Please take quick survey for new Online Publishing Benchmark Study

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Permalink Reply by Bob Lipp on September 17, 2009 at 4:56pm

Anne:

Read your survey, and I don't know if we qualify as a traditional online publisher. We publish something we call Search Engine Magnets, highly optimized niche sites. Search "hd camera" on Google and you'll see a site we created www.HDCameraGuide.com in position 1 of the free listings.

Regarding a paid online magazine, our view is that it doesn't work, unless the content is less about a magazine and more about a "continuing education" or a specialized research model...

We work in B2B areas, where publishers attempting to go from controlled circulation print models to paid onlines models are presented with a substantial challenge. Paids ads and sponsorships are key to revenue and some publishers have tried e-commerce models as well.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Holland on September 17, 2009 at 5:59pm

Thanks for your note Bob. I definitely agree that ad sales and other ancillaries are a definite must online for b2b publishers to be profitable. But that doesn't rule out a subscription site or a paid subscription area of your site as well. For example, I used to work for a company that published a free (controlled circ) magazine for the general satellite industry as well as a $700 per year print newsletter for the same industry. Both flourished, in fact both continue now online and off. So paid content does work, it's just different in certain ways than ad-based (or perhaps affiliate link based) content.

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