Dear Colleague,

Why do we have to give so much information away? Why must we create all those free web pages just to get search engine recognition?

If you want your site listed on early search pages you must pay for hundreds, perhaps thousands of pages of information to give away free of charge. That’s the reason for the great ‘paywall’ debate: most websites are losing money.

Google and paywalls

The internet has changed things in publishing – it’s even harder to make a profit. Publishers are merely swapping the autocracy and domination of WH Smith and the Royal Mail for the digital equivalent: Google.

Whoever holds the means of distribution controls the market. That’s why those three monopolies can jack their prices even during a crippling recession: the price of a stamp, for example, has risen 18 per cent since 2009, just when we are desperate to reduce costs.

Google has us trapped in a commercial prison with no government supervision. We only know the cost of our Google Adwords programme when the money disappears from our account. No other supplier gets away with that.

But there are ways of escaping high costs. In this issue we examine cost-reducing methods of attracting and converting more prospects. We show how to make your site search engine and subscriber friendly by creating ‘lite’ editorial pages and reducing your visitors’ ‘web journey’.

You’ll discover which paywalls are working, the fast way to effective search engine optimization, how to use keywords, the principles of website marketing and direct marketing in general.

Getting visitors to buy is where marketers so often fall down. Selling stuff is very, very tough.

In this issue you’ll learn about:

• Which paywalls are working?
• Constructing SEO lite pages
• What’s special about the Which? website?
• Keywording your website
• Improving ‘web journeys’ and processes
• The two principles of business
• The three principles of website design
• The four principles of direct marketing
• The five principles of marketing management
• 15 rules for writing for the web
• Using truth to power your promotions
• How to get an expert to talk
• Provoking discovery: using news as a ‘red rag’
• What you need to know about your customers

Which paywalls are working?

It’s vital to know who’s achieving what. Some companies bring in substantial profits through their websites and you need to know how they do it. The current paywall debate doesn’t apply to them – they already have sucessful paywalls up and running.

Members only section: effective website paywalls  >>>>