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Effective membership websites employ an access challenge landing page that teases users with a snippet of the content that awaits them beyond the turnstile.

Private, exclusive, premium and paid-only vs. visible, available and accessible. The conundrum for membership website has long been how to have it both ways.

The idea of a pay-for-access website appeals to everyone who owns valuable, premium content. And it’s a viable business model for some publishers. But what if visitors and potential paying customers can’t find your site and its members-only content? … Continue Reading »

The priority code landing page lets you know where sales leads originate in order to control advertising expenses.

The priority code landing page is a hybrid dedicated landing page that’s part of the online order flow. A publisher might drive users to a priority code landing page where they can enter a proprietary combination of letters or numbers (alphanumeric code) in order to qualify for a special discount or express service. … Continue Reading »

Interweave Seeks eMail Marketing Manager … Continue Reading »

Using email newsletters to lower the cost of creating online brand building. When the history of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election is written, the role of the Internet, and especially email, will be recognized for having revolutionized campaign strategy more than any technology since John F. Kennedy mastered using television in 1960. … Continue Reading »

Finding a Balance with Online Publishing - The Free vs. Paid Conundrum.

Your book is done. Your website is up. How do you build book sales and web traffic simultaneously? How do you determine how much of your book is available online without purchasing it? After all, this is a business not a hobby, right? … Continue Reading »

Part of your online publishing strategy should include some type of online community - weblog, board, forum, etc. After all, you’ve got great content that you want to share with as many people as possible. There are few ways to create an online community: … Continue Reading »

Let’s focus on the third activity - email newsletters. If you want to turn subscribers into customers (and isn‘t that our goal) take notes. You’ve got to stop treating your emails like a lowly sales flyer. It can, and should, be so much more. View them as a tool where the reader finds value and wants to go back to your website for more. … Continue Reading »

Let’s face it, blogs are a popular way to get a message out quickly and publicly. The question is: How can your business benefit from this form of online publishing? To answer this question, we offer some words from the interesting book, We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs by Paul Bausch, Matthew Haughey, and Meg Hourihan. … Continue Reading »

What will you online publishing company do differently in 2009? Will you learn any lessons, or will you repeat the same mistakes? … Continue Reading »

So, your favorite hobby has spurned your creative desire to start a new magazine. How do you decide if print or online publishing is best? … Continue Reading »

This daily entertainment news update has a great footer and from line, but it’s first and preview screens aren’t exactly star studded … Continue Reading »

Find fresh content at a trade show, seminar or conference. No doubt there are dozens of industry events happening worldwide right now. It’s impossible for your subscribers to attend all of them. Why not take that opportunity and turn your coverage of these events into fresh online content. … Continue Reading »

While many aspects of production are similar within conventional print and online publishing, there are significant differences. Producing Successful Magazines, Newsletters and E-Zines by Carol Harris highlights some of the basics. … Continue Reading »

Duration: Approximately 30 minutes.

What this session is about:

While most publishers continue to load more responsibilities onto their existing print staff and require them to learn new skills, those in the know are hiring dedicated writers, marketers and technical staff to run their online business units. These same publishers know how to integrate their print and online teams to leverage editorial assets, cross promote print, Web and email circulation and create advertising synergies for sponsors who are demanding multiplatform marketing solutions.

While there is no one, perfect organizational structure or set of job descriptions for a multiplatform publishing business, we do see a pattern that is best described as “organizing activities around the content.”

What you’ll learn:

• The difference organizational strategies of several online publishers
• How magazine publishers have evolved their organizational structure
• The six sets of strategic activities at any publishing company
• Why isolating before you integrate your print and online teams will work better in the long run
• The job descriptions of the six main strategic positions at your company
• The four very different organizational strategies that successful online publishing companies are using
• How your team should be organized: by brand, function, platform or as a hybrid.

