Maybe you just don't know enough about RSS to make it a possibility? If so, you should attend the Syndicate Conference in NYC on May 17-18 to learn about RSS: Risk, Reward & Revolution.

As with any new technology backed by audience demand, it is incumbent on publishers to evaluate RSS to assess the risks and opportunity involved.

BLR.com Website Design Review
Having never visited this site before, and having only heard of them briefly, I think I’m a good candidate to review BLR.com. I'm coming in with a completely clean slate; I don't know what to expect so I'm on the lookout for any and every thing I can find.

Based on their tagline, I can make the presumption that they provide compliance and training tools for business professionals.

The site clearly has a retail component, but it looks like there are also links to four membership websites. BLR Home is very clean and simple, yet I'm not entirely sure what they want me to do here. For the purpose of this review, I will treat it as a retail website.

With a final score of B, BLR.com is a site, or a "network" of sites, that is already far better than average, but could be truly outstanding if only they implemented a few simple changes. Creating an editorial hub alone would be enough to spiral more opportunities for traffic, revenues and happier users.

Event Preview: 2005 Selling Subscriptions to Internet Content Summit
Would you like to learn how to sell more subscriptions to your website and increase renewals? Then you should attend MarketingSherpa's 5th annual, 2005 Selling Subscriptions to Internet Content Summit in NYC, May 10-11.

Mequoda Library Editor Don Nicholas attended the event last year, and he said "Anyone who runs a membership or subscription website should be attending this year's summit. Additionally, any publisher who has a large amount of content that is not currently being deployed, who is thinking about a way to monetize that content should also attend the summit."

His point is that there are still so many information publishers who haven't figured out how to take their existing content online and form into a new, interactive product. Attending the summit will bring new revenue stream ideas to traditional information publishers.

"The networking is terrific. Given the size of the summit, the group is very diverse. Most people I talked to last year were editors and publishers who were directly responsible for trying to figure out how to run a profitable website. Seeing how developmental this industry is, it's important to network with others because it's clear that we all have a lot to learn," said Nicholas.

IFly.com Website Design Review
IFly.com is a good example of a Mequoda Editorial Hub. A place to get free information about every airport in the U.S and Canada, IFly.com exemplifies most of what we describe as a successful Editorial Hub: the information is 100 percent free to users, and using a combination of advertising and affiliate commissions, they make money primarily by pushing off to other retailers.

At first glance, it looks like they are generating revenue primarily through Google's AdSense program, as "Ads by Gooooooogle" are taking up a good portion of the homepage real estate.

Once I dive deeper into the site, I realize that they may also be making money through affiliate commissions by referring users to Hotwire.com to book flights.

Let's see how this website is constructed and just how successful they are as an Editorial Hub by running it through the Mequoda Website Scorecard.

BlueDolphin.com Website Design Review
When Editor Don Nicholas asked me to review BlueDolphin.com, I was a bit hesitant. After all, he served as the Company's CEO from its inception until 2003, when he ventured off with other business plans... plans that led to our successful "parent" company, Mequoda Group, LLC, and its promising children that Don and I share legal custody of, Mequoda Library and Mequoda Cafe.

For anyone unfamiliar with BlueDolphin.com, it is a huge online magazine retailer offering over 1,500 magazine titles, from bestsellers to hard-to-find periodicals and leading interest publications.

BlueDolphin offers the lowest authorized prices on magazines and a 100 percent risk-free guarantee. If you're not 100 percent satisfied with any magazine for any reason at all, you may cancel within 90 days and get a full refund.

Additionally, BlueDolphin offers a free gift with every purchase, the chance to win prizes and exclusive special offers and bonuses. They also have a proprietary free system called MagTracker™ that allows you to manage your subscriptions 24/7 online, with the options of canceling, renewing, changing your address or simply viewing account activity.

