Associations ABC ABM BPA Worldwide FMA MPA PBAA National Trade Circ WFMA WIPP Media Blogs & Sites ABM Mediapace Ad Age B or not to B Capell and Associates FOLIO: I Want Media Mediabistro Mr. Magazine New York Post | Keith Kelly New York Times Business Paul Conley Paid Content Poytner Rex Hammock Romenesko Slate The New Single Copy Wall Street Journal Washington Post Media Research Mag Health Watch MRI Readex Research TNS Media Intelligence Online Audience Development: Why It’s So Important Thursday, September 28, 2006 By Bill Furlong The online properties of traditional media companies are rapidly growing. And circulators are finding out that building audiences is a top priority. There needs to be a significant change in how “online audiences” are viewed and acquired. Most publishers don’t have any comprehensive business strategy to build traffic. A top priority for online media management is to move audience acquisition to the very top of the initiative list. Many online-only media players have already built impressive audiences by utilizing a growing set of online tools. Circulators can and should use them too. Here, we review these tools and also share several organizational imperatives to shift the culture, change the “language” and empower key executives to build online audiences. 1. Search Engine Optimization Even the finest Web sites can go unseen by their intended audience if they lack effective optimization. A site-specific SEO process combined with a through understanding of the major engines and directories are required to give your site a competitive edge. Be sure you are tagging your content appropriately and deeply. Target as many keywords and key phrases as possible to achieve the most exposure possible. The number of targeted terms and phrases are limited by the amount of indexable content and the product/service listed on the site. Other important tactics: • Establish a content distribution network beyond indexing on Google  • See Google as a distribution partner of your content • If you are blocking content, rethink this strategy • Develop a strategy for indexing and tagging stored archives. The more properly tagged content on your site, the more traffic. Enhance your keywords list using past knowledge of what the engines favor and valuable historical data from you own enterprise or archival search engine. All this must be a sustaining strategy because the major search engines (GYM—Google, Yahoo and MSN) are changing the indexing game regularly.     2. Directory Submission Directories not only lead online prospects to your site directly, but often the results from these directories are merged into the results when using some search engines too. Effective placement in the directories will give your site better “link popularity,” which will help improve your ranking is several major search engines. 3. E-Newsletters Many publishers are realizing a majority of their site visitors come from e-newsletters. Because of this, you need to populate any outbound content with links to the site. 4. Traditional Marketing Tools Lest we forget, a commitment to old-fashioned print and email tools can assist in the mission of generating new traffic. These methods aren’t as trackable as online tools, but they do represent an awareness-building program. 5. Viral Tools Some publishers have had success starting blogs—ones started by in-house staff or industry opinion leaders. The word will get out if one can be consistent in delivering the blog to community and build this peer-to-peer dialogue. 6. Search-Engine Marketing or Pay-Per-Click This doesn’t work for all publishers but certainly could play a large role for acquiring audience. Set aside a small budget to utilize Google AdWords. We have seen publishers spend as little as $500 per month or as much as $5,000 per month. Search-Engine Optimization should be the base but PPC could very well be a solid traffic contributor for specific content events. 7. Affiliate Networks Be sure to work with leading Web sites in your industry to embed your content, through links. 8. Online Syndication Aggregators and syndicators can get your content out to the seams of your market effectively. Be in constant search for these types of channel companies that can add to your traffic. Organizational Recommendations Then there is internal structure. This is serious, folks. You need to invest dedicated resources to this model-changing directive. This is definitely not a nice-to-have strategy. This is a need-to-have. Create an “audience dashboard.” Publishers need to create a data set that shows where ALL the traffic is coming from as well as how that visitor engages the pages of your site. Web analytics will help you discover what works on your site and what the points of entry are popular and why. You need to assess why traffic is not coming from the search engines or why your organic visits are stalling out. This new discipline will encourage more effective traffic acquisition and more critically retain that traffic. Let’s face it: This is a daunting new world of “circulation.” It’s not what I learned as a magazine publisher in the last century. But from my experience in the digital media world, more recently, I know that the rules are the same: Create great content, build an audience and keep them. Revenue will follow. Bill Furlong is president of Search Channel, a vertical-search solutions provider based in Oak Park, Illinois.