Case studies in this session (in order of appearance):

1. America’s Test Kitchen
2. Aspire Media
3. Ogden Publications
4. Rodale, Inc.
5. Johns Hopkins Health Alerts
6. fuelNet

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For most publishers, trying to find the right balance of free vs. paid content is difficult. Give too much away and readers won’t be willing to pay for what’s left. Keep it all behind a subscription wall and readers don’t have enough information to know if it’s content they want or need. … 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 »

A wrap-up of the best ideas from SiPA’s 25th annual mid-year marketing conference that took place this week in Las Vegas

We love the wrap-up sessions at the end of SiPA conferences. They allow us to hear the best-of the best that we may have missed, as there are always great sessions running concurrently. Here are the tips, along with supplemental Mequoda Daily content that can help put you on path to more profitability and success online. … Continue Reading »

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

20+ take-aways from the Google Analytics “Seminar for Success” in Montreal, Canada … Continue Reading »

Think about every page on your site as a landing page and start converting all of your visitors into subscribers or buyers.
Many people think that a landing page is just one type of page. When you think of a landing page, what do you picture? A single page, long copy, highlighted text, lots of bolding and italicizing, strong headline?
Sure, that’s one design of a landing page, most likely a rapid conversion landing page or email capture page. Or maybe it’s a salesletter landing page selling a single eBook. … Continue Reading »

Listen to your audience when making an eBook by doing keyword research, tracking your user activity, observing your competitors and just flat out asking them what they need. … Continue Reading »

Marketers and Editors are jointly responsible for attracting and retaining a robust online audience

By now you should know that the definition of an online editor is not that different from an online marketer. In fact, if your online editors don’t have a little marketing in their blood, your online business could be at risk in the coming years (if it isn’t already). … 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 »

How Google chooses to rank sites on broad phrases like “investing advice”. … Continue Reading »

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Two keynote addresses at the MPA’s 4th magazines 24/7 conference focused on getting publishers to let go of their content and partner with the social networking and video sharing giants

At the Magazine Publishers of America’s 4th Magazines 24/7 digital conference last week in NYC, the message was loud and clear: let go of your content, produce lots of video (but don’t try to be TV), build widgets and bring your content to where the users are – YouTube and Facebook. Oh… and don’t forget the power of being a magazine publisher. … Continue Reading »

The Mequoda Method is a comprehensive business system for making money on the Internet via the sale of information products, sponsor revenue and lead generation. Each Mequoda System is a unique reflection of the publisher’s audience and online business model. What follows is a sampling of the online publishing and marketing systems we’ve helped design, build and optimize over the past 15 years.

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Vertical search engines, directories, PPC, paid inclusion, oh my! A list of the ways that building and using search engines can effect your online publishing business. … Continue Reading »

Remember those “hit counters” you used to see on the bottom of websites (I’m digging back to 1999 here) that told the site owner how many people visited their website? Back then, it was exciting just to know that people did visit your website, but it’s 2008 now and there are dozens of landing page tracking tools out there that can tell you more about your audience than a number that increases every time you refresh the page. … Continue Reading »

5 smart ways to recognize those who help you succeed … Continue Reading »

Complete these seven to-dos and get your IP removed from email blacklists

Last week we talked about whitelisting, but today we’re going to cover how to get off those nasty email blacklists once you’re already on them.

Being blacklisted refers to the ISP that your readers are using (like AOL, Yahoo!, etc.). One person marking you as spam in their email inbox won’t get you blacklisted, but many spam complaints will. Once you are blacklisted, no one using that ISP will get your emails. This is very troublesome for B2C publishing companies because their users are more likely to use an AOL or Yahoo! account than B2B users. … Continue Reading »

If an email gets sent to an inbox and lands in the junkbox, does it make a sound? … Continue Reading »

Aggregate, Extract and Summarize your existing content to create products that will build your email file.
One of the questions we get asked most often by our clients is: how to create those complimentary products that we give away in exchange for an email address. Some publishers don’t realize how simple it is to create dozens of these products just from repurposing your existing content—not by creating original content.
We’ve identified three different ways to create complimentary products using your existing inventory: … Continue Reading »

