The Internet Hub is a one of seven Mequoda Website Archetypes discovered by reviewing more then 2000 media websites. Like all Mequoda Website Archetypes, it has a limited set of core functions that make it efficient for completing a limited group of user tasks that are key to the success of an online publishing operation or Mequoda Marketing System. … Continue Reading »
This Mequoda System operator has focused on creating loads of free products to increase email newsletter subscriptions
If you’re a golfer that routinely gets tired of playing the same course in town then you should be subscribed to Golf Vacation Insider. This Mequoda System was created not just for golfers, but for people that enjoy golf travel.
“Our focus is on being the premier provider of golf travel intelligence in the world,” said David Baum, publisher and editor-in-chief of Golf Vacation Insider and Golf Odyssey. … Continue Reading »
Publishers merely posting their magazine content online are leaving readers to their competitors.
Forbes Media began with a focus on the entrepreneur and capitalist class almost 90 years ago—born into an entirely different world of media. Forbes adapted as new technologies emerged over the decades, and with today’s Internet revolution, Forbes is marching forward with the entrepreneurial spirit. … Continue Reading »
House of White Birches, a division of the Dynamic Resource Group, is an experienced print publisher. It has an enviable collection of magazines and book titles. It has carved out several profitable special-interest niches that it addresses with excellent products. But like many other successful print publishers, its Internet marketing strategy is not well executed.
The WhiteBirches.com site suffers from disorganization and an inferior architecture that confuses users and diminishes sales. … Continue Reading »
Publishers should be using the retail channel—online, offline, or both—and their products sold at retail should, at a minimum, mention a companion website on the package. Even better, the product should contain an incentive to go to the website. … Continue Reading »
With Advertisers Footing the Bill, Forbes.com has Built a Website Offering a Superior—and Free—Online Content Experience for Users.
Forbes.com is part of (do I really need to say this?) the Forbes family publishing business. Including the familiar Forbes magazine, the websites Forbes.com and ForbesAutos.com, spin-off magazines such as ForbesLife, business and investing specialty newsletters, a business conference division and Forbes on Fox TV. This is a typical Mequoda publishing pyramid—with a very rich family sitting on top. … Continue Reading »
Creating the World’s Most Popular Website for Entrepreneurial Capitalists
With 2006 revenues estimated at more than $510 million, up from an estimated $460 million for 2005, the newly formed Forbes Media Network is on a roll.
Forbes Media currently includes print, online conferences, radio and TV properties. At this time, an estimated $330 million still comes from the American edition of Forbes Magazine, however, senior executives Steve Forbes and Jim Spanfeller both tell Mequoda that online publishing revenues will pass print in 2008 or 2009—if the current growth rates for both print (up 6% for 2006) and online (up 57% for 2006) hold for 2007, 2008 and 2009. … Continue Reading »
CooksIllustrated.com has Earned High Marks in Relationship Building and Readability. Other Areas Such as Community Building Display a Good Infrastructure that Could Really be Impressive with a Little More Promotion.
Mequoda has previously covered the Boston Common Press’s media network in America’s Test Kitchen Media Network Case Study by Jane E. Zarem. The membership website (and print magazine) Cook’s Illustrated is an important part of the business strategy. Here we’ll review the design and usability of the membership website CooksIllustrated.com. With 120,000 paid online subscribers, this site’s recipe is worth a try. … Continue Reading »
MarthaStewart.com Stands Out for Integration of TV and Magazine Content Online, but Otherwise the Site is Doing Poorly on Some Key Usability Guidelines.
