Subscription Website Publishing posts focus on how to build and operate a premium subscription website, including how to best align and repurpose your content, increase subscription orders, and best practices for subscription website architecture.
Are your landing pages converting enough users? Check out these benchmarks and find out
The most important website metric is conversion rate.
All of the other website metrics—like unique visitor count, click through rate and open rate—are to analyze how well users are being led to conversion. Conversion is the ultimate goal.
A conversion can be defined as
Learn how one company is applying lessons from direct mail, and find out who won our Mequoda Summit Raffle for SIPA attendees
It’s widely known that direct mail campaigns are more successful when written with personalized information. Using the reader’s full name in the from-line or their job title in the copy will usually boost response
Put an edge on your marketing campaigns by learning your customers’ language
Speaking to users in their language—whether technical or regional—is very important. The more they understand you, the easier it is to sell them products.
Thankfully, the Web has made it easy to learn your customers’ language.
You can learn their exact terminology by using WordTracker.
The program
One of the biggest problems a Membership Website can have is that it’s not a Membership Website
Membership Websites are as commonly used as they are misunderstood.
Hiding information behind a firewall with a username and password gate and charging for access does not automatically make a Membership Website.
A Membership Website should be designed to be a
Celebrity news continues to dominate the blogosphere while the nation’s top newspaper slips in rank
The April results of the Mequoda Blog100 are posted, and celebrity news hub TMZ continues to dominate our list of the top 100 media blogs in the US.
The biggest change this month is the hit USAToday took in unique visitor counts—losing
Clearly communicating your website’s features to the user will help fulfill your goals.
It is easy to get carried away when designing a website. With the constantly emerging technology, business models and website designs, it’s easy to blurt out “Let’s do em’ all!” at a staff meeting.
Whoa. Hold on, there.
Your website should strive to fulfill specific
The top five media blogs in the country remained for March, but one community-centric website is knocking at the door.
The March results of the Mequoda Blog 100 are in, and the top five media blogs in the country are the same as last month, but shuffled. They are, in descending order:
How tagging gives you the ability to follow the customer.
Tagging started out as something used internally by companies to help employees find and share files easier. Nowadays, it goes hand and hand with Web 2.0 and user-generated content, as people are actually able to put their own vocabulary and interpretation into something that they didn’t
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 news blogs, and there are
Promotional codes are an inexpensive way to identify what is working for your online business and what needs to be changed.
Metrics are vital to knowing if you are reaching your audience. Detailed metrics are increasingly available in the digital world, but with so many channels for reaching users, and with several metrics for each channel,
How one company designed a website that shot to the top in 6 months
Socrates Media began helping small businesses and consumers manage themselves financially and legally online five years ago. They started with Socrates.com, established CompleteLandlord.com about 18 months ago and more recently launched RentSlicer.com. With two new websites focused on real estate, the company
Websurfers are not getting any more patient.
More people are installing broadband connections in their homes, and more than 80 percent of all active Internet users in the US now access the net with broadband, according to Website Optimization’s March 2007 Bandwidth Report. The pokey 56K connection is becoming too slow to satisfy.
TMZ’s constantly updated celebrity news draws more unique users by a wide margin.
Entertainment news hub TMZ dominated the Mequoda Blog 100 this month, generating more unique visitors during January than the two closest contenders combined.
Capitalize on these frequently overlooked opportunities to sell more products from your website and increase your average dollar amount per sale.
If you’ve ever bought a product in direct response to a TV commercial, you’ve experienced the “upsell.” The operator always has a special, “today only” opportunity to increase your order or add another product at
The Mequoda Research Team has made a list of the top 100 media blogs in the country based on unique page visitors per month.
In the sprawling and volatile blogosphere, mining for a gem of a site is hard work. That’s why the Mequoda Research Team created the free Mequoda Blog 100. Mequoda has identified the
Does your membership website measure up in all these important areas?
A membership website is not a shortcut to Internet riches. In fact, unless you consider all of these elements and execute each with precision, your membership website or online newsletter will probably fail.
Did you know that if your page loads too slowly, you could be deterring some search engine robots from crawling your website?
For users, speed is everything. Broadband users expect websites to pop open and 56k users do not have all day to wait for pages to load. Their patience expires quickly, and if a site
If you’re promoting your online newsletter or membership website in person at a trade show or seminar, you might want to hand out CD-ROMs to potential members.
CD-ROMs are not expensive to duplicate. And they can enable a prospective membership website subscriber to experience a portion of your site’s content without having to logon to the
Emphasizing the benefits of joining your membership website means appealing to your prospect’s self-interest
People do not subscribe or pay for access to your membership website, per se. They are really paying for the benefits of access to your membership website, or for the benefits of membership in your organization.
Features are descriptions of what premium information
Using Compete SnapShot and Yahoo! Site Explorer to Measure the Success of Your Websites (and those of your Competitors!)
One very common way to determine a site’s success is to know how many unique visitors it gets each month. Unique visitors is a stat everyone wants to know and it’s usually the first number a website
If there’s a new blog born every half second, how will yours get noticed?
The average blog reader views 77% more pages than an average user, and believe it or not, those blog readers are 11% more likely to have an average income of $75,000 or more, according to Clickz. Well that sounds like a great
Looking back on an expert’s claim that website usability testing proved promotional language imposes a cognitive burden
It’s nearly a decade now since website usability expert Dr. Jakob Nielsen proclaimed that “that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.”
“Users detested ‘marketese’—the promotional writing style
Offer an additional bonus to new members for information about how they found your membership website
Do you know where your best membership website traffic is coming from? Not merely the casual visitors to your home page but the serious customers who actually join your membership website?
