I spent most of Thursday morning at Magazines 24/7 thanks to MPA’s staff, which found a spot for me at the sold-out conference. The main meeting room was packed so I wound up in the speaker room, where I had the chance to watch the sessions on a monitor and mingle with the panelists. John Battelle gave a crisp keynote on search before he dashed out for the day’s next speaking gi g. The Jeff Jarvis-led panel on “How Search Is Changing The 5-Year Plan” (Lauren Wiener, VP, Meredith Interactive; Bob Carrigan, president, IDG; and Michael Smith, GM, Forbes.com) covered a lot of ground beyond search. Some notes:
– Meredith has had “tremendous success sourcing subscriptions using keywords.”
– Forbes doesn’t use keyword search, opting instead for natural search language.
– More than 70 percent of IDG’s traffic comes from deep links to an article page. It’s up to IDG to convert them from Carrigan calls “speed daters” to committed site users. Ditto for Meredith, which pushes to convert them from browsers to paid subscribers and to get people involved in community. “We try to get them to sign up so we can talk to them on a weekly basis,” Wiener explained.
– Site entry via searches requires a different approach. Instead of relying on one front page to do it all, each page has tp be treated like an entry point to the site. Wiener: “You have to realize that might be their first interaction and you need to label clearly. [It’s also] a matter of incorporating very eye-arresting things on every page of your site.”
– Carrigan’s explained IDG’s “Choice and Voice” emphasis — users have a choice in how they get content and a voice on the sites as guest bloggers, participants and other interaction. (He expanded on the subject in a brief interview after the session; I’ll post that soon.)
– Meredith is constantly testing across its Home and Family Network of sites. Wiener: “Anything that comes up, we test it and our customers tell us whether they want more of it or less of it.”
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