A checklist of 9 must-haves for a list-building rapid conversion landing page
We call an email-capture or name-squeeze page a Rapid Conversion Landing Page. Call it what you want, but what this page does is capture an email address, normally in exchange for a complimentary gift like a report or other product. To create one that works, there is a checklist of things that every RCLP must be able to pull off. … Continue Reading »

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

How to choose the right keywords for driving website traffic to your website … Continue Reading »

Being content-driven, google-friendly, email-centric and profit-minded makes for a best-practice website … Continue Reading »

Cancellation and Substitution Policy

If you must cancel for any reason you must notify us in writing before March 16th for a full refund. Cancellations must be in writing, by fax, email or postal mail. Cancellations within 15 days of the event are non-refundable.

You may transfer your registration to another person at any time by providing authorization to us at customercare@mequoda.com. Confirmed and paid attendees who do not attend or who cancel after the deadline are liable for the entire fee.

For questions about registration or assistance with any registration problems, please contact Julie Ottomano at 508-435-1005.
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The sessions you’ll attend at the Mequoda Summit aren’t your run-of-the-mill sporadic conference sessions. Each session at the Mequoda Summit focuses on a specific strategy that your company needs to master in order to be successful online.

Take a look at the seven strategies below and ask yourself the following questions:

Editorial Strategy: Do you understand how to effectively repurpose your paid content into other products such as blogs, membership websites and podcasts for new revenue opportunities? Do you know which platforms you should use as opposed to other publishers?

“Learn how the Web’s top publishers are using podcasts, webinars, book, and other new media platforms to build loyal customer relationships.”

Master the new media—websites, email, blogs, RSS feeds, audio programs, video seminars, conferences, workshops and more. Offer customers information and entertainment on multiple platforms, using a variety of business models and marketing channels.

We’ll show you how to offer users many products on many platforms, how to give them a free, robust online content, and a personalized marketing experience.

Plus you’ll discover how to use different platforms for distributing your branded content and how to determine which combination of platforms will work best for you.

Business Strategy: Do you know which business models you are running? What about which business models are complimentary to each other and make the most revenue when run together? Should your business have a social network? What about a membership website?

“Discover how to choose and use the right business model for your online business.”

Every website is not the same. Depending on your goals and the way you generate profits, your design should fall into one of ten different strategic designs.

Get real-world, practical guidance on the 12 media business models and how each generates revenue for publishers.

Website Strategy: Do you know how to make sure every page on your website is optimized so that every visitor to your website wants to sign up for your email newsletter or buy a product?

“Learn the 12 web page templates used by today’s top publishers to capture the most visitors.”

You don’t need to be a professional graphic artist or information architect to understand the secrets of an effective publisher’s website.

Your overall strategy must be to drive traffic to a primary online venue, capture visitors’ email addresses, establish a permission-driven database, market products to the database, and build loyal customers and repeat sales.

Just as in direct mail (postal) marketing, the money is in the list!

We’ll show you how to establish a permission-based database and all the ways to drive traffic to your site. Plus, how to monetize these site visitors and convert them to paying customers.

Keyword Strategy: Do you know what your primary keywords are? Are the topics or categories on your blog optimized for search engines? What about your articles? Do your editors have a keyword list in front of them that guides their editorial strategy?

“Learn the SEO strategies every writer, editor and publisher needs to get found on the web.”

In 2008, no online publishing business should be hiring an outside SEO firm. The job of search engine optimization should be in the job description of every writer and editor. It is a logical extension of the editorial process. Hiring outside only doubles the work and expense and adds to the time putting out articles, blogs, and other website content.

You’ll learn how to choose keyword phrases, determine keyword popularity, optimize article headlines and subheads, measure keyword density, optimize your meta tags, optimize your URL’s and maximize internal and external linking.

And if you are not part of the editorial staff, we’ll provide you with all the information you’ll need to kick them into gear.

Email Strategy: Do your email newsletters and promotions get delivered? If they do, what makes the difference between someone reading them and someone throwing them into their junk folder? Do you know what best practice emails look like?