WineSpectator.com Website Design Review
Winespectator.com is a great example of a successful Mequoda Membership Website Publishing Model™. The website, while similar to the print magazine, offers more functionality and added features than their print counterpart. Wine ratings and tasting notes on the website are sortable by score, price and vintage and there is web-exclusive content and commentary. A website user can also create a personal cellar, where they can save the wines reviewed by winespectator.com to a personalized list. A quick glimpse of the "Join our website" page suggests they know exactly how to enhance an online product to give print subscribers proper incentive to "dually subscribe."

Their final score is a very high B. Overall, the site is a great example of a successful Mequoda Membership Website Publishing Model™. They generate revenue primarily from selling memberships to their website. Their lack of outside advertising revenue further plants them in this model. The only additional form of revenue will come from selling their ancillary products; print subscriptions to the magazine, registering users for Wine Spectator School, Wine Spectator Tours, or Wine Spectator Mobile Companion. They may also generate some affiliate revenue from selling subscriptions or memberships to Cigar Aficionado.

Wordtracker: Tips for Finding the Right Keywords
I'm making a bold assumption and saying that the majority of you have probably heard of Wordtracker.com. If you haven't, let me give you a brief introduction.

Wordtracker.com compiles a database of terms searched for by people. You enter some keywords, and Wordtracker tells you how often people search for them, and how many competing sites use those keywords.

Wordtracker helps you find all keyword combinations that bear any relation to your business or service—many of which you might never have considered. Wordtracker shows you how popular your keywords really are.

Additionally, Wordtraker will tell you how many people have actually searched for those keywords in the past 24 hours using each of the major engines. If you are serious about driving traffic to your website, then you must be dedicated to finding the right keyword phrases. Wordtracker will do more than help you find keywords; it will help you identify your audience's searching behavior.

Search Engine Workshops: a Great Way to Learn SEO
Each week as I write these resource reviews, I remind myself of their purpose: to provide you with tips on becoming a better website publisher. As we all know, a big player in the game of successful website publishing is search engine marketing and optimization. For us non-techies, the task of in-house optimization can seem daunting, exhaustive and quite frankly…. scary.

If any of you feel this way, look no farther than Search Engine Workshops. I just attended their 2-Day Beginners session in Orlando, FL, and have walked away with more ideas than I can count on my fingers and toes. What sets this apart from any other seminar I attend where I walk away with tons of ideas? The workshop was so hands-on that I actually understand these ideas and have already begun implementing them.

If the terms CSS or HTML confuse you, I suggest you attend. Forget fancy tools designed to optimize for you—John and Robin teach you how to do it all yourself.

Customer Focus Calculator
We all spend countless hours working on our website. For many of us, it is our very own creation, our pride and joy. Is it possible that our pride can overshadow the true focus of our site—the potential customer?

It's Monday night and I'm working from a hotel room in Orlando, attending the Search Engine Workshops seminar. I cannot begin to tell you how much I'm learning. Over this past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the SWEPA information products seminar here in Orlando as well, so as you may imagine, my brain is bursting at its seams. So much so, that I'm not entirely sure it's possible to retain it all.

The good news for you is that I now have a mental Rolodex full of new resources to let you know about. Soon you will be reading reviews of the SWEPA seminar, which was fantastic, as well as a review of the Search Engine Workshop.

But until I can coherently gather and transfer into Word everything I've learned over the last four days, I'll have to pick one of the many resources I learned about and share that with you.

Google Alert
One aspect of adolescence that tends to remain long after you walk your high school corridors is the fact that you want to know what people are saying about you. When you're a kid on the playground, what other people say can make or break your spot on the kickball team. When you're a player in the game of business, what other people say can make or break your success.

Call it damage control, call it public relations. Keeping tabs on what others say is crucial.

I introduce to you Google Alert. I first heard about this service from an attendee at our last conference who was checking his email and said to me, "Hey, want to know what other people are saying about the Mequoda Library?" I responded, "Of course I do!" He then showed me the latest result he had from Google Alert, and I signed up immediately.

Relationship Marketing on the Internet
Business profits are all about long-term relationships, and so is the Internet. Most people, however, make the twin mistakes of trying to make a sale too early or giving up too easily.