You almost can’t have a dinner party without someone making a “Martha Stewart” comment at some point during the evening. Beyond being a mere household name, Martha Stewart has become synonymous with home decorating, cooking and gardening—bringing beauty to all things domestic. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc (MSLO), is an integrated media company distributing the “art of everyday living” to us in many different channels, broken down into business segments: … Continue Reading »
Week after week, our editorial staff gets together to forage through the Internet looking for ideas and examples that could help our readers make their subscription websites more effective. In the process we often find ourselves getting on one soapbox or another, proving, once again, that there’s a lot of room for improvement out there. With the holidays fast approaching, we turned our attention to the many food and wine websites on the web, looking for the best subscription-driven website for cooking aficionados—a challenging field for generating subscription revenues as there are so many free recipe sources out there. … Continue Reading »
With gardening season upon us, it seemed like a good idea to have John Clausen do a landing page review of GardeningSecretsandTips.com.
John points out that there are few hobbies or avocations that rival gardening when it comes to the need for secret methods and helpful tips. And there are few activities that attract more avid practitioners.
So, with that in mind, he took a long, Mequoda Landing Page Scorecard look at GardeningSecretsandTips.com and what he found was a few mistakes you should avoid when writing and designing your landing page. … Continue Reading »
With gardening season upon us, it seemed like a good idea to check out the landing page forGardening Secrets and Tips.
There are few hobbies or avocations that rival gardening when it comes to the need for secret methods and helpful tips. And there are few activities that attract more avid practitioners. So, with that in mind, I took a long, Mequoda Landing Page Scorecard look at GardeningSecretsandTips.com. … Continue Reading »
It wasn’t long ago that I was reviewing the landing page for the Internet Marketing Center, the very long and very well done Internet sales letter developed by late Web marketing guru Corey Rudl. When I heard of his tragic death in an automobile racing accident, I figured we’d probably seen the last of IMC. … Continue Reading »
EarlyToRise.com Pays Homage to Benjamin Franklin by Making its Owners Wealthy. Twenty-first Century Publishers Take Note: There is Wisdom in Adopting this Business Model
Financial independence has many rewards beyond the monetary. Or so I would like to believe. In the case of Michael Masterson, who prior to reaching age 40 sold a $135 million business and retired, one of the rewards is a bully pulpit on which to pontificate about anything and everything to anyone who will listen. Or more precisely, anyone who is willing to subscribe to his free email newsletter and read it. … Continue Reading »
Now that more than half of all Internet users block pop-ups and Google has banned them from use by PPC buyers, there are two more good reasons to drop this once effective website design technique and look for a better way to increase landing page conversion rates. … Continue Reading »
What criteria would four of America’s most successful copywriters use to create better sales letter landing pages? And how would 26 landing pages from a variety of large and small publishers and authors hold up under their intense scrutiny?
Over the past 12 months, John Clausen, Peter A. Schaible, Robert W. Bly and Peter J. Fogel have used a list of 12 guidelines designed to increase landing page conversion rates to critique 26 successful (and a few not-so-successful) sales letter landing pages for a variety of books, magazines and newsletters for Mequoda’s Creating Landing Pages That Sell. … Continue Reading »
Laurel Touby started MediaBistro in 1997 in the dot-com heyday with the goal of creating a community for journalists. “We weren’t really sure how we were going to make money,” she confesses, “we just wanted to bring media people together.” While this may not sound like an auspicious mission for a profitable business, MediaBistro has developed some very profitable income streams, all of which flow from this community, and all of which provide content models easily adopted by traditional publishers. … Continue Reading »
Unclear Strategic Intent, Non-existent Content Webification and Relationship Building are All Letting Visitors Run Around in Circles on SalaryExpert.com, or Worse, Just Run Off the Site with No Reason to Return … Continue Reading »
The Mequoda Internet Hub is the heart of a high-performance Internet Marketing System that is fueling extreme growth for the handful of savvy information marketers that have one. Here are some lessons learned from analyzing more than 20 existing Internet Hubs and then designing and building six Mequoda Internet Hubs for a variety of publishers. … Continue Reading »
