Our most-read subscription website publishing posts of last year show a continued interest in building profitable subscription websites and improving their speed and ranking.
Last year, publishers focused on increasing profitability through apps and subscription website publishing. As publishers continue to search for digital content success through subscriptions, we think the chosen top ten most-read posts of 2017 on Mequoda Daily are right on point.
[text_ad]
1. The Most Profitable Subscription Website Business Models
Choosing your content focus is a business-critical decision, as the focus you choose pretty much dictates your chances of success with a subscription website. However, more serious than the focus on content for a subscription website is the business model. Not considering the subscription website business model is a major mistake some publishers make. Read this post.
2. 14 Tips for Fixing Slow Loading Web Pages
Call us spoiled or impatient, but the fact is the web-using public doesn’t want to wait – at all. If your landing page loads at anything slower than the speed of instant gratification, you run a serious risk of losing your customer. Don’t let that happen. Read this post.
3. Usability Testing: 5 Heat Map Tracking Tools to Watch What Your Visitors Do
If you want to know why your website design is, or is not performing, start conducting usability tests. A/B tests are great for content, but when it comes to seeing how users engage with your website, online heat map tracking tools can make all the difference. Read this post.
4. Create Better Vanity URLs: 8 Dos and 8 Don’ts
You know the importance of landing pages, but many people don’t know how important vanity URLs are. Vanity URLs that are too long, don’t make sense, or they’re hard to read and can turn someone away, rather than attracting them to your site. This 2017 post explains the do’s and don’ts of creating URL’s. Read this post.
5. A Great Example of a Premium Content Subscription
CooksIllustrated.com is a resounding success in the tremendously crowded recipe and cooking space. Its continued success tells us that this is indeed the perfect premium content subscription website. If you’re creating a premium content subscription website, use CooksIllustrated.com as a mentor site, because it exhibits all the necessary attributes to make it a stand-out. Read this post.
6. Using “Self-Liquidating Premiums” to Help Close the Sale
An effective technique in digital content marketing is “self-liquidating premiums” — having the value of premiums exceed the entire purchase price of your product. This post from 2017 explains how to use self liquidating premiums to increase revenue. Read this post.
7. The Mysterious UTM Code Explained
An Urchin Traffic Monitor (UTM) code is the way that businesses track sales from their origination point (like a Tweet, email, or a brochure) down the funnel to their conversion page. Every audience development campaign is packed with UTM codes to see which campaigns perform best. Read this post.
While the challenge of choosing the right subscription and single-copy pricing strategy is not new to magazine publishers, it’s virgin territory for most subscription website publishers and for many publishers exploring the digital newsstand landscape. A lot of readers found this 2017 post helpful in planning pricing strategies for their subscription based websites and apps. Read this post.
9. The Mequoda Magazine Content Business Model
This top post from 2017 explains why it’s necessary to know which content business model(s) you have or need if you plan to develop your strategy for content, audience, revenue, organization, technology, measurement, and economics. Skipping the content business model is a major mistake some publishers make. Read this post.
10. Follow Google’s Landing Page Guidelines to Improve Rank
Making Google happy is always a good way to make your bottom line happy. If you read our handbooks and posts, you already know how much value we place on organic search. It’s the core of the Mequoda Method, and while anyone can buy ads to drive traffic, that kind of marketing just isn’t as high on our priority list as organic search. Read this post.
Does your publication need a subscription website? If you’d like to discuss how we can help you increase your audience, revenue and profits, please reach out to schedule a no obligation chat with Don Nicholas, our Founder, Chairman & CEO.