In Relationship Marketing on the Internet, author and Mequoda Library contributing editor Roger C. Parker provides the tools needed to increase traffic to your site, create a positive customer service experience and develop a site that customers will return to again and again.

The book provides insight into the most important aspects of promotion on the Internet. You will learn how to design a site that is clear, attractive and easy to navigate. Parker discusses how to streamline your customer follow-up system and transform your business without risking your current success. Learn how to keep your site current and how to utilize email as a marketing tool.

Parker lays out a straightforward description and easy-to-understand plan to create your own Relationship Marketing Program. He explains how to get acquainted at the introduction stage, how to communicate your competitive advantage, and how to convert prospects into customers. He also teaches you how to create customers for life and how to get your customers to do your marketing for you.

Business profits are all about long-term relationships, and so is the Internet. Relationship Marketing on the Internet provides insight into the most important aspects of promotion on the Internet.

MarketingSherpa's 2005 Email Marketing Metrics Guide
Are any of you feeling like your email marketing program could use a jump start in 2005? If so, look no farther than MarketingSherpa's 2005 Email Marketing Metrics Guide.

The 222-page report is filled with 167 charts and tables on the state of email marketing. In its third year, the goal of the guide is to help marketers by providing useful data for budgeting, forecasts, results comparisons and tactical decisions.

The guide is composed of primary data from MarketingSherpa's 2004 Email Marketing Survey, taken by 2,293 marketers in October 2004. The guide puts emphasis on results in real-world situations and provides data on open/click/conversion rates broken down by marketer type (B2B, B2C, and Mixed Audience) and by campaign type (free vs. sales offers, house vs. rented lists, etc.)

Rather than point out what I found fascinating about the survey results, I'll list what MarketingSherpa feels is the most important lessons from the research.

Publishing for Maximum Profit

Gleeck speaks 80-100 times a year and has given over 1,300 one-day seminars in the past 15 years. Many of the engagements are self-promoted events in various niche markets, but he also does more "traditional" speaking engagements. In addition, he has authored 11 books.

As a consultant, he works with organizations of all sizes on marketing, customer service, leadership and presentation skills. He creates and markets information products in numerous markets and has produced hundreds of audio and video programs.

Gleeck points out that only one in every 100 authors earns more than $50,000 per year. With the publishing business changing so rapidly, it's important to sell additional products and services in order to maximize your revenue.

Publishing for Maximum Profit is about just that: publishing for maximum profit. Author Fred Gleeck claims his approach to publishing books is exclusively about maximizing dollars, not producing the "perfect book." His program is not about creating an image or increasing your prestige—it's about maximizing earnings and making money. Period.

The "Insider Secrets" To Marketing Your Business On The Internet
About a month ago, I purchased Corey Rudl's Internet Marketing Basics Course, The 'Insider Secrets' to Marketing Your Business on the Internet - 2004. Having heard that he's one of the industry's top marketing gurus, I thought I'd give his course a shot at helping me better market the Mequoda Library. Two large, three-ring binders and two bonus CDs later, I have only begun to scratch the surface of all there is to learn. Broken down into 10 steps and 61 lessons, this course is aimed at helping four groups of people: those that are new to Internet marketing and have no business idea, those that have a business idea but have no website, those that have a website but are looking to increase traffic and those that are "experienced" business owners looking for advanced promotion ideas. If any of these profiles fit you, I would strongly suggest you buy Corey's course.

Clearly, there is no way you could, or should, read this course from cover to cover—that's not the intention. It is intended to be a "tutor," a resource guide and a source of new ideas. In fact, when it arrives on your doorstep, you may feel a bit intimidated. I know I did—a ten pound box full of information on how to help me market the website that already takes up all of my days and some of my nights. Where do I begin? Well, in my case, I've already got a website and I'm looking to increase traffic, so I scanned the table of contents looking for strategies that would have an immediate impact on the Library. The following are just three of literally hundreds of different tips and strategies I found for increasing traffic.