My friend Fred Gleeck, the Internet marketing guru, says that if all you do to get people to sign up for your free e-zine is have a tiny box on your main website in which they enter their email address, you are probably failing to build your e-list as rapidly and cost-effectively as you could. … Continue Reading »
The Daily Reckoning Website, a Network Hub for its Financial Newsletters and Services, Demonstrates Effective Website Design and Site Architecture that Supports User Tasks and Goals … Continue Reading »
Learn how one publisher redesigned his website navigation to make his site ultra-search-engine-friendly and dramatically increase search engine traffic. … Continue Reading »
Devoting Too Much Homepage Real Estate to Website Navigation and Graphic Images Demonstrates a Compromise in the Selling Power of Text—a Major Mistake for a Lead Generation Site like CareerCoach.com … Continue Reading »
Integrity and professionalism abound on the Briefings Publishing Group’s website, but their “all business” approach may be responsible for letting a lot of potential business remain unsold. It seems Briefings.com’s future may be based on satisfied readers, not website “sell.” … Continue Reading »
Understand the 7 Major Mistakes Made by Industry Leader HCPro.com and the Simple Solutions that Could Put Them Back on the Road to Good Health. … Continue Reading »
he Mequoda Landing Page Scorecard™ encourages you to score your own landing page using each of the 12 Mequoda Best Practice Guidelines, add them together and arrive at a cumulative score. The goal is to emphasize the importance of effective landing pages that sell. Your landing page should achieve respectable scores in all areas, rather than over-emphasizing a single area or two, or omitting other areas completely. … Continue Reading »
TheBookStandard.com describes itself as “the all-inclusive online destination for publishers, retailers, librarians, agents, authors, distributors, studio executives, screenwriters, publicists, book groups and more!” It’s an accurate description.
VNU Business Media, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Computing, and other trade titles, launched TheBookStandard.com, its first solely online publication, in January of 2005. … Continue Reading »
With a final score of B, BLR.com is a site, or a “network” of sites, that is already far better than average, but could be truly outstanding if only they implemented a few simple changes. Creating an editorial hub alone would be enough to spiral more opportunities for traffic, revenues and happier users. … Continue Reading »
When Editor Don Nicholas asked me to review BlueDolphin.com, I was a bit hesitant. After all, he served as the Company’s CEO from its inception until 2003, when he ventured off with other business plans… plans that led to our successful “parent” company, Mequoda Group, LLC. … Continue Reading »
The Morningstar® FundInvestor™ landing page, when measured against our Landing Page best practices model, is ineffective and dysfunctional. This review is of one page on the MorningStar.com website, a link from the site’s homepage to the landing page for one of its many print newsletters. … Continue Reading »
A confession: I am not the target prospect for bluenile.com, an online marketer of jewelry, because I don’t like or wear jewelry (my wife is not a jewelry “nut” either, and I have two sons and one nephew, and no daughters or nieces). I’m going to try hard to make sure that doesn’t color my review of their site. … Continue Reading »
At first glance, it looks like they are generating revenue primarily through Google’s AdSense program, as “Ads by Gooooooogle” are taking up a good portion of the homepage real estate.
Once I dive deeper into the site, I realize that they may also be making money through affiliate commissions by referring users to Hotwire.com to book flights.
Let’s see how this website is constructed and just how successful they are as an Editorial Hub by running it through the Mequoda Website Scorecard. … Continue Reading »
The Richebächer Letter, published by Agora Financial, uses one of the more bare-knuckled attempts at turning fear into threat that we’ve seen to date. The copy on their sales letter landing page effectively takes the threat of losing one’s money and turns it into print subscription sales. … Continue Reading »
Over the years, Holly and Larry Pike have each had numerous careers, but they eventually quit their jobs to become full-time online entrepreneurs. Today, as husband and wife, they own and operate a subscription website for needlework hobbyists that ought to be the envy of every membership website publisher. … Continue Reading »
Capturing Your Visitor’s Email Address on Your Landing Page Allows Opportunity for Follow Up, Significantly Increases your Conversion Rate and Gives You a Chance to Grow Your List … Continue Reading »