“Discover how to create email newsletters and promotions that get delivered, opened and read.”

While success or failure of an email newsletter or promotion should be directly tied to bottom line goals (sales, revenue, etc.), there are some things that can help—or hurt—a newsletter’s chances of achieving those goals.

No matter how valuable its content, an email newsletter is ineffective unless it gets delivered, opened and read.

We’ll introduce you to email newsletters that get the highest conversion rates and email revenue per thousand and show you how to design your email newsletter for the same results.

Organizational Strategy: Do you know the best way to staff an online publishing team? Do you know how to write accurate job descriptions in the new publishing environment and staff accordingly?

“Learn how to organize activities around your content and build an effective online publishing staff.”

Most publishers load more responsibilities onto their existing print staff but those in
the know are hiring dedicated staff to run their online business units.

Learn why it’s critical to isolate your online teams before you integrate and how to eventually leverage all your editorial assets, cross promote print, Web and email circulation and create synergies for sponsors.

Reporting Strategy: Do you know which metrics are the most important to your online publishing success? Do you have a key metrics dashboard in front of you every day that tells you exactly where your business needs improvement?

“Learn the key metrics every online business manager should know.”

In order to run an effective online business, you need to know what statistics you should be watching (both yours and your competitors).

We’ll show you the key metrics you should know at the end of every day, week and month in order to keep in control of your online business, make the right changes at the right time, and generate the most profit for your online business.

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1. Online Market Analysis — Getting to Know Your Online Neighborhood
TOOL: Sample Online Market Audit

Discover how to do market analysis research, then choose or change your website business model, plus which competitors represent potential marketing or content-sharing partnerships.

2. Search Engine Optimization — Mapping and Tracking your Keyword Universe
TOOL: Sample Keyword Benchmark Study

Discover how to know, with certainty, the keywords by which web surfers find your website. Learn how to use the Google Keyword Tool to do keyword research, and how to use the Google search engine to quantify competition.

3. Website Conversion Architecture — Converting Visitors to Email Subscribers
TOOL: Website Template Inventory Checklist

There are several tried and true webpage templates used by today’s top publishers that are built to attract lots of traffic and convert the most visitors. Learn how to design and implement clean and intuitive website templates that convert more visitors into subscribers, and more shoppers into buyers.

4. Online Content Management — Using Content to Sell ContentTOOL: Article Release Guideline Checklist

Determine the best practice guidelines for transforming previously published content — print newsletters, books, magazines etc. — into robust online content to maximize website depth and incoming traffic.

5. PR & Link Building — Marketing Free Reports to Build Links                                                   TOOL: Sample Inbound Link Report

Discover how to use free reports and search engine optimized rapid conversion landing pages to increase inbound links and build online friendships.

6. Email Newsletter Marketing — Testing to Maximize Email Revenue and Profit
TOOL: Sample Email Performance Report

Email is a publishing and marketing platform and is proven to be a significant source of revenue for many publishers. Discover how to create an email newsletter publishing schedule and testing plan that will increase revenue per thousand emails sent.

7. Landing Page Optimization—Multivariate and A/B Testing for Higher Conversions
TOOL: Multivariate Testing Checklist

Learn how to increase your landing page conversion rates by conducting multivariate and A/B testing using the Google Website Optimizer.

8. Digital Product Development — Increasing Customer Lifetime Value
TOOL: Digital Product Pyramid

You can maximize your email revenue per subscriber with a bigger and better assortment of product offerings. Discover how to generate more income with digital products, including webinars, downloadable PDFs and membership websites.

9. Social Media Marketing — Building Online Community and Engagement
TOOL: Social Media Metrics Report

Which social media sites make sense for your online business? Can you use them them for marketing? Customer service? Driving traffic? Market analysis? There are thousands of networks you can join. We’ll touch on the social networks that work best for different niches, and how to manage your online reputation by becoming part of the conversation.

