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.
“Give consumers what they want.” That’s both the motto and the business model at Prime Publishing, where a whopping 17 craft websites and 13 food sites – including one recently-launched site in each category – have led the company’s success since its founding in 2009.
When President Stuart Hochwert, a Mequoda Master, launched these sites, he
There’s no better example of how critical a subscription website can be to a legacy publisher than the story of Psychotherapy Networker.
This 30-year-old magazine was launched by a group of therapists who knew their colleagues had a need for in-the-trenches information, rather than lofty academic articles that didn’t help them in their day-to-day work.
Subscription websites are at the core of modern online publishing and have even been considered the Holy Grail of the industry.
The popularity surrounding subscription websites stems from the fact that they are among the most profitable websites on the Internet.
Any publisher or content marketer that is looking to have the most profitable website should know
From augmented reality to trends in nontraditional gift-giving, Bayou City magazine’s subscription website publishing adventures epitomize the 21st century.
Bayoucitynetwork.com launched in early November, exactly one year after it was born in the minds of Becky Davis and Mark Standridge, Houstonites who had until then been publishing a traditional, “hyper” local neighborhood magazine as part of
One of the most revolutionary things about the Internet for the publishing industry is that it has allowed people who might never have had access to an audience to become publishers and distribute content that they feel passionate about to a global audience.
Subscription website publishing: It’s the core of every publishing business today. The website is where you drive traffic, post content to enthrall your audience and sell lots of products, including digital and print subscriptions.
The health of your subscription website publishing endeavors dictates everything else you do.
A riddle: What’s quick and relatively easy to set up when you want to become a publisher, but can still be quite lucrative? The answer, of course, is a subscription website blog. This is one of the three affinity (free) subscription website models that Mequoda has documented. The free sites are often paired with one
An application premium subscription website archetype allows access to specialized online software that allows users to input information, use calculators and/or search a proprietary database, and access results.
When we first started documenting our subscription website archetypes, there was no such thing as an iPad or iPhone, and therefore, no “apps” as we currently understand them.
The magazine website is one of nine subscription website models that Mequoda has identified and defined. We do this because designing a website is as much about establishing a business model as it is about “design,” and so many people simply don’t understand how the different models are used, leading to websites that don’t drive
As you may have noticed, Mequoda is a firm believer in the power of email newsletters as a marketing channel – so much so that a Mequoda subscription website is built specifically to give away content and harvest email addresses, rather than sell magazine subscriptions.
When it comes to showing off a perfectly executed subscription website, they don’t come any more perfect than CeramicArtsDaily.org. Along with all our other Mequoda top operators, they’re golden in our eyes because of eye-popping statistics like these.
The periodical website archetype is often associated with newspaper brands and other news periodicals that include trade papers like Computerworld and Variety.
Periodical subscription websites may also be called news sites, online newspapers, online magazines, online newsletters, or online journals.
Back on April 1 Don wrote a post entitled Saving TIME Magazine: or, the Future of All of Us. Don’s vision of the future, even for faltering weekly news magazines, focuses on creating a niche product like any of our clients or followers who implement the Mequoda Method, even if the scale is a bit
For a publication with roots deep in the Victorian era, founded by a conservative Scottish hatmaker, The Economist is a surprising innovator in the modern publishing era.
Apparently, despite its stodgy beginnings and reputation as a snobbish, upper-crust British media voice – just look at all the photos of all the elderly white men running the
The newsletter subscription website model is simple, clean and editorially-focused
Newsletter publishers, particularly those on the B-to-B side but also those with consumer titles in the finance and health fields, were among the first to embrace subscription websites. Perhaps that’s because the newsletter subscription website archetype is the easiest type of subscription website to build. The
How can a club help you make money?
Mequoda has called one of its paid websites a “membership” website for a decade. Unfortunately, not everyone does as we tell them to do (imagine!) and over the years some folks started getting confused, calling any subscription website a “membership” site.
