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Website Network

A minimum of two websites where one is a free Mequoda Internet Hub and the other is one of the seven Mequoda Website Satellite Archetypes. Websites in the network may be owned by a single organization, but may include websites owned by many organizations bound together through affiliate-merchant agreements. Separating one complex website into several simple websites increases usability, which drives user satisfaction, brand loyalty and long term profits.

14 Website Design Guidelines, the Mequoda Website Scorecard™

Monday, March 1st, 2010

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 … Continue Reading »

Internet Hub

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

An Internet Hub is very robust, offering tons of useful information for free. It is designed to maximize online advertising inventory. State-of-the-art Internet Hubs offer users email newsletters, blogs, email alerts and RSS feeds that are all designed to directly and indirectly generate more page views and website revenue. … Continue Reading »

Website strategy questions for online advertising agency?

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Can you give us any advice on the website strategy for an online advertising agency?

The website we are constructing is intended to convert leads for our digital marketing services. Have you reviewed an ad agency site?

We are planning on having two main calls-to-action:

(1) Free digital performance analysis of their business, … Continue Reading »

Last Week to Save 50% on the Mequoda Summit!

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

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 … Continue Reading »

Join 70+ Special-Interest Niche Publishers in Boston

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Less than two weeks left to get our lowest price on this Internet marketing event for publishers
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Support Services

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Rackspace LAMP Data Center Management -
Thousands of Rackspace customers run LAMP architecture for the development and deployment of optimal performance web applications. Our highly trained Mequoda team can manage this data center for you.
WhatCounts Email System Management -
WhatCounts offers email marekting solutions for companies with complete support for RSS, survey, … Continue Reading »

Become an Instant Link-Building Expert with Free Reports

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

An affordable link-building strategy: Use downloadable content to increase inbound links and build online friendships
Search engine optimized Rapid Conversion Landing Pages convert casual visitors into loyal email subscribers.
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Warning: We’re Only Building Out Eight New Mequoda Systems a Year (And Why This is Good News for You)

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Unbelievable but true: We’re willing to reveal all of our secrets and provide you with a detailed blueprint for success — no kidding! All the documentation behind our state-of-the-art Mequoda Systems — plus all the Mequoda WordPress plug-ins — are yours for the modest Mequoda Pro membership fee.
Continue Reading »

Is There Room for an Online Job Board in Your Internet Business Model?

Friday, February 13th, 2009

Why adding a job board to your website could both increase revenue and help the economy

Just because the economy isn’t doing so hot right now, doesn’t mean that every business is doomed to fail. But what it does mean is that we as publishers could really use a good brainstorm … Continue Reading »

Seven Online Publishing Secrets

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

If you’re an author, editor, website designer, or online publisher, Seven Online Publishing Secrets will forever change the way you think about how to make money on the Internet with online publishing. Claim your FREE copy of Seven Online Publishing Secrets: Using the Internet to Transform Your Special-Interest Publishing Brand … Continue Reading »

Website Network

Friday, September 12th, 2008

A minimum of two websites where one is a free Mequoda Internet Hub and the other is one of the seven Mequoda Website Satellite Archetypes. Websites in the network may be owned by a single organization, but may include websites owned by many organizations bound together through affiliate-merchant agreements. Separating … Continue Reading »

OFIN

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

Similar in concept to OFIEs, an OFIN is an “Order Form in Navigation”. While they are usually smaller in size than OFIEs, their strategic intent is the same: to quickly capture your visitor’s name and email address in order to grant them access to a free special report or a … Continue Reading »

Mequoda™

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

A term first used by Internet entrepreneur and website developer Don Nicholas to describe a method for designing and managing websites and website networks. The term is an acronym for “media quote daily” which is core to Nicholas’s approach to building website networks that includes seven specific website types. A … Continue Reading »

Internet Hub

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

A simple, easy-to-use website that offers users free content and community in return for registration and brand loyalty. The website earns money by referring loyal users to one of more Mequoda Website Satellite Archetypes in their Mequoda Website Network. The hub’s primary goal is to build a permission-based email, bookmark … Continue Reading »

Making Money Online

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

Seven Strategies that Successful Publishers are Using to Turn their Traditional Publishing Brands into Internet-Centric Media Companies … Continue Reading »

Needs Analysis

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

From the desk of Don Nicholas — Managing Partner, Mequoda Group, LLC
Discover the Revolutionary Internet Marketing System That Can Double Your Online Revenues Every 12 Months
Dear Colleague:

In August 1999, Rosemary Gardner* was a successful author, newspaper columnist and newsletter publisher. At age 47, she had worked long and hard to … Continue Reading »

Mequoda Summit Napa Valley 2010

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

Discover why we have transformed the Seventh Mequoda Summit and Internet Marketing Conference with step-by-step tutorials, expert power panels, advanced roundtables, and hands-on, interactive workshops.
You get to choose. Register early to customize your Mequoda Summit experience with the 10 sessions that best address your interests — from basic, to intermediate, … Continue Reading »

Best Business Models: The Positive Effect of Business Models that Work

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

Two standard business models that support the long tail and make money online … Continue Reading »

Seven Online Publishing Secrets – Updated for July 2008!

