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.
Join us on Nov. 6 for Designing Media Websites that Work so you can improve the state of your website
Your media website must include certain components or you’ll fail to retain an audience and generate enough revenue to keep operating.
Some online business owners don’t understand all the aspects that go into designing websites, and then
Or, a thousand words are worth a single picture
Google the phrase “landing page examples” and you get 3,300,000 results. It’s enough to make the earnest copywriter throw up her hands in despair.
Of course, when you start digging into those results for actual landing page examples, you find that most of them are critiques based on
Have you been using Google Analytics to monitor social media activities?
For a while, online marketers were questioning the value behind social media. As time goes on, more analytical tools become available, which make it easier to monitor the impact social media has on your company.
These aspects will help your subscription website grow an audience and remain relevant to those consumers
Although there are different types of subscription websites, certain components belong in each of the separate archetypes to assure the correct result from the subscription website.
Now that subscription websites are turning into the core of online publishing companies, it’s important
The debate could be waged that either a portal or an email newsletter is more important than the other. And evidence could be presented for both sides. What’s really important to realize though, is that portals and email newsletters work together to build stronger relationships. There is harmony between the two.
The main point of online advertisements is to gain conversions.
Landing pages need prominent conversion architecture to successful convert casual visitors into email subscribers.
Successful conversion architecture is clearly labeled, above the fold and simplistic in nature. Whether the website is selling a product or offering a free signup for an email newsletter or a complimentary
Don’t expect to increase landing page conversion rates without following these four simple rules
Posting a landing page with a confusing or inadequate order mechanism is like opening a new Wal-Mart, but forgetting to install cash registers. What’s the point?
In direct mail advertising, one of the two most important elements of the package is the order
First Class Flyer is a great product with a great value proposition, which is a great foundation for creating a sales letter landing page with impressive conversion rates.
A new client recently asked me how many hours it would take to create a first-class sales letter landing page for his subscription website and newsletter. Having done
Landing page testing is necessary for higher conversion rates
Who here is a landing page testing fanatic? I’m sure there are a few in the group. Landing page testing is a focus for some publishers, but unfortunately, not enough publishers and marketers. In fact, less than 45% of marketers have reported trying A/B tests. Only about
7 areas to test on your landing pages
On the subject of testing, some digital publishers and marketers aren’t fully sure what they need to test. Do you know what to test?
The first thing that would always come to mind in tests for me, pertained to email marketing and the subject lines used to get people
The Understanding Google Analytics webinar teaches key performance indicators to make better resource, staffing, and content performance decisions
Understanding analytics should be the job of everyone in your organization. This unfortunately isn’t always the case, as many find the task boring or tedious.
For those of you who are not sure what responsive web design is, it basically means designing your website so it will be able to adapt to whatever platform its opened on. Whether it’s a computer, tablet, smartphone etc. the site will adapt and fit on whatever screen is being utilized.
Below we have some articles going more
3 Tips for Choosing the Best Website Name for your Media Company, blog, Portal or Subscription Website
Over the past decade or so, I’ve had the privilege and downright fun of getting to help name a few hundred websites. Most of the names I’ve helped generate have been for portals and blogs like Bible History Daily,
Website homepage ideas that will help you create a functional website
Whether you are creating a website from scratch, or you have launched a website and want to improve upon its design, there are often little nuances that may be overlooked. Some of these incorporate minor changes that create better engagement opportunities. Others are more significant,
Is responsive website design the future for digital publishers?
As websites optimize for growing mobile demands, popularity turns towards responsive website design. Although not a new technique for designing, digital publishers are quick to consider the possibilities that come with responsive website design.
After researching the topic, I’ve come to find three important elements to responsive website
Four webinars that will help you define, optimize, and analyze your website’s content
How would you define website supremacy? I’d consider it a market leader that provides functionality accepted by its audience members. It would share content, inform interested readers, and offer online business strategies focused on revenue generation.