10. Structuring Online Jobs — Hiring and Training Online Editors
TOOL: Online Editor Job Description

Online editors stand at the core of your online publishing and marketing efforts. The desired skill-set is different than what we used to look for in traditional editorial roles. Learn the metrics online editors are now being held to and discover how to hire and train an editor for your online business.

11. Key Metric Analysis — Managing Online Metrics by Exception
TOOL: Sample Key Metric Dashboard

Discover precisely how effective website publishers track operating statistics using the a simple Key Metric Dashboard. This high-level report keeps everyone in the organization on the same page and easily alerts them to problems and opportunities in their online business.

12. Business Plan Development — Creating a 5-Year Plan
TOOL: Sample Online Business Plan and Model

Every viable publishing business, whether contemplated or existing, needs a business plan suitable for senior managers, equity partners and venture capitalists. Learn how to create a publishing model, including key statistics and a five-year financial forecast for your market.

Bonus SEO Workshop (Optional)

Get trained in-depth on how to research your own keywords and related keyword universe using the free Google Keyword Tool and the Google search engine. Learn how to quantify volume and competition, plus discover how to identify and target potential keyword phrases that could be used to increase the amount of traffic you get from Google. Understand how to write SEO-friendly headlines, subheads and body copy and learn how to use a freemium-based SEO strategy to both attract traffic and to convert that traffic into email subscribers. Walk away with a list of keyword phrases that could be used to launch your first freemium-based SEO campaign.

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FuelNet announces the release of a free Smart Paper to help growing companies improve the success rates of their creative direct mail … Continue Reading »

3 easy ways to build customer loyalty for your brand when budgets are tight … Continue Reading »

8 event websites that can get you listed in Google and extend your reach to the conference-going community … Continue Reading »

Renowned provider of worldwide consumer and professional health information located in Stamford, CT is seeking a Senior E-Marketing Manager to be responsible for generating sales through electronic marketing and web e-commerce. … Continue Reading »

How Golf Vacation Insider Manages 75 Complimentary Special Reports and a Page #1 Ranking in Google on Almost All of Them. … Continue Reading »

Identify the percentage of inbound links coming to your conversion pages versus your home page … Continue Reading »

Link-building is like a popularity contest, the more inbound links you have from other websites, the higher your page will rank, and the more conversions you’ll see … Continue Reading »

Can you really master Web 2.0 if you haven’t gotten the fundamentals of Web 1.0? Here are 6 steps picked up at the Web 2.0 Expo this week in NYC that will help bring your brand up to par before Web 3.0 approaches. … Continue Reading »

An email to download your free white paper is on its way!

We’re happy to have you as a new subscriber to the Mequoda Daily and we hope our newsletter helps point your online publishing business in the right direction.

Topics you’ll see covered in our newsletter include:

• Search engine optimization
• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• Business models and online strategy
• Creating digital products
• Writing for the web
• Building online publishing teams
• Transitioning from print to online
• Online publishing event coverage

Plus dozens of other hot topics that relate directly to online publishers.

Contribute! There’s nothing we like more than to hear about your own online publishing experiences. That is, after all, why we’re here—to spread the word on what’s working (and not working) in our industry. I hope you’ll feel compelled to comment on articles you see here in the newsletter and share your own wisdom on the topics with the rest of our readers.

What to expect: You can expect to receive 5 editorial emails a week from us, along with the occasional promotional email.

Please remember to add mequoda@e.mequoda.com to your address book so that we make it to your inbox without any snags.

Unsubscribing: Should you decide to unsubscribe from our email list, please use the unsubscribe link at the top and bottom of our emails so that you’re properly removed from our list (hitting the “junk” button in your email client won’t do this).

You can also stay up to date with us via RSS and Twitter.

You can email me directly at anytime with questions, tip ideas, feedback or suggestions at amanda@mequoda.com or by replying to any of our emails.

Thanks again for subscribing and have a great day

Amanda MacArthur
Editor & Publisher
MequodaDaily.com … Continue Reading »