Friday, July 11th, 2008

Download ourcomplimentary report today and learn how to compete with today’s toppublishers by using the most profitable seven online publishing secrets. … Continue Reading »

6 Ways to Improve your Website Conversion Rates

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Convert more website visitors into buyers or subscribers from any page on your site by using these 6 methods … Continue Reading »

Using Paid Media to Build Email Circulation

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

Paid media programs balance your Internet marketing system

While patience is a required virtue for earned media programs, paid media programs offer the Mequoda Marketing System operator the opportunity for quick results with a reasonable ROI (return on investment). Each of these programs involves finding and buying traffic by spending money … Continue Reading »

How to Start and Run an Effective Online Marketing System

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

Key components of the Mequoda Internet Marketing System

The launch and operation of a Mequoda Marketing System can be divided into four phases. Most of the steps in each phase are then repeated over and over again to build email circulation and monetize customer relationships. … Continue Reading »

Understanding the Architectural Elements of a Web Page

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

All online direct response transactions begin on landing pages

Mequoda research indicates that on most websites, a maximum of 20 percent of the traffic arrives at the home page. In fact, on many sites, as little as four or five percent of website traffic arrives at the site’s home page, with … Continue Reading »

Prepare for Publishing in 2008

Friday, September 21st, 2007

t’s September 2007 and 2008 online publishing budgets are being prepared far and wide.How will you budget online expenses and revenues for 2008? To give you a hand, download the most recent version of the free Mequoda Online Publishing Model and use it to help predict the future of … Continue Reading »

Profitable Website Strategies

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

Create interweaving websites with specific strategies

When you think of your online business, are you thinking of a website, or are you thinking of a network of websites?

The distinction is very important.

Ideally, your online publishing business should be a small network of websites, each with specific goals and strategies.

One of those … Continue Reading »

New Rules for Delivery

Monday, June 4th, 2007

Treat the Internet as a unique medium with multiple platforms

Content delivery has constantly evolved over the centuries—and it is not going to stop now.

There was word of mouth and tall tales, then public forums, written word, moveable type, printing presses—all the way up to television and the Internet.

What has remained … Continue Reading »

Constantly Updated Content Fuels UV Counts

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007

Celebrity news sites are making gains on the Mequoda Blog 100 with content added several times an hour

The February results are in for the Mequoda Blog 100, our list of the top 100 media blogs in the US. Tech-blog Engadget dropped from the top five, leaving it mostly to entertainment … Continue Reading »

Understanding the Seven Website Archetypes

Friday, March 9th, 2007

Choosing the right business model and supporting infrastructure for any business is a key strategy for business success, especially in website publishing.

Gas stations, supermarkets and bookstores are all retail businesses. They all resell products, yet the specifics of their business models and their physical infrastructures are very different. Optimizing those … Continue Reading »

Quick Fixes to this Email Newsletter Should Increase Revenue

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

Top Chef, Iron Chef, Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay—seems like America’s new favorite hobby is cooking. Publisher Cook’s Illustrated is also in the mix with a TV Show, a website network and a free email newsletter, which we’ll put to test today in this review. … Continue Reading »

The Hybrid Website Archetype

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Hybrid Websites come in many variations as they successfully and often unsuccessfully merge functionality from two or more of the other website archetypes and sub archetypes into a single (often confusing) user interface. … Continue Reading »

The Lead Generation Website Archetype

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Lead Generation Websites generate revenue by providing sponsors with qualified leads. Users shop for products and services in an effort to save time and money, while the seller pays for content creation and co-branding value. Plus, the seller pays a transaction fee for each qualified lead. … Continue Reading »

The Classified Website Archetype

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Classified websites generate revenue by facilitating commercial transactions between buyers and sellers of products or services. There are at least four major variations of the Classified Website Archetype; Classified Retail Websites, Classified Directory Websites, Classified Employment Websites and Classified Service Websites, all of which we will discuss in this chapter. … Continue Reading »

The Internet Hub Archetype

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Mequoda views Internet Hubs as one of the most important website archetypes available to a publisher. Without a well-designed, well-marketed Internet Hub, an online publisher is forced to rely on other websites and other media to drive targeted website traffic. … Continue Reading »

Using Website Archetypes to Optimize the User Experience

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Choosing the right business model and supporting infrastructure for any business is a key strategy for business success.

Mequoda uses the term “archetype” to help understand and categorize kinds of sites. An archetype is a pattern or design upon which all other similar things are patterned. The Mequoda Research Team has … Continue Reading »

A Rare Opportunity for Your Company

Friday, November 3rd, 2006

Instead of our usual company-seeks-candidate job posting, today we bring a rare opportunity for your company. We have a candidate-seeks-company job posting that you should pay close attention to.

