Don Nicholas

Founder & Executive Publisher

Don Nicholas serves as Executive Publisher for Food Gardening Network and GreenPrints. He is responsible for all creative, technical, and financial aspects of these multiplatform brands. As senior member of the editorial team, he provides structural guidance, sets standards, and coordinates activities with the technology and business teams. Don is an active gardener whose favorite crops include tomatoes, basil, blueberries, and corn. He and his wife Gail live and work in southern Massachusetts surrounded by forests, family farms, cranberry bogs, and nearby beaches. Don is also the Founder of Mequoda Systems, LLC, which operates and supports numerous online communities including I Like Crochet, I Like Knitting, and We Like Sewing.

Articles by Don Nicholas

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

More on the Mequoda Manifesto…

All information products will be digital by the year 2025. Warning: Your staff will need to acquire new skills to create these new digital products

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

99% of all Information Products will be Digital by the Year 2025

Seven reasons why all your new information products should be digital It’s imperative that you begin now to create the digital products that will eventually replace your physical products

Audience Development Strategy

Achieve Higher Click-Through Rates by Testing Templates

How to increase revenue per thousand emails sent The Mequoda Email Performance Report measures your split tests to help maximize email revenue and profit

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Why you Need a Formal Editorial Policy for Driving Website Traffic with Recycled Content

Content marketing tip: every print publication should recycle, reuse and repurpose its premium content online

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Recycle Content with an Orderly Plan to Drive Website Traffic

Why every print publication needs an editorial policy and content marketing plan for reusing content online How this financial publisher’s editorial policy effectively recycles, reuses and repurposes its premium stock recommendations

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

How is Google like the High School Social Scene?

The more you know about Google, the more you’ll recognize the importance of this highly effective link-building strategy. In the competition for Google page rankings, website popularity is paramount.

Become an Instant Link-Building Expert with Free Reports

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.

Digital Magazine Publishing

MPA-IMAG 2009 Conference Coverage: The Future of Publishing with Bo Sacks

Bo Sacks tells the independent magazine industry why they shouldn’t panic

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

MPA-IMAG 2009 Conference Coverage: August Home Publishing is a True Inspiration for Multi-Platform Publishers

Don Peschke, founder of August Home Publishing, discusses how his company is meeting its mission of “surrounding our customers with service”

MPA-IMAG 2009 Conference Coverage: 10 Lessons Learned from Taunton’s Membership Websites

With traffic and sales doubling in the past year, Taunton’s Janine Scolpino discusses some keys to membership website success

Warning: We’re Only Building Out Eight New Mequoda Systems a Year (And Why This is Good News for You)

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

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Mequoda Pro Charter Offer – Get Trained for 12 Months

“Fifteen years into the online revolution, and the online publishing gold rush is just now starting to get really interesting.” With the right tools for analyzing new markets, and the skills

Turn Simple Online Marketing Metrics into Robust Competitive Intelligence

Search engine optimization strategies for positioning your online publishing business against the market leaders Analyzing a Google Visibility Report on your competitors website can help you go to market wisely.

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Web Advertising Tactics from FuelNet that Boost Profits and Save You Money

Grow Your Business 20% This Year — with Cheap, Easy-to-Implement, Online Advertising Tactics

Audience Development Strategy

Bob Bly’s New Book: The Words You Should Know to Sound Smart

As a valued reader of mine, I have an irresistible offer for you including hundreds of dollars in free gifts.

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

How to Take an Organized Approach to Looking at your Online Business Market

Three paths to an online market audit of your online publishing niche What should you do when you realize you don’t have the resources to go “multiplatform” in all your markets?

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Why Are Smart Publishers Selling Off Some of Their Books, Newsletters and Magazines?

Do you have the online publishing resources to go “multiplatform” in all your markets? There’s a realignment happening in the publishing world. Even the largest publishers, with the deepest pockets, realize

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

How Much Do You Really Know About Ad Sales?

Are you maximizing revenue with your website advertising inventory, or is it time to re-examine your business model? This 90-minute webinar, co-sponsored by Mequoda and SIPA, could change forever the way

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Content Repurposing – Why to Release your Archives and Recycle Content

Online Content Marketing Management: Finding the hidden assets that can fuel your online marketing program A bonanza of previously published content can be reused to attract search engine traffic and build

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Get Ready for the Mequoda Summit in Boston!

When the Mequoda Summit returns to Boston October 7-9, 2009, it will surely be a sellout. Don’t miss this opportunity to reserve your seat at the guaranteed lowest price.

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Write a Business Plan that Reflects Your Internet Business Model and Strategies

How to write a business plan with a five-year financial forecast How large will your publishing business become, and how much of an investment will be required to build it out

Audience Development Strategy

Is Daily Email Newsletter Frequency Right For You?

I suspect that 50 percent of Mequoda Daily readers should not be launching their own Mequoda System periodical website and daily email newsletter…

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Join Me in Munich and London

Online publishers now have an opportunity to monetize an international audience. Digital products that can be downloaded from your website are only the beginning. If you conduct live events, you should

Digital Magazine Publishing

Who Belongs On Your Digital Publishing Team?