By popular demand, today I’m going to officially
A 2011-12 growth rate in website visitors of 46% … overall revenues up 50% every year (and solely dependent on advertising) … it’s a dream life for Prime Publishing and its 14 crafting and cooking sites.
It’s also well deserved, because operations there are so button-down with Best Practices that nothing is left to chance or
At Mequoda, we do a lot of work with clients who are starting from scratch with online publishing and subscription website marketing. They get the full benefit of the Mequoda Method because we build their website to take best advantage of SEO and optimize it for conversion of visitors to email subscribers and, ultimately, buyers.
We
A 70X increase in online revenues over the past decade.
That’s the joyous news that Mother Earth News shared with me the other day. And I love to spread such news, especially in an industry that has its full share of pessimism about the digital age.
What’s more, last month those online revenues supplied 23% of their
A hybrid website can be many things to a large online audience
Publishers have good reason to create a hybrid website. On one had, the hybrid allows them to operate a subscription website that meets the expectations of their audience members. On the other hand, a hybrid website is a place where content can be optimized
With all the talk about tablets and digital magazines these days, it’s tempting to think of the desktop or laptop, and the website you worked so hard to establish back when those were your only options for publishing on the Internet, as buggy whips – soon to be obsolete.
After all, our 2013 Mequoda Tablet
Subscription content goes everywhere. It’s displayed on smart phones, tablets, desktops and laptops.
It involves words, images and sounds.
The digital subscription has become a model media companies cannot afford to ignore. If you create or publish content and don’t utilize the subscription business model, you may want to reconsider.
We talk a lot about the Online Magazine Index – OMI – that’s a fairly accurate measure of a publisher’s Internet savvy. In subscription website publishing, you should easily have more unique visitors to your website than you have print subscribers.
If you’re not driving more Internet traffic than you are selling paid subscriptions, something’s desperately
As Don likes to say, your magazine is not a website. And your website is not your magazine.
In fact, your subscription website isn’t even a website. It’s actually three websites: A portal, a magazine and a store. And the Mequoda Method, which is utilized by successful niche publishers both large and small, calls for deploying
When a visitor arrives at your website landing page, you have about five seconds to make a good impression and capture her attention. If you don’t succeed immediately, she is likely to click away and you’re apt to lose her forever.
Your landing page needs to be a fast, effective messenger.
With a quick glance, visitors to
How big is the Martha Stewart brand? The formal name, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, pretty much says it all. And Googling the name for news of the company in the media world delivers stunning results.
Page 1 of Google results delivered nine listings from the website itself, and the usual listing from Wikipedia. One the second
The New Yorker shows that it’s not only the wave of the future, but can also remedy the sins of the past. Take a trip with me today to the Big Apple, home of The New Yorker magazine. This venerable publication, like everyone else in the industry, has struggled in the Internet era with declining
Be careful who you follow because special-interest publishers are converting print to web subscribers better than anyone
Website usability tests are performed to determine if websites are functioning correctly. If they aren’t, users will have a hard time executing on their desired tasks, leading website publishers to fail in building rapport and generating revenue from these users.
Stay focused, be quick, and write well
The other day my husband had to fetch a magnifying glass to read what was printed on a box of gourmet chocolate milk mix.
It was in tiny, light brown type on a dark brown background.
At Mequoda we get about 30,000 unique visitors every month. As a niche marketing blog for publishers, that ain’t too shabby!
Misunderstanding Membership Website information architecture
Misunderstanding the characteristics and attributes of a membership website compared to, say, a subscriber-access-only magazine or newsletter retail subscription website is a common misunderstanding when publishers are launching a paid-access-only website.
A Membership Website is an online medium—a destination—in and of itself.
It may be structured as a “pure-play” site, which does not
While many magazine publishers struggle to find the right subscription marketing strategy, The Economist demonstrates its regard for long-term subscriber relationships.
The simplest subscription website pricing strategy is Universal Access and The Economist uses it well.