Paper Prototyping
Once your website is designed, how do you determine the user's reaction? One method would be to do user testing, which provides great results at an equally greater cost. But before you begin live testing, you should participate in a less obvious and much less expensive method: paper prototyping.

Getting the design of your website right often proves to be a daunting task. The development costs alone for creating a website with a unique value proposition can be staggering. Our inside joke on that is, "How do you create a $10 million web business? Start with $38 million and work your way down." Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to guess what your customers expect? If you could only see how they would use that shopping cart... or that wish list, portfolio wizard, or matchmaker that you think will bring hoards of visitors to your site and make them lifetime buyers! The good news is YOU CAN—and without writing a single line of HTML code. If you have paper, pencils and some simple office supplies you and your team of designers and developers can ask users to test your website before you even build your first page. And someone has finally written the book to help you do it.

Carolyn Snyder, a 10-year veteran of helping companies design better software and websites, has published the definitive "how-to" for using paper prototyping as a method of designing usable effective websites, software and webware. Paper Prototyping is a fact-filled handbook, jammed with case studies, helpful images and processes that will have you creating websites that are more intuitive, efficient and aesthetically pleasing.

In a highly competitive market, usable intuitive websites and software get a powerful competitive advantage. Creating usable, intuitive products simply cannot be done without user involvement. Development is expensive. Paper prototyping is not. Ergo, getting users involved in the design of your website or software upfront, using a paper prototype to test the concept and design is good business sense.

Overture's Free Keyword Selector Tool
All website publishers know SEO is important, but not all have the budget to afford an SEO firm. A great way to start an in-house SEO campaign is by using Overture's Free Keyword Selector Tool.

I am often surprised to learn how little Internet marketers actually know about the helpful marketing tools that exist online. I am further surprised to learn that once they do know the tool exists, they aren't sure how to use it, or are misled about the results of the tool. In this mini-tutorial, I will explain Overture's Keyword Selector Tool. I will first show you how to get there and how the tool works. I will then explain the following three tips to help you get the most out of your tool.

Although this tool only shows you information on searches conducted in Overture and their affiliates and only for a specific period of time, it gives you a great idea of which keywords will be popular and which ones won't be in other search engines. We used this tool during our launch phase, to decide if and how often people were searching for terms that we thought were specific to our content. But naturally, content changes and ideas change, so it's important to keep up with search habits of your potential customers and Overture's tool provides a great FREE way of doing that.

Public Relations Tips from The PRSA Annual Conference
I had the pleasure of attending the 2004 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) International Conference: "Architects of Change, Advocates of Understanding: Advancing the Public Relations Profession," held at the Hilton in New York City.

The conference was spectacular - informative, entertaining and very well-managed. They had an incredible line-up of speakers, including Donald Trump, Larry King and Ken Auletta from The New Yorker magazine. They hosted a Welcome Gala at the Lincoln Center and had an impressive Legends Luncheon led by Master of Ceremonies Al Roker.

Internet public relations is often underdeveloped or ignored by many website publishers. At last year's PRSA conference, they dedicated an entire session to Internet marketing and how public relations play an important role on the Internet.

That being said, I would highly recommend sending your public relations staff to next year's PRSA conference, being held in Miami. If the 2005 conference committee is able to match the job that this year's committee has done, it is sure to be a big hit. The number of professional workshops and case studies offered are endless, and the networking capacity is incomparable. I give the PRSA conference and its staff five stars.

Revenue: The Internet Affiliate Marketing Standard
Revenue magazine is the first of its kind—devoted entirely to affiliate marketing. The magazine exists to promote good business practices and strong ethical guidelines aimed at helping affiliate marketing grow. The masterminds behind the magazine recognized a need to create a medium for promoting and supporting this new industry.

Launched in January 2004, Revenue magazine is the first of its kind - devoted entirely to affiliate marketing. The magazine exists to promote good business practices and strong ethical guidelines aimed at helping affiliate marketing grow. The masterminds behind the creation of the magazine recognized that there was a large and growing force of online affiliate marketers out there who could use a magazine of their own to promote best practices within their industry. According to Editor-in-Chief of Revenue Tom Murphy, "The magazine has been very well received by affiliates and merchants - and by small business people who were unaware of the potential of affiliate marketing before seeing the magazine." He goes on to mention that because this is a field that changes rapidly, Revenue has expanded coverage to include the slightly broader field of online performance marketing in their fourth issue. This is to ensure that they're covering all bases of interest to their readers.