An immature industry requires some mature professionals. If you are running an online media operation, don’t underestimate the value of diversity of age, opinions, experience and skills.

Audience Development Strategy

Why Twitter Matters to Online Publishers

Twitter is now the second largest source of Mequoda’s incoming website traffic, and a major audience development driver Using social media marketing to drive targeted website traffic and build your online

Audience Development Strategy

Using Google News as your New Publicity Partner

How to get publicity for your website by submitting content to Google News Google News aggregates headlines from more than 4,500 English-language news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together and displays

Audience Development Strategy

Google Web Alert Hack: Is Somebody Talking About You Behind Your Back?

Drive Website Traffic: How to discover online friends you didn’t know you had when a Google Alert tips you off to new link-building opportunities. Our recent post about How to Defend

Audience Development Strategy

Maximize Email Marketing Revenue by Reconsidering Your Contact Strategy

Online Marketing Tools: Using an Email Lifetime Value Calculator to measure the real lifetime value of an email name The essence of the Mequoda Method is to build a database of

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

How to Defend Your Online Publishing Content From Theft

Uncommon sense about when to link and how much to quote Protecting intellectual property is every publisher’s responsibility There is a firestorm of controversy growing over how much content can be excerpted

Don’t Forget the End-Goal of Your Link-Building Efforts

Why it’s critical to have one authority page, ideally a Rapid Conversion Landing Page, as the reservoir for all your internal and external link juice. We often write about the importance

Audience Development Strategy

Link-Building Loophole: 8 Steps for Growing Email Circulation with PDFs

Use PDF files to improve your site’s landing page rankings with Google Help build your niche brand with this eight-step link-building technique

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Does Your Site Meet These 4 Online Publishing Criteria?

What it means to be content-driven, Google-friendly, email-centric and profit-minded. What are the characteristics that publishers and marketers should think about when designing their online business? In our view of the

Audience Development Strategy

Email Marketing Quiz: What’s Your Email Conversion Rate?

Maximize your subscriber file size with aggressive email conversion architecture. Discover how to forecast and increase profits with the Mequoda Email Circulation Calculator. Fundamentally, there are only two ways for any business

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Magazines 24/7 Coverage: Raising the Digital Bar in a Down Economy

Panelists share digital revenue percentages and thoughts on how they might increase those in the coming months and years For The Knot, digital has always been their center. It represents 80%

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Magazines 24/7 Coverage: Print Vs. Web – The Editorial Challenge

Editors gather for a candid discussion about what’s working online and what isn’t Jacob Weisberg, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief of The Slate Group, opened this session by asking: Why aren’t magazines better

Magazines 24/7 Coverage: Are Paid Membership Websites the New Black?

Executives from ESPN, Rodale and Harvard Business Review discuss the challenges and benefits of charging users for online content General Manager & Editorial Director of ESPN Publishing Gary Hoenig admitted he

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Magazines 24/7 Coverage: Rethinking Decision-Making in a 2.0 World

Google’s Analytics Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, tells magazine publishers why some of their sites “suck” and what kind of thinking is required to fix them

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Online Market Analysis: The Importance of Knowing Your Online Neighborhood

Seven questions you must answer to avoid leaving money on the table How an online market analysis can reveal friendly competitors, potential marketing partners, and new business opportunities... In traditional bricks and

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Online Editor & Publisher Job Description 2009

Online Editor & Publisher Job Description 2009 - Setting Measureable Goals for your Online Team In the more than three years since last we shared our goals and metrics for the

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Hybrid Media: Selling Print and Web Advertising Together

4 Key Practices and Strategies in Selling Hybrid Advertising Packages When an advertiser buys ads from both print and online versions of a brand, the extra frequency targeted to the most

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

How to Increase The Value of Information Products with a Lesson from Alice in Wonderland: Words Matter!

Editorial Strategy: User perceptions can often be altered with a simple change in language. A handbook by any other name… If you’re a publisher, answer this simple question: What’s more valuable

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Monetizing Online Customer Relationships with Events

The hidden factors that can determine the success of live events, and how we chose Napa Valley for the Mequoda Summit Of the nine proven methods used by successful publishers for

Design Above the Fold – 9 Crucial Items

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

Online Metrics: Measuring Email Newsletter Revenue per Subscriber

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Online Metrics: Measuring Email Newsletter Revenue per Subscriber

How email newsletter contact frequency affects the annual value of an email newsletter subscriber The online metrics of making your email newsletter yield more revenue If he had been a

Audience Development Strategy

Keyword Research: How to Manually Look Up Keyword Competition

Why putting “quotes” around each term will help determine your keyword competition A large part of what we teach in our keyword research process is how to look up keyword competition.

Audience Development Strategy

Lesson from the Obama Campaign: Email Marketing Rocks!

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

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Astounded Twice in One Day

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.

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Article Marketing Strategy 101

How to use your articles for increasing website traffic to keep people coming to your site from every corner of the web. Article Marketing is essentially writing and distributing short articles

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Management Conundrum: Too Many Numbers, Too Little Understanding

How to cut through the clutter of data and create a useful website management dashboard with online metrics More than 50 years ago, legendary management consultant Peter Drucker was telling American

Website Strategy 101: The Importance of Effective Website Architecture

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

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