This isn’t just any ol’ candidate. This is a highly respected, highly qualified ecommerce director that I have great admiration for. He … Continue Reading »

Magazines, Google, Yahoo! and Online Publishing in 2007

Thursday, October 26th, 2006

I’ve been attending the annual American Magazine Conference since 1985, back when the conference was about magazines and brand extensions that created “ancillary revenues.”In 2006, things have become much more complicated.Historically, only a handful of magazines have ever created non-magazine revenue from television, books, events or other brand extensions that … Continue Reading »

How to Start and Run an Effective Internet Marketing System

Thursday, October 19th, 2006

The Mequoda Marketing System is comprised of the person in search of the information—the user; the publisher of the information—the operator; and the partner, or partners who work with the publisher to send traffic to the publishing website. The goal of the system is to acquire, build and monetize customer … Continue Reading »

The Real Value of Co-Registration Leads

Saturday, September 16th, 2006

Add value to your internet marketing strategy with co-reg leads

Co-reg names, once considered by some publishers to be of little value, can be surprisingly profitable over time, as we will illustrate.

Co-registration is the absolute cheapest source of active email subscribers available anywhere for your Mequoda System website network editorial hub. … Continue Reading »

The Mequoda SEO Process

Wednesday, September 13th, 2006

Every good wordsmith approaches the task of writing a little differently. Some writers start with an outline or by making copious notes. Others write numerous disparate paragraphs at non-stop speed and then revisit their first draft, cutting and pasting to arrange them in a “logical” order. Still others agonize over … Continue Reading »

America’s Test Kitchen Mequoda Case Study

Friday, September 1st, 2006

How America’s Test Kitchen’s Revenues have Grown from About $15 million to an Estimated $46 million in Just Five Years… Shouldn’t you be Using the Same Strategy for Selling your Information Products on the Internet? Doesn’t your Job Depend on it?

Chris Kimball, CEO of Boston Common Press, is master of … Continue Reading »

Do you use the Internet as a Product Platform or a Marketing Channel?

Friday, August 18th, 2006

A question we’re often asked is whether the Internet is best used as a product platform or a marketing channel. And the answer, of course, is that it’s both. But most publishers have been very confused about the difference.

Our estimation is that in 2006, publishers should be generating at least … Continue Reading »

Online Publishing Secret #6: Implement the Mequoda Marketing Model

Thursday, July 27th, 2006

The major differentiation between the Internet marketing strategy of the Mequoda System and that of traditional publishing models is the use of free content to drive online traffic. By offering free content (e.g., email newsletter subscriptions, HTML webpage access, eBooks or eReports, blogs or Web feeds) through a variety of … Continue Reading »

Online Publishing Secret #5: Create User-Centric Websites

Thursday, July 20th, 2006

Usability and design are two key factors in publishing great websites. You can have a clear strategy and great content, but if your site is unusable and unattractive, it will be difficult for users to find what they’re looking for, difficult for you to get users to do what you … Continue Reading »

Mother Earth News Media Network Case Study

Saturday, July 15th, 2006

Evaluating Risks and Embracing Change: How the Forward-Looking Management of Mother Earth News is Transforming a Traditional Print Magazine Publisher Into a Cutting-Edge, Online Information Provider

If your magazine and the brand it represents have survived and grown for 35 years, you might be tempted to rest on your laurels. “If … Continue Reading »

The Daily Reckoning Mequoda Case Study

Friday, July 14th, 2006

Agora Financial Network: Understanding the Seven Strategies that Drive the World’s Most Successful Special-Interest Website Network

The Mequoda Group estimates that the Agora Financial Network will post top-line revenues for 2006 of $55 million, with $41 million being generated online. This makes each of its 500,000 domestic subscribers worth about $82. … Continue Reading »

Book Reporter Media Network Case Study

Friday, July 14th, 2006

Following the Passion

When you’re passionate about something, you want to know everything there is to know about it, according to Carol Fitzgerald, president of The Book Report Network. She explains, for example, that she fell in love with Simon & Garfunkel when she was 13 years old. She learned a … Continue Reading »

Online Publishing Secret #4: Organize Content Around the Customer

Thursday, July 13th, 2006

Customer-driven content management will be common in the very near future, allowing a diverse community of online users to engage, and be engaged, in many different ways compared to simply subscribing to a magazine or buying a book. The resulting environment will be much bigger and more sophisticated than in … Continue Reading »

Online Publishing Secret #3: Build a Mequoda Website Network

Friday, June 23rd, 2006

Some publishers are mistakenly content with creating a single corporate website that integrates all of its various business units, resulting in an incredibly complicated “uber-site.”

Consider building a Mequoda Website Network, which comprises multiple websites—each with its own URL, separate purpose, and unique functionality—that all serve the same audience with a … Continue Reading »

An Introduction to the Mequoda System, a Unique Internet Marketing System

Thursday, May 18th, 2006

The Mequoda System is a collection of media management behaviors

When operated as a repeating cycle, creates an audience-driven, continuous-improvement media management system. To discover and document the Mequoda System, the Mequoda Research Team has studied the management strategies and habits of hundreds of successful (and not-so-successful) media organizations to arrive … Continue Reading »

MediaBistro Media Network Makeover Case Study

Thursday, January 5th, 2006

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 … Continue Reading »