you take a step back, take a deep breath, and start making sense of what’s going on, it can seriously impact your impression of the Web. Chaos slowly becomes clarity. ROI suddenly becomes possible. … Continue Reading »

Slow websites push visitors away; speed yours up

Creating your website—or even editing it—is a complicated undertaking.

Many different parts have to work together to satisfy your visitors, and ultimately, satisfy you.

Yesterday’s Daily pointed to two areas where your website could be tweaked—its labeling and language and its technology—but there are many other areas that could hinder a website’s success.

One of them is how long your website takes to open, or its load time. … Continue Reading »

Capture more frequent visitors to your website

Designing a good website is not easy.

Many interconnecting elements have to be correctly executed to achieve profitability.

Even when your website is created, how can you know if it wouldn’t benefit from a tweak here or there?

One good indicator is how many repeat visitors you generate. … Continue Reading »

Lost in the online publishing jungle? We have a map.

When bringing your publication online, you’re entering a business world unlike any other.

Yesterday’s Daily compared publishing online to navigating the Amazon. There are two ways to do it: … Continue Reading »

Being a pioneer doesn’t always pay

Publishing on the Internet is mostly uncharted territory, like the Amazon jungle was 150 years ago.

Some daring publishers have hacked a path to “online profitability” or “a successful membership website,” and other publishers caught a tropical disease or were bitten by a snake, killing their business before they reached their goals. … Continue Reading »

If you have to change your website, only use proven tactics

If your website is not making much money, it’s natural to want to constantly change it.

You might think after some guess and check tweaking you’ll eventually stumble into the website design that will shoot your conversion rates to the stars.

But, as yesterday’s Daily explained, constantly changing your website is a bad idea.

After so many changes in a short time period users will tire of trying to figure out how your website works and they’ll flock to a more consistent competitor. … Continue Reading »

Changing your website too little or too often will drive away users

Creating a new website is like buying a new cell phone.

Immediately after you have it another feature comes out and your website, or cell phone, doesn’t have the latest features anymore.

This can be irritating, but the truth is your website (and probably your phone) doesn’t need to be cutting edge.

In fact, if you started adopting every new feature on the Web, your website would change so often that repeat visitors wouldn’t know how to use it. … Continue Reading »

Time spent on your site and revenue are effected by site design

If you are going to have a website at all, make sure it is designed well.

Yesterday’s Daily illustrated how important website design is to conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

Every visitor to your website has a finite amount of time before they reach a breaking point and leave to a competitor’s site. Some visitors can last longer than others, but why push them?

Avoid the breaking point completely by having a good website design.

Part of a good website design is using persistent navigation. That means if a user enters your website and sees a navigation bar, that bar should be visible from almost every page on your site. … Continue Reading »

Inconsistent website design and navigation lowers conversion rates

Since online publishing is so far from maturity, there are very few absolutes.

But one thing you can always count on is that users do not like to be confused.

When users come to your website, they want simple and consistent navigation.

The easier your website is to use, the more it will satisfy users, the more repeat visits you’ll get and the more conversions you’ll have. … Continue Reading »

There are solutions to every website problem

You have a website and it costs money. So it should be generating revenue, right?

As we described Wednesday, that is not always the case. Most publishers have websites that contribute less than 10 percent of their total revenue.

We listed four reasons why a website could struggle Wednesday, but there are dozens more.

A lack of website traffic is a common problem. The best way to solve it is to use as many tactics as possible, including: … Continue Reading »

If your website does not bring in enough revenue, focus on what it’s lacking

Bringing your publication online is not easy, but it’s absolutely necessary.

Audiences are going online to find information now more than ever.

Global Internet use grew 214 percent from 2000 to 2007 and there are now more than 1.13 billion people online, according to Miniwatts Marketing Group.

That’s why your publication has a website, right?

But does your website generate enough revenue? … Continue Reading »

Floaters can double conversion rates on your website

Remember the Wild West days of the Web?

Just under 10 years ago everyone had Napster, was scared to death of the Y2K bug and could not visit a website without seeing two or three pop-up ads.

You might wonder, why were there so many pop-ups? They were incredibly annoying.

The answer is that pop-ups worked. They increased conversion rates and made online businesses more money. … Continue Reading »

Celebrity news continues to dominate the blogosphere while the nation’s top newspaper slips in rank

The April results of the Mequoda Blog100 are posted, and celebrity news hub TMZ continues to dominate our list of the top 100 media blogs in the US.

The biggest change this month is the hit USAToday took in unique visitor counts—losing over 590,000 and dropping from number two to number three in the ranking. … Continue Reading »

Clearly communicating your website’s features to the user will help fulfill your goals.

It is easy to get carried away when designing a website. With the constantly emerging technology, business models and website designs, it’s easy to blurt out “Let’s do em’ all!” at a staff meeting.

Whoa. Hold on, there.

Your website should strive to fulfill specific business goals by allowing users to fulfill their goals.

This relation between your goals and the users’ is called your website’s strategic intent, and it needs to be clearly communicated to be effective. … Continue Reading »

The top five media blogs in the country remained for March, but one community-centric website is knocking at the door.

The March results of the Mequoda Blog 100 are in, and the top five media blogs in the country are the same as last month, but shuffled. They are, in descending order: … Continue Reading »