We are happy to announce the release of more free content. Yes, now everyone will have access to content formerly part of the members only Mequoda Library.
One of the most popular topics searched at Mequoda.com is “Landing Page Templates”. In particular, our landing page reviews have become timeless guidelines for creating successful landing pages. Over the last five years, the Mequoda Research team has reviewed over 40 sales letter landing pages using the 12 essential elements set out in the Mequoda Sales Letter Landing Page Scorecard. … Continue Reading »
It isn’t enough to know how to design a landing page, you should also understand why writing for the web is not the same as writing for print … Continue Reading »
Marketplace landing pages are the gateways to sales
A landing page is any webpage where a willing buyer and seller can start a transaction. It’s the first page on your website where a visitor enters the ordering process.
A dedicated landing page is an indispensable part of your online marketing campaign. It is dedicated to converting traffic. It’s only reason for being, is to get that order. … Continue Reading »
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 »
Author landing pages showcase your talent and boost SEO
An author landing page is a page dedicated to a particular author or editor on a website, listing all the content written by an author, usually in reverse chronological order. These pages came into existence when publishers started noticing on their internal search logs that a lot of traffic arriving at their site was coming in via organic search on one of their website’s authors.
So why not build a page dedicated to each of your site’s authors, listing all the content written by the author? Creating author landing pages is relatively simple. … Continue Reading »
Glossary Index landing pages capture user’s interest with specific terminology
A landing page is the first page a user sees when entering your site, and a user can enter and “land” almost anywhere. Therefore, every page on your website is a potential landing page, even the glossary index.
The glossary index landing page, as the name suggests, is a glossary on a website that lists dictionary-like definitions of words, phrases or concepts. … Continue Reading »
Use Author Index landing pages to create a directory of your author landing pages
Looking for keyword phrases to boost your results in search engines? How about a name?
If you’re looking for quick ways to build your page count and add content that is easily indexed by search engines, don’t forget your authors and editors.
The author index page is a list of all the writers contributing content to the website, much like a contributor’s page in the front of many magazines. These pages came into existence when publishers noticed that a lot of website traffic was arriving via organic search of their website’s authors. … Continue Reading »
Article landing pages are search engine superstars
Article landing pages are most often associated with search engine optimization (SEO), but are also used for attracting any type of organic traffic. This would include any text link given by a webmaster or editor who is referencing one of your webpages as a source of good information on a topic.
Article landing pages are organic landing pages and contain narrative content, with the objective of being picked up by search engines, capturing the users’ interest and leading them to browse more content. … Continue Reading »
With Topic landing pages, persistent navigation is the key to success
The key to success is to send users to landing pages that are specifically designed to fulfill their goals. Any page where there is a direct response transaction — whether or not money is exchanged — is a landing page. For every type of direct response transaction you initiate, there should be a landing page waiting for the user that is optimized to maximize its conversion rate.
A topic landing page, as the name suggests, is a page on a website that is about one particular topic, or category. This page is usually found in a site’s primary navigation, either on the right or left hand side of the screen. Occasionally, a user may also find topic pages in the horizontal site navigation, just below the nameplate, if the number of topics is limited (3-5). Topic pages are also often referred to as category pages, or section pages. … Continue Reading »
The Home landing page is your first opportunity to make a good impression
Organic landing pages are full of content that is designed to be attractive to both users and search engines. Essentially, an organic landing page is trying to be found by search engines.
Home landing pages are the first page someone sees when they type in your website address. The home landing page should tell your user exactly what you want them to do and how it will benefit them.
If your main goal is to get them to sign up for an email newsletter, the most important graphic, button or section of your homepage should be dedicated to collecting it. A floater can be a quick and easy way add unknown site visitors to your email database. … 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 »
Rock Star Online Editors Wanted: Must Know Your Subject, Write Well and Not Be Afraid to Sell Your Company’s Products. Knowledge of the Rebel King a Plus. … 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 »
Most of us at the Mequoda Group have joined LinkedIn, its one of our best practice examples. You too are probably a member of a popular social networking site, but maybe wondering how to use it to the full. Apparently, you are not alone. … Continue Reading »
On the web, a book, or anything else you publish, can turn into a freemium, a webinar, a podcast, you name it.