Revenue, subtitled The Internet Affiliate Marketing Standard, is published quarterly by Montgomery Media, Inc., a division of Montgomery Research, Inc. Revenue has a print circulation of 125,000 copies, which is distributed to members of industry organizations and key contacts, delivered to subscribers, delivered to key opinion influencers such as retail executives and newsstand distribution.

Websiteoptimization.com
The speed of your website's load time is crucial in keeping customers on your site. How long are people willing to wait? Around 10 seconds, and that may be pushing it. The Web Page Analyzer™, offered by Websiteoptimization.com, measures your site's load time and offers suggestions on load time optimization. A good business owner will compete with others in the industry for lower prices, a better location, a more superior sales staff and higher-quality customer service. The same rules apply for an Internet business, albeit virtually.

Competition for an Internet business does take on an added challenge that isn't imposed on a traditional business. Not only do you have to compete with hundreds or thousands of other websites in your industry for the aforementioned characteristics, you now have to compete for the website users' time and attention. Never before has it been so easy for a customer, or a user, to walk away from your store or a transaction with a simple click of a button just because they got sick of waiting.

How long are they usually willing to wait? 10 seconds. And that may be pushing it.

Getting Them to What They Want
Eight Best Practices to Get Users to the Content They Want (and to Content They Didn't Know They Wanted)

It is understood by most website designers and publishers that users typically seek content from a website in three different ways: by browsing the site's category links, using the site's search engine or clicking on the site's featured content.

In this UIE (User Interface Engineering) Report: Best Practices Series, authors Erik Ojakaar and Jared M. Spool attempt to answer two questions. First, what can designers do to get users to the content they are looking for? Second, what can designers do to take users to desirable content they were not looking for? Ojakaar and Spool conducted a series of usability tests to answer these questions, and asked users to find specific content they were seeking. The researchers found that some sites got the users to content better than others did. After examining data from hundreds of users on dozens of sites, and talking with the people that created these sites, the researchers were able to identify eight best practices.

Pricing Psychology Report
According to this report, people decide whether or not to buy something for psychological reasons. Are they getting a good deal? Are they getting anything for FREE if they buy? The author proves her theory by showing how minor changes in pricing can increase orders by 10 to 20 percent.

In the final chapter, Jensen explains two free online testing solutions you can use to test prices yourself. She details the benefits of the programs, Google AdWords and SIMA, the Scientific Internet Marketing Assistant, both of which are very helpful when testing pricing options.

I recommend this report to anyone selling information products online or in print. Jensen makes it clear that even the smallest change in price can result in significant sales increases. She proves it by her own success.

Two months after publishing this book, Jensen received a lot of feedback from other marketers wanting to share what they knew about buyer psychology and pricing. She updated the book and devoted an entire chapter to what other marketing gurus had to say. Learn from experts such as Anne Holland, Jim Edwards, Michael Nicholas and Harmony Major.

OPA's 2003 Paid Content Spending Report
This study, conducted in partnership with comScore Networks, found that consumer spending for online content in the U.S grew to nearly $1.6 billion in 2003, an increase of 18.8 percent over 2002. The 19-page report, consisting of mostly graphs and charts, details seasonality and category trends.

Good news for online publishers: consumers are paying for online content at a healthy, increasing rate, according to the Online Publishers Association’s (OPA) 2003 Paid Online Content U.S Market Spending Report.  The study, conducted in partnership with comScore Networks, found that consumer spending for online content in the U.S grew to nearly $1.6 billion in 2003, an increase of 18.8 percent over 2002.

Paid content spending by quarter in 2003 mirrored the same trend in 2002, peaking in Q3 and dipping in Q4.