How do you think website supremacy can be
Today we are focusing on multiple blog posts from CMS Wire relating to website analytics. CMS Wire is a great site that focuses on website analytics news and is the place to be for up-to-date website analytics information. They have tons of new, fresh content on ways to improve analytics and lots of new info
Today we are looking in depth at different website design tips from top bloggers.
When you’re designing a website one of the main objectives should be inducing traffic. No matter what the content of your website is, if you don’t create traffic its not going to be very successful. Not only do you want to create traffic, but also you want your users to stay for a while, rather
The number of people who own smartphones has been consistently rising for years and doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down anytime soon. Approximately 50% of people who own a cell phone have chosen a smartphone. What does this mean? That your websites need to be able to adapt for the smartphone viewer. Below
Below are a few articles about analytics from Search Engine Journal (SEJ):
Three ways to generate free subscribers
The digital subscription is an interesting audience development tool. It can be used to build an email marketing file, and it can help develop free and paid subscribers. There are three subscription website archetypes that particularly target free subscribers,
In many circles, blogging is still misunderstood by many. However, as more
Your blog or portal is central in building an audience. The amount of content provided in these locations equates to the amount of landing pages that can bring in audience members. The search engine optimization used on each of these pages and posts dictates the visibility behind them.
Multiplatform publishing has become the name of the
The subscription website is the ultimate tool for digital publishers
After years of selling subscriptions for print products, digital publishers realized that subscription websites could be the digital counterpart. In today’s world, where tablet publishing is quickly gaining popularity, presenting content in an interactive digital format provides a new opportunity for publishers.
Any media company with frequently
Website landing page suggestions that will help you build a larger audience
When audience members arrive on your website, they have a few options. If they find your content relevant, they can check out other aligned articles. If they don’t find the information to be what they seek, they can bounce off your site. If they
Effective website design is based on efficiency, clarity, and user-friendly elements.
Website design that does not utilize these components will have a hard time generating a robust audience of devote fans.
There are a variety of tools online to help develop effective websites. Four of these tools are listed below.
A persistent navigation is specifically valuable when websites are complex, with a lot of pages and options. This can include a blog, service information, different storefronts, and an about us section.
When users come to your site, it should be clear where they are within your site. They should know where to find your content, products,
7 editorial tips for writing a white paper
Knowing how to write a white paper is one step in building your audience. We often talk about optimizing landing pages to get new users to your website. It is typically free white papers that these visitors are seeking. However, if you provide poor quality white papers, the
Tomorrow’s webinar will discuss proxy metric modeling – a short form of modeling that allows you to find a handful of key metrics. These key metrics define how the business operates.
A proxy metric serves as a placeholder for much more in depth analysis. A full online publishing model would be in Excel, updated monthly, be
Three WordPress plugins that will help your online editors perform their jobs better
Keyword universes and tools for finding keyword phrases were new tools for online editors. They weren’t familiar with these in traditional editorial positions, but are beginning to discover how useful they can be.
Below I’ve listed three plugins that can be helpful tools for
Author Stephen Covey is fond of pointing out how difficult it is to reach goals that you don’t have. “Begin with the end in mind” is my personal mantra for every website design project I start.
Publishing websites are like Swiss Army Knives. They can do many things well. This makes them the perfect tool for
When I first became the Managing Editor of Mequoda Daily, I wasn’t very familiar with optimizing images. However, I learned quickly, and realized how important it can be to optimize images.
If you are adding images to your website that aren’t optimized for the Internet, you website’s load time can be impacted.
Optimizing YouTube video content will lead to enhanced branding and the chance to drive more website traffic
YouTube clearly doesn’t want its users bouncing from the site and going to the website of other content publishers. Digital publishers utilizing YouTube to house and share video content want to drive traffic back to their website. So how
We love to share our own experiences at Mequoda Summits. It is our program after all, and we’ve designed it to share experiences, both positive and negative, with our clients and attendees.
Within the last few months, we made a major change by redesigning our entire look and feel of our daily blog. This change focused
Getting the most out of your interviews
In yesterday’s member profile, Minal Bopaiah, editor of Subscription Site Insider, spoke of the importance that case studies play in their success. She conducts one every other week, speaking to a head of marketing or CEO for 1-1½ hours on the phone and then writing up the study.