View the book as your base from which to build. Spinoff activites are likely to have an even greater income potential than the base itself. … Continue Reading »
The Mequoda research team has identified 12 types of landing pages, 6 organic and 6 dedicated. Organic landing pages are designed to attract website traffic and convert visitors into customers or subscribers. Online publishers use organic landing pages when they can’t control where the user is going to enter (or “land” on) the website. Whereas, generally traffic arrives at dedicated landing pages via links from sources the online publisher controls, such as PPC (pay-per-click), affiliate advertising, or paid advertising. … Continue Reading »
With the proliferation of MySpace, YouTube, FaceBook and similar social networking sites, you might be thinking about advertising on one of them. But what about incorporating social networking into your online publishing strategy. … 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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
“When we first hooked up with Mequoda, we were in the middle of a big mistake. Other providers were just selling sites and “cool things”, where with Mequoda we got an entire business strategy”
-Bill Dugan, Publisher, FuelNet.com
“Don Nicholas has an unquenchable thirst for learning and applying new technologies. He is also a gifted and passionate teacher. Combine those attributes with over 20 years in the publishing business, and you will understand why I tell you that this program is a ’must have’ for anyone involved in the development or management of a modern publishing enterprise.”
-Greg Jones, President, Granite Bay Media, Inc.
“I have known Don for over 20 years, as my friend, business partner and consultant. His strategic brilliance has been a constant throughout that time. Pay close attention and Don will put you on the path to a more successful Internet strategy.”
Stuart R. Jordan, COO, University Health Publishing
Online Market Analysis — Getting to Know Your Online Neighborhood
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.
Mequoda Pro Video Training Module #2:
Search Engine Optimization — Mapping and Tracking your Keyword Universe
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.
Mequoda Pro Video Training Module #3:
Website Strategy — Converting Visitors into Buyers and Subscribers
A well-crafted landing page will maximize the possibility that a user will take the action you desire and not click away. Learn the 9 website templates required to handle multiple sources of traffic to your website and understand how to implement the conversion architecture that will maximize site traffic and build strong customer relationships.
Mequoda Pro Video Training Module #4:
Editorial Strategy — Using Content to Drive Traffic
Discover the various sources, both original and recycled, that editors can use to aggregate and produce online content. Learn how publishers today are successfully recycling, reusing and repurposing their print content into robust online content that effectively drives traffic to their site and sells more product.
Mequoda Pro Video Training Module #5:
Business Strategy — Embracing Multiple Business Models
Choosing the right business model and supporting infrastructure is fundamental to online publishing success. Learn the 9 ways top publishers are monetizing customer relationships through several business models, as well as definitive website metrics that verify the results of profitable online publishers.
Mequoda Pro Video Training Module #6:
Email Strategy — Using Email as a Publishing Platform
For publishers in-the-know, those who generate 40-70% of their revenue in email, they treat email as a publishing platform. Learn how to create an email editorial calendar that aligns with your products and sponsorships and understand the role of service journalism and clever copywriting in generating serious email revenue.
Mequoda Pro Video Training Module #7:
Reporting Strategy — Managing by Exception
For websites, some metrics are more important than others, depending on the site’s business model. Discover how to measure and manage with a key metrics dashboard, and how to make decisions by regularly reviewing a standard set of daily, weekly, or monthly reports.
Mequoda Pro Video Training Module #8:
Organizational Strategy — Organizing to Innovate
While there is no single, perfect organizational structure for a multiplatform publishing business, there is a pattern that is best described as “organizing activities around the content.” Learn how to integrate your print and online media teams and how to hire dedicated writers, marketers and technical staff to run the online business units.
Join Mequoda Pro today at the special charter membership fee of only $197 and get answers to your questions about online publishing and marketing from Don Nicholas, plus unlimited online access to all eight Mequoda Pro Video modules — and more. This limited-time offer is exclusively for publishing professionals. Your complete satisfaction is assured with our 100 percent, money-back guarantee. But you must act now, because the low Mequoda Pro charter membership fee will soon increase to $697 annually.
I understand that I can review the initial Mequoda video training seminars risk-free for 30 days. If I am not completely satisfied, you’ll refund my investment in full. I also understand that I will automatically renew at the $197 rate a year from now unless I contact you beforehand. On that basis, here’s my order.
We hate spam as much as you do. You have our promise not to sell or share your email address, ever! Please read our Privacy Policy. Learn more about Mequoda.