The 19-page report, consisting of mostly graphs and charts, details seasonality and category trends.  It also analyzes paid content pricing models and provides readers with the top 25 web destinations ranked by 2003 consumer content revenue.

The findings in this report are based on actual observed purchases of content.  ComScore calculated the results of the study by passively and electronically monitoring the actual purchase and usage transactions that took place during the analysis period. They work with a representative panel of more than 1 million U.S. online consumers.

MarketingSherpa's 2004 Search Marketing Survey
According to MarketingSherpa's 2004 Search Marketing Survey, neither marketers nor their agencies feel that any type of search campaign is "very effective." However, as MarketingSherpa Publisher and Editor Anne Holland put it, "even if SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is done poorly, putting it in place still increases the average website's search engine traffic by 73 percent."

A 73 percent increase and marketers are still not satisfied? "There are too many SEO firms and agencies simply not doing a good enough job," says Holland. Because search engine marketing became a boom industry just a few years ago, agencies, along with their clients, simply don't know enough about it. Agencies tend to take advantage of their clients' ignorance, which results in a lackadaisical approach to their practice. Additionally, there are some publishing companies that try to do their SEO in-house, which usually results in an unqualified person doing the job.

101 Ways to Boost Web Traffic
Just because you build a website, will people come? In the author's opinion, too many website owners don't practice effective promotion and their website gets lost amongst the millions it competes with on a daily basis. If this describes your website, buy this book to learn 101 ways of building traffic.

Too many website owners operate on the if-you-build-it-they-will-come model; unfortunately, those anticipated visitors never arrive. Until a website is promoted properly, it remains lost amongst the millions of others it competes with on a daily basis. The goal is to get your website noticed, listed, awarded and visited by qualified consumers.

This book is intended for the beginner looking to promote their site from the ground up, or for those with an existing site looking to increase web traffic. Through Wong's 101 ways, readers are taught to increase web traffic quickly and easily, save time and money associated with web promotion, reach out to a larger, more targeted audience and get others to buy the ideas, products and services sold on their website. Web promotion can be an exhausting and challenging feat, but it is one of the only ways to distinguish you from your competitors.

The Online Copywriter's Handbook
The Online Copywriter's Handbook, Robert W. Bly, veteran copywriter and author of over 50 books, teaches you how to write Internet copy that SELLS. In his opinion, seminars, books and articles on Web marketing tend to focus solely on technology or graphics. However, on the Internet, as in print, the words communicate the offer and persuade people to buy. Bly shows how to apply the same time-tested principles of persuasion used in print to write effective copy for websites, home pages, Internet direct mail, banner ads, landing pages, e-zines and web-based documents.

The last five chapters of the book may prove to be the most useful. Bly gives away the secrets to advertising your site—for free or very little cost. He shows you how to create and execute an effective Internet direct mail campaign, (also referred to as email marketing), and explains how to write and place effective banner and e-zine (or newsletter) ads. Bly also teaches the building, promoting and designing of an e-zine, complete with article ideas and writing tips. Finally, he wraps up the book by exploring the world of web promotions and explains all available resources to promote your site for little, to no cost.

Internet Marketing for Dummies
As the title suggests, this book is geared toward a beginner with little or no knowledge of Internet marketing. If you fall in this category, then the book is worth buying. The authors have designed the book to be a great reference tool, something you can keep within arm’s reach.

Internet marketing can be broadly defined as the strategies and techniques applied on the Internet to support an organization's overall online marketing objectives. This typically begins with identifying and assessing a target market, choosing a powerful domain name, planning a site, creating a site, attracting qualified users to your site and finally using all available resources to advertise and promote your site. Internet Marketing for Dummies takes you through each step of the way, showing you exactly how to market your products and services effectively on the Internet.

In the back of the book, there is a "yellow page" Internet directory, which lists everything form advertising resources to search engine directories. This is a great reference tool you can refer to over and over again. Although this book is probably most useful to a novice, it's organized in a way that can be a quick reference guide that beginners and seasoned professionals alike can keep on their shelf.