Month: July 2017

The Most Frustrating Part About The BlogHer Conference

Having never been to a BlogHer conference, I had no idea what to expect. 2300 women (and a few brave men!) descended on Orlando for three days of learning, networking, and fun. 

The first thing I noticed was the energy of the place. I was surrounded by powerful, motivated, women from all walks of life. Some ran foodie blogs, some had their own clothing lines, some still had 9-5 jobs and were thinking about taking the plunge to becoming full-fledged entrepreneurs. Everyone had a different story, but had one thing in common: they were there to better themselves.

We had the pleasure of listening to some powerful women speak – Serena Williams, Chelsea Clinton, Cecile Richards to name a few. But as amazing as those keynotes were, it was the women I met standing in line for registration, the women I ate lunch with, and the women I met during the happy hour that really stood out. These women are changing the world. They are making an impact. That’s what made this next part so frustrating…

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Adapting Your Mobile Publishing Strategy To Fit Your Audience

There are a lot of things that have changed in the last decade of the World Wide Web, but none are more profound than the shift from desktop and laptop computers to mobile devices. Whether you’re using a smartwatch, a smartphone or a smart tablet (do they sell dumb devices anymore?) the way you access information online has changed significantly with the rise of pervasive connectivity and smaller, faster, and, yes, smarter devices.

It was quite a few years ago the trends showed that desktop computers — those big, clunky boxes with screens attached by a leash — were on the road to obsolescence, supplanted by more mobile devices with a screen that flipped open, leaving a keyboard for typing and data input. Another couple of years and the keyboard started to seem rather pointless; with accurate touch screens, voice input and so many people focused on consumption of the Web rather than production of new Web content, who needs to type?

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Engagement Time Is Important To Top Publishers

We’ve been spending a lot of time recently digging deeper and deeper into metrics that look closely at user behavior and visitor intent. These metrics are proving to be incredibly valuable to some of the world’s top digital publishers, and we’ve been breaking down all the different ways they impact revenue, traffic, and brand reputation; as well as how you can measure and track them yourself. This time, we’ll be looking at engagement time.

Below, I’ll highlight exactly what engagement time is, how it’s measured, how it impacts revenue, and why all publishers should be looking very closely at this metric. I’ll also demonstrate why it is hard to manipulate and why many publishers are choosing to look at it over traditional metrics like session duration.

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The impact of Navigation Bounces on SEO & digital revenue

In the world of digital publishing, providing your website visitors with a better experience is a formulaic tool in improving digital revenue, growing organic website traffic, and enhancing the brand perception of your digital property. The measurement and metrics associated with user experience have a proven and recognized correlation with everything from session revenue to search engine ranking position. 

Recently, we have started taking a deeper look into these metrics — and increasing our focus on what we would call “intent” metrics. More specifically, this week we’re taking a closer look at Navigation Bounces.

In the research below, we’ll highlight what navigation bounces are, how we measure them, how you can measure them, and the impact that we’ve studied them having on SEO, digital revenue, and overall user experiences.

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How AskDaveTaylor.com Runs a Profitable Website

When you run a profitable website for over a decade, you eventually get the hang of scheduling, content production, photo editing, and visitor feedback, even if it might be mostly learning from your mistakes. Heck, my site — AskDaveTaylor.com — started out on Movable Type and for years I was a holdout, refusing to switch it to WordPress. It took the Movable Type development team finally saying that they were done with development and maintenance to push me into the plugin-centric WordPress world.
 

Below, I’ll highlight the tools, infrastructure, and technologies I’ve leveraged along the way to make my life easier, my website better, and my bottom line grow.

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UX Metrics That Are Changing How We View Website Visitors

User experience metrics (UX metrics for short) have become more and more critical to how digital properties and brands position themselves on the web. Some of the largest publishers on the planet have identified the paramount importance of UX metrics and their long-term impact on things like digital ad revenue, SEO, and brand image.

Unfortunately, while the importance of user experiences is not lost on most digital publishers and property owners, identifying which UX metrics they should be paying attention to appears to have become a debate. Below, I’ll highlight objective data that will demonstrate exactly how UX can be measured.

Additionally, I’ll dig into the next generation of UX metrics that innovative publishers (and the Duopoly) are beginning to look at as a means of better defining good experiences from bad ones.

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How to Take Time Off as an Online Publisher

It’s the height of the summer and the combination of being hot and having bored, listless kids is enough to make anyone ready for some time off. This week’s also the great American summer picnic holiday too: Independence Day (if you’re reading this retroactively, insert the next popular holiday). Everyone’s ready for a visit to the beach, a concert in the park, a ballgame and fireworks.

Problem is, if you’re an online publisher you might be thinking that you can’t possibly take any time off because there’s breaking news, there are topics that can drive traffic to your site, heck, Google Trends could reveal hints of the Next Big Topic! How could you possibly afford to be offline for days on end when the world keeps turning and life keeps moving forward?

Yeah, there’s a certain comfort in being a so-called workaholic, but while you’re sitting in front of your computer or laptop 24×7 the rest of your life is proceeding apace too. Your spouse or partner is twiddling their thumbs, and the kids are hoping to play. Below, I’ll highlight some strategies that online publishers can use to step away and unplug without sacrificing growth.

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