Coming soon to Mequoda Pro:
Website Conversion Architecture — Converting Visitors to Email Subscribers
We’ve identified several webpage templates used by today’s top publishers that are built to attract lots of traffic and convert the most visitors. In this session, attendees will learn how to design and implement clean and intuitive website templates that are built to convert more visitors into subscribers, and more shoppers into buyers.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Website Template Inventory Checklist
Landing Page Optimization—Multivariate and A/B Testing for Higher Conversions
Learn how to increase your landing page conversion rates by conducting multivariate testing using the Google Website Optimizer.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Multivariate Testing Checklist
Online Content Management — Using Content to Sell Content
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.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Article Release Guideline Checklist
PR & Link Building — Marketing Free Reports to Build Links
Discover how to use free reports and search engine optimized rapid conversion landing pages to increase inbound links and build online friendships.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Sample Inbound Link Report
Email Newsletter Marketing — Testing to Maximize Email Revenue and Profit
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 email sent.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Sample Email Performance Report
Digital Product Development — Increasing Customer Lifetime Value
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.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Digital Product Pyramid
Internet Advertising Basics — Maximizing Display Advertising Revenue
Are you maximizing revenue with your website advertising inventory, or is it time to re-examine your business model? In this seminar, taught by Internet Advertising export Dan Ambrose, you’ll discover how the two media — Internet and print — complement rather than compete with each other from the point of view of the publisher and of the advertiser.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Advertiser Schedule Flow Chart& Internet Revenue Potential Worksheet
Structuring Online Jobs — Hiring and Training Online Editors
Discover how to conduct a multi-platform organization review that leads you through an in-depth analysis of the markets you operate in, and the number of unique job descriptions that exist within your organization.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Online Editor Job Description
Key Metric Analysis — Managing Online Metrics by Exception
Discover precisely how effective website publishers track operating statistics using the Mequoda Key Metric Dashboard that alerts them to problems and opportunities in their online business.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Sample Key Metric Dashboard
Business Plan Development — Creating a 5-Year Plan
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.
Tool you’ll receive with this session: Sample Online Business Plan and Model
Subscribe to Mequoda Pro
Join Mequoda Pro today! For our introductory price of only $197, you will get unlimited instant access to our eight video training modules (based on our live Mequoda Summit).
You will also be able to participate in our interactive Q&A with your coach Don Nicholas.
As a Mequoda Pro member, you’ll get unlimited access to all eight Mequoda Pro Video training modules online.
These are high quality, HT-64 QuickTime videos, each ranging in length from 22 to 55 minutes, that explain in detail the Mequoda Pro best practices for online marketing and publishing.
Your Mequoda Pro membership entitles you to ask Don and the Mequoda Research Team any question about online publishing and marketing strategy and get a direct answer.
Plus, you’ll receive these valuable bonuses:
Bonus #1: Google Visibility Report
Bonus #2: Email Performance Report
Bonus #3: Email Circulation Calculator
Bonus #4: Email Lifetime Calculator
Bonus #5: Key Metrics Dashboard
Bonus #6: Online Publishing Model
Bonus #7: Link Building Lifetime Calculator
Bonus #8: SEO Lifetime Calculator
Bonus #9: Online Market Audit Sample
And don’t forget the most valuable benefit of all: As a Mequoda Pro member, you will be able to post your questions to Mequoda Pro Answers, the new Mequoda Pro members-only forum, and get specific advice and comments from Don and other members of the Mequoda Pro Research Team.
Just click on the button below to sign up. I urge you to do it today. Because the $197 Mequoda Pro charter membership fee will not last forever. This is an introductory offer and may be withdrawn at any time.
Please join Mequoda Pro right now using the order form below.
Join Mequoda Pro today at the special charter membership fee of only $197 and get answers to your questions about online publishing and marketing from Don Nicholas, plus unlimited online access to all eight Mequoda Pro Video modules — and more.
This limited-time offer is exclusively for publishing professionals. Your complete satisfaction is assured with our 100 percent, money-back guarantee. But you must act now, because the low Mequoda Pro charter membership fee will soon increase to $697 annually.
I understand that I can review the initial Mequoda video training seminars risk-free for 30 days. If I am not completely satisfied, you’ll refund my investment in full. I also understand that I will automatically renew at the $197 rate a year from now unless I contact you beforehand. On that basis, here’s my order.
We hate spam as much as you do. You have our promise not to sell or share your email address, ever! Please read our Privacy Policy. Learn more about Mequoda.
Subscribe to Mequoda Pro
Join Mequoda Pro today!
For our introductory price of only $197, you will get unlimited instant access to our eight video training modules (based on our live Mequoda Summit).
You will also be able to participate in our interactive Q&A with your coach Don Nicholas.
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.