A reverse paywall would reward your most loyal readers
John Paton emerged from running the regional Journal-Register newspapers to become the CEO of the enormous MediaNews Group—and he does not like paywalls. He wants audience and more audience—thinking that once that comes, monetization will follow. In a speech last month, he urged the media industry to
Every online marketer in 2012 should be praising the power of testing. It is the proverbial golden goose, which can lead to more effective money making options.
Beyond the results themselves, the most exciting part of testing is the options. Website operators can test different creatives, including email subject lines and calls-to-action.
Three types of conversions that will improve your online business
There are multiple conversion types that need to be addressed by digital publishers. The analysis will provide statistics on different parts of the online business, including engagement efforts, marketing efforts, and overall success in generating revenue.
For engagement, we can take a look at social media efforts.
Tips and tools for getting advice from people who mean the most to your brand
Surveys and polls can be very telling. These direct comments from your audience can tell what they like and what they don’t like, while offering tips on creating better experiences.
When conducting surveys, remember to keep your research objectives in mind. This
Publishers are making adjustments to their websites to incorporate the social engagement opportunities presented by Facebook, which claims to have over 845 million active users.
Beyond strategies for publishing on Facebook, many of the adjustments being made by publishers involve the use of social plugins.
After you have a keyword universe developed, how do you make sense of all the data? A keyword universe, which is the backbone of online marketing efforts, typically consists of hundreds of thousands of keyword phrases. Where do you rank on those terms? Which keyword phrases are the most important to your online business?
The Google
eMedia Vitals pointed out last week that five major magazine and blog publishers redesigned their websites recently. After studying their before-and-after looks using the Wayback Machine, it’s obvious that all of these publishers paid special attention to graphics in their redesigns, usually opting for more. Social media was also an important factor. Across all of
When starting off, some digital publishers approach their goals in strange ways. Would you ever expect success if you wanted to base your business off another, without any uniqueness to it?
For instance, if someone were to walk into our office and say, “I want to be the next Orbitz”, they probably receive a puzzled look
Does seeing other publishers redesign their website or make changes to the content they provide make you wonder about your own possible changes?
Streamlining Digital Asset Workflows is a session from our Digital Publishing Bootcamp that helps you make changes within your organization, designed to increase efficiency through the use of automation.
There are dozens of WordPress plug-ins that can transform the functionality and efficiency of your website
WordPress is the system we’ve used to build client’s websites with.
If you’ve been looking, it’s clear that we aren’t the only consulting and development firm that approves of the work from the WordPress community. Publishers like the Wall Street Journal
Subscription websites have never been more valuable as digital evolves
Digital may be the direction publishers are heading, but a plan is required. It’s pretty clear that digital magazine publishers need a strategy. Making digital replica editions of magazine may be acceptable for a period of time, but it is enough to sustain a digital publication?
The
Operators of WordPress website can easily increase optimization with this tool
Sitemaps are a critical part of search engine optimization, especially if you have a lot of content on your website.
For instance, if you publish daily content like most successful digital publishers do, then you likely have hundreds or thousands of pages and posts. If you
Don’t be fooled; there is a proper way to design for mobile.
I once read an article that claimed there was no such thing as mobile websites, because all websites were already mobile.
I hope the person who wrote that article doesn’t design sites for a living, or his clientele won’t last very long.
Apps Give Companies Another Paywall Option
Just a month ago, the publisher of Britain’s largest-selling regional newspaper, the Express & Star, altered its online payment strategy by “removing its website paywall in favour of encouraging readers to purchase iPad and iPhone apps.” The apps, which give users pdf versions of the papers, cost £1.49 ($2.35)
You know The New York Times, right? Of course you do. And what’s great about NYTimes.com is that it features an exquisite layout that retains the look and feel of a read newspaper and provides the form and function for todays netizens as well.
One goal that digital publishers have is to keep readers reading and
