High Value Publishing

Did you know that Google Analytics is misleading you? If you look at analytics regularly, you see a lot of web traffic coming from the Direct source. Most publishers think this represents people who directly type in their website URL. But it doesn't. Up to 90% of "direct" traffic is actually "unknown". Google Analytics doesn't know the actual source, so it classifies...

Google Search Console is the key to understanding how Google sees your website and how get more traffic from search. However, it is amazing how many publishers don't have Google Search Console set up, don't know how to use it, or don't use it regularly. Let's change that! Learn how Google Search Console works and how you can use it to improve our visibility in search and grow y...

Cobranded social media ads are a strong, 6-digit revenue stream that most publishers haven't tapped into yet. It's not difficult to implement and you only need a few social media followers to do it. With cobranded social media, you sell advertisers the ability to reach your audience through your Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn accounts. This gives you a unique selling proposition that no...

Gone are the days of utilizing our email deployment system solely as a distribution platform. To stay competitive as media companies, we must incorporate muti-channel communication (broadcast email, automated 1:1 emails, text messages, website messages, chat, snail mail and more) ... and our email systems must aggregate reader data and handle marketing automation. Using automations to trigger acti...

As publishers look for answers to declining digital media sales, the answer is sometimes not found in what they are selling but how they are going about selling it. During this session we talk about some of the most common mistakes publishers make in their approach to selling digital media. From trying to sell too many programs, using digital programs as incentives, to losing the energy and excite...

Watch as we take an in-depth analysis – on-the-fly – at the website of Los Angeles Magazine, a consumer city magazine. We'll identify what they're doing well and what they could improve upon. In the analysis, we'll look at the design of the site to see how effective it is for content, advertising and audience development ... both for desktop and mobile devices. We'll also do so...

In this High Value Publishing session, we’ll go over the right way for publishers to set up Facebook Business Manager and how it relates to the new Meta Business Suite. To be honest, most publishers haven’t set up Facebook Business Manager properly and it’s hurting their business. And some publishers don’t even have a business manager account. In this session you’ll learn Why you should still use...

Sponsored emails are a big revenue generator for publishers. But the creative advertisers send us are usually horrible. From single big images, to ultra complex HTML emails, advertisers and agencies often send creatives that: Don’t work on mobile devices. Aren’t compatible with popular email clients. Don’t solicit the kind of response that they should. In this High Value Publishing session, I’ll s...

On July 1, 2023, Google will replace the current version of Google Analytics (also called Universal Analytics) with Google Analytics 4 (GA4). But I'm counseling all publishers to implement GA4 by July 1 of this year . In just over a year from now, Google will no longer feed data from our websites into the current Google Universal Analytics And they will not bring over any data from the old Go...

Are you considering a paywall or registration wall for your website? Are you having problems getting the kind of results you want from your paywall / regwall? My guest during this High Value Publishing session is Peter Ericson, founder of Leaky Paywall and host of the Paywall Podcast . During this session, Peter and I talk about the keys to a successful paywall for publishers, hard versus metered...

As publishers, all of us want more subscribers while cutting the cost of subscriber acquisition. But our own subscription forms are often our biggest problem! During this session we talk about the 7 biggest mistakes publishers make with their subscription forms. We then look at subscription forms from multiple publications to show you these mistakes and how to fix them. Whether you have a paid or...

Advertisers often have poor campaign alignment. The objective of the campaign doesn't match the creative the advertiser delivers. Or the metrics they use to analyze the success or failure of the campaign doesn't match the objective or creative. As a result, the campaign doesn’t meet expectations and they (or their agency) blame you, the publisher. They pull their campaign and instead div...

In just a few short years, Sean Griffey and his team at Industry Dive have built an impressive B2B media company. But even if you're not in B2B, there is a lot that ANY media company can learn from their approach and success. As a digital media company built from scratch, Industry Dive currently serves 23 industries with 53 email newsletters. They have over 2.5 million email subscribers and l...

Email is the lifeblood for media companies. It's a revenue stream in its own right, but also drives web traffic, live and online event registration, and is the most effective channel for generating new subscriptions for paid, free, and controlled publications. But I still see media companies make mistakes that hurt their deliverability, open rates and thus, revenue. I want to share some criti...

With audience extension advertising you buy digital ad inventory from programmatic partners, remarket to your audience as they visit select websites, and then resell that inventory through your own ad system. Some publishers already resell programmatic display advertising through 3rd party networks in order to supplement their owned media. However, this can create problems: There's a differen...

When it comes to SEO for publishers, most of us still have a lot of room for improvement.  Sure, we have some big advantages over other types of companies. We have a TON of content that often ranks well for unique search terms. And we get a lot of traffic and inbound links organically because we regularly create good content for our market niche. But very few publishers take a methodical approach...

Despite wanting to be digital-first, most publishers are still stuck in a print-first publishing model. Our editorial calendars and workflows revolve around print production cycles. We may talk a good digital game, but if we take an honest look at ourselves, our web, email, social and other channels are too often afterthoughts or subservient to the print product. For most publishers, print is the...

Why do some publishers still sell advertising the old way with print-frequency rate card discounts? As modern media companies, we sell print, web, email, events, data and more. But one look at most magazine media kits and it’s obvious we’re still stuck in a print-only mentality that only rewards advertisers when they increase their frequency in print. Our goal isn't to sell more print. Our go...

If you’re a magazine or newspaper publisher of any kind, you need to have a Google Publisher Center (GPC) account. GPC is the key to getting your content more easily found on Google news “surfaces” like Google News, Google News on Search and even Google Discover. For some publications, these Google news surfaces can generate nearly as much traffic as regular Google search, so it’s critical that yo...

Believe it or not, RSS feeds are still a thing. In fact, it's the primary way that news aggregators like Google News and others are notified about new content on your website.  But if you don't manage them well, you can hurt your publication. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (or RTF Site Summary if you're really geeky). It's a way for your website to tell other services...

Welcome to the first High Value Publishing Q&A session. The goal of these weekly sessions is to help magazine publishers and media companies grow their audiences, drive revenue, and improve their digital platforms. We’ll cover revenue, audience and technology tactics including advertising, programmatic, SEO, social media, email, controlled and paid subscriptions, ecommerce, analytics, content...