This 110-year-old non-profit organization promotes the professional needs of the international ceramics community with an online community, a free daily newsletter, access to its paid Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated magazines, and access to Potters Council, a subsidiary that offers forums for knowledge exchange and professional enhancement. Book sales and advertising are additional profit centers.
Among many other benefits, dues-paying AQHA members can access records and research pedigrees online. Paid publications include The American Quarter Horse Journal, The American Quarter Horse Racing Journal and America’s Horse. Classified and display advertising on this website also contribute to the bottom line.
No matter what type of beading you enjoy — stringing, wirework, stitching, knotting, weaving, embroidery, beadmaking, beadweaving — Beading Daily offers a free email newsletter, free beading projects, tips and techniques, a daily blog, galleries, artist interviews, event updates, and more. Paid products include and Creative Jewelry magazine, with more than 135 affordable, easy-to-make jewelry projects, and individual downloadable beading projects. Other revenue comes from the sale of books and advertising.
This sister site to Beading Daily has a similar business model. Self-described as an online knitting guild meeting with everything but the brownies, Knitting Daily offers free stories, posts, patterns, and techniques from a life-long knitter and former managing editor of Interweave Knits magazine. Paid products include books, magazines, and more than 100 downloadable knitting patterns.
David Baum publishes Golf Vacation Insider, a free, three-times-a-week newsletter of concise insider travel tips and offers numerous free downloadable special reports. Paid products include Golf Odyssey, the preeminent newsletter focused on sophisticated golf travel; plus golf vacation guidebooks and collectables.
Publisher Business & Legal Reports presents a daily tip, news item, or compliance advisory to human resources professionals, via email and on its hub HR Daily Advisor website. Paid products include loose-leaf publications, CD-ROMs, newsletters, videos and live events pertaining to best practices in human resources.
The Student Health 101 newsletter is designed to help students and parents make better health choices and deal with such campus issues as unhealthy diet and nutrition; excessive alcohol consumption; drug abuse; depression, anxiety and fatigue. The company also publishes the 64-page Student Health 101 Annual General Health Guide and offers customized, turn-key packages to augment campus student health programs.
Published since 1981, RCR Wireless News is the premier news source for the wireless communications industry. Its website offers free reports, job listings, buyers guides and wireless industry stock tracking. Revenue sources include webcasts, white papers, advertising and event sponsorship.
The Dark Daily is a periodic intelligence website founded in 1995 by R. Lewis Dark, publisher emeritus. The site reports news about the latest trends that affect medical laboratories. The Dark Group, Inc. and The Dark Report Intelligence Service provide strategic market analysis to CEOs, CFOs, COOs, pathologists, senior laboratory executives, and investment professionals. The company also hosts tele-seminars and live conferences, and sells audio recordings.
First launched in 2003, Faculty Focus is a free, three-times-per-week email newsletter of information for college faculty, academic deans and department chairs. The website offers free reports as well as paid newsletters, books and online seminars, plus promotes an annual teachers conference.
Business Management Daily is a web site of the National Institute of Business Management, providing advice for professionals since 1937. The website provides business professionals with advice on how to make more money, avoid legal pitfalls and advance their careers. They provide free email updates, print newsletters, web site, special reports and audio conferences.
FuelNet is a website resource for owners and managers of growing businesses, designed to keep them on the leading edge of marketing, selling, brand building and customer communications. Users can download free reports and subscribe to a free email newsletter. Paid products include books and a print newsletter.
Since its inception in 1924, the Unity School of Christianity has published the Daily Word magazine, a source of encouragement and prayer support now available in seven languages in 175 countries. At DailyWord.com, the publisher offers a paid email newsletter, a blog, and paid inspirational stories.
This publisher introduces its prestigious university brand by offering website visitors no fewer than 20 free email newsletters on topics ranging from arthritis to hypertension to weight control. In addition to free downloadable reports, the site sells paid subscriptions to printed reports, newsletters and hardcover books.
Geschäftsidee Daily is a publication of Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG (Publishing House for the German Economy AG). The website offers free reports and paid information products for German entrepreneurs and others interested in starting their own business.
Investors Circle Daily is a publication of Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG (Publishing House for the German Economy AG). The website offers free reports and paid books and newsletters in German for investors and stock traders.
Sekada Daily is a publication of Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG (Publishing House for the German Economy AG). The website offers free reports and paid information products of use to German-speaking secretaries and administrative assistants.
Simplify is a publication of Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG (Publishing House for the German Economy AG). The website offers free reports and paid information products in German on topics ranging from stress to retirement to gardening to organizing your life and work.
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 »
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 »
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 »