I’ve spent hours, and several hundred dollars, buying digital magazines. I’ve bounced around between my iPad, Kindle Fire, and the World
All of us have come across the 404 error page message at some time or the other. The 404 pops up when you have connected to the server but the server cannot find the requested page. The page has either been deleted, or the visitor has mistyped a URL or just happened to click
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 specifics will support higher revenue, lower operating costs and happier customers.
“You either want something you don’t have, or you have something you don’t want.”
That’s one of the main truths in life that every copywriter needs to know to use basic human anxiety as a tool in their work.
The key to selling a product is making people feel like they need something. Obviously you should also
You buy a home, you fill it with nice things. To secure your home, you add locks to the doors, sensors to the windows and all kinds of other security systems.
Isn’t your website kind of like a home? You fill it will valuable content. You build your site’s readership. In time it becomes a web
Membership websites are hot for 2013
All the sudden in 2013 I found myself hip-deep in subscription and membership websites.
Perhaps it’s the tablet market evolving, the publishing market maturing, the continuing problems of advertising models or the renewed interest in the renewable revenue of continuity websites.
Deploy your words to make landing pages more powerful
The best landing page designs aren’t about design.
OK, they’re sort of about design. I know that my copy can enhance and work with the design, or it can put the reader off the product featured in even the best landing page designs.
Look no further than these 11 examples to make your landing pages wildly successful
Whether you’re selling a product or hoping to trade a free report for an email address, your landing page is where you lay it all on the line. Badly written copy, sloppy formatting and lackluster layout lead to death on a page.
But
Can disavowing links really help your site?
Do you remember when JCPenny found out the hard way that it’s a really bad idea to hire an SEO company who buys backlinks to boost rankings? Do you think JCPenny believes it was worth getting banned from Google indefinitely for the quick boost in traffic they got? Probably
Six membership site ideas all digital publishers must follow
How to make a membership website is a topic many publishers struggle with. Membership and subscription websites can be hugely successful in generating revenue for publishers with evergreen and updated content.
However, understanding how to make a membership website is often overlooked during the planning process. Let’s take
Do you know what your F.U.Q.s are?
No, I didn’t just swear at you, F.U.Q. stands for “Frequently Unasked Questions.”
Your F.U.Q.s are the questions that someone may never ask you. A question we get asked a lot in person is “What does Mequoda stand for?” Well folks, it’s a shortened version of Media Quote Daily, the
Usability and design are two key factors in publishing great websites. You may 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 want them to do and
For successful landing pages, best practices are mandatory
At Mequoda, we never guess. Over many years of testing, we’ve developed proven best practices for just about everything. In fact, when it comes to landing pages, we have 12 of them. You can test these elements over and over, removing some or adding others, but in the
What your ecommerce website design should look like from the first page to the thank-you page
Publishers sometimes forget that they are retailers; publishers do sell subscriptions, memberships, books, ancillary products, events, etc.
It’s smart for a publisher to think like a retailer: Get people into your store, where they can become your customers. And when they
The website design process hasn’t really changed in the last ten years. You come up with a wireframe, a designer mocks it up, a developer makes a test site and after weeks of going through each agonizing detail you deploy your new design. It’s a fairly static process; however, there’s an endless supply of questions
… as long as you answer the million-dollar question
What’s in it for me?
This is more than just a popular refrain among toddlers and politicians. This is the question you must answer with every landing page letter you write. Great landing pages will convert visitors to members, and members to subscribers or buyers, only if you
These things are what make a Mequoda System. Options you have when building a publishing website are somewhat resilient in the way that while we always grow to adapt the tools we’re working with and the architecture to stay modern, but the end-goals don’t waver.
Five website design tools and three tips for speeding up your website
“People hate to wait,” Andy King states in the opening line of his book, Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization (VOICES). “The Web is essentially a self-service environment. A core promise of self-service is speed. A customer turns to self-service to save time,