Is it Google, Yahoo! or MSN?
Great testimonials can be very persuasive. The value of member corroboration and its ability to get new subscribers to your membership website cannot be under-estimated.
Know this about the buying process: Whether they know it or not, everybody has a personal strategy for rationalizing his purchase decisions.
All purchase decisions are emotional, but in order to be
When you build a membership website, provide an incentive to subscribe and offer instant gratification
Many membership website landing pages promote the overall value of their site’s content, but fail to create a sense of urgency about joining.
In broad, sweeping generalizations the landing page characterizes the content that awaits you if you join the membership website,
The Internet is a constantly evolving medium. Websites get redesigned, either owing to new graphics, new content, or because the essential architecture is inadequate to serve the site visitors.
If the human factors haven’t been properly addressed — if visitors can’t easily find what they’re looking for or can’t order your product easily — you’ve got
TimesSelect generated more than a half million new subscribers in its first 12 months
After previously having offered access to its archived content for free, and charging only for access to its celebrated, syndicated columnists, a new revenue model has emerged at the New York Times.
The Times now offers three levels of information. At the lowest
How the Motley Fool Uses their Offline Presence to Drive and Monetize Website Traffic
The Motley Fool boasts a strong online legacy, combined with—from its earliest years—a strong offline product presence. The company began as a pioneering partner of AOL in 1994; shortly thereafter, Fool.com was launched. By 1996, The Motley Fool had published the first
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.
Brand Websites are used by all manner of non-online product and service organizations to build brand preference for the organization’s offline products and services. Brand Websites exist to alert consumers to online and brick and mortar retailers where purchases can occur.
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.
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.
Every Retail Media Website has two business goals. First, the website must allow users to buy products. Second, the website must begin a user relationship with both buyers and non-buyers that will lead to future sales.
A membership website is a user driven, content-based website satellite that generates the majority of its revenues from user access fees. This website business model is similar to a book club, professional association or user group that accepts little or no advertising, relying primarily on user support.
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.
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 analyzed more than 2,000 media
U.S. Government Creates Guidelines
If the target market for your email newsletter or membership website is older Americans, you might want to heed this advice on senior-friendly websites from the National Institute on Aging. If fact, you might find these suggestions are worthwhile for any group squinting at the computer screen.
“Plain text, plain type, and plain
Experts on Website Design and Website Usability Testing Can Disagree
“Never redesign your website,” says one of my esteemed mentors and colleagues.
Disturbing words, especially because, as a website design expert and information architect, I spend 50+ hours a week explaining to clients why and how they must redesign their websites.
A Mathematical Formula for Increasing Landing Page Conversion Rates
Last week at the SIPA event in Las Vegas, we heard from Jalali Hartman, Director of Strategy at MarketingExperiments.com who shared with us a formula for improving our landing page conversion rates.
In a presentation titled “5-Step Plan to Skyrocket Your Registration Funnel Conversion Rate”, Mr. Hartman shared
As you may already know, most people arrive at a website and within less than 10 seconds can determine whether it’s clean, professional and worth their time. Your landing page delivers the first impression. It’s usually the most important page on your site. It needs to be a fast, effective messenger.
With a quick glance, visitors
The most succinct copywriting tip we’ve heard in a long time came from Fred Gleeck at a product development seminar. Fred cited this maxim in a discussion of how to title your book. But the adage is just as valid whether you’re writing a headline for an advertisement or a press release, or a pithy
Copywriter reveals why many online sales letters fail to deliver
The Internet creates new challenges for marketers and wordsmiths, but a fundamental principle still applies
Experts tell us that in print ads, 75-80 percent of all buying decisions are made by reading the headline alone.
Online marketers have four powerful tools for converting website visitors to email newsletter subscribers:
All of the above are entry points into the conversion flow. They may link to the Rapid Conversion Landing Page or to the first data collection page in your order flow—depending on the amount of information the user has received about the
The Secondary Promise is a lesser benefit that the product also delivers.
Although not as large as the Big Promise, the Secondary Promise should be big enough so that, by itself, it is reason enough to order the product… yet small enough so that it is easily believed.
This way, even if the reader is totally skeptical
Rosser Reeves wrote a classic advertising book in 1961 titled Reality in Advertising. Many of us newcomers have never read this book, mostly because it’s widely unavailable.
But lucky for us, Robert W. Bly spent $95 for it on eBay and shared with us at this year’s Mequoda Summit Reeves’ three requirements of a USP (Unique
What is a landing page?
Some say “it’s the first page someone sees on your site”. Others say “it’s a webpage viewed after clicking a link in an email.”
We’ve also heard it referred to as “a specific page a visitor reaches after clicking a search engine listing” or “a location a user is directed to or
Earlier this week, I got my annual physical (the doc says I’m in good shape for an old guy). My new MD looks to be about 35 making me about 15 years his senior—me having just turned 50 last December.
While waiting in various states of dress and undress, I found myself trying to read Time
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 the lead or headline and
At this week’s Mequoda Summit, Robert W. Bly, the man McGraw Hill calls “America’s best copywriter” will deliver a presentation titled “World’s Best Kept Copywriting Secrets”. He also has a book by the same name.
In his presentation on Friday afternoon, Bob will reveal tips for writing great headlines, great outer envelope messages and will demonstrate
Landing Page Design Tips: Want to know a secret? Of course, you do. Everyone loves secrets. As Homo sapiens we always want what we can’t have and that includes desiring an edge over our competitors or discovering some nugget of information that’ll add value to all facets of our lives; whether its business, financial, personal
