If You Can Only Get A Few Things Right...

I try to convince myself that the little things in life bother me a lot less these days. That being said, over the past few weeks some things have come up that I need to get off my chest.

Let me start by suggesting that you cannot ignore publishing to mobile devices any longer. After moderating a panel on mobile publishing strategies during last month's Publishing Business Virtual Conference, publishers who don't pay attention to mobile applications and to the mobile web will wish they did as soon as a year from now.

The world would be a much better place if tablet computers like the iPad would have been released before the first digital magazine replicas were shown to publishers. Even with a limited number of magazines really pushing the limit of what can be done beyond digital replicas, as Drew Schutte, Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer for Condé Nast Digital, points out in this sound bite from the session, while you're figuring it all out you should at least leverage what you already have. Drew also talks about Condé Nast's current strategy for its digital replicas.

Switching quickly over to the interactive advertising side, as we head into another season of creating media kits, discussing ad rates and trying to maximize revenue opportunities, can we please decide if share-of-voice (SOV) is the number of display ad units on a web page, or if it's the number of ad impressions available for one specific ad spot.

Working with advertising sales reps would get a lot easier if the interactive jargon tossed around by ad agencies and others would become a little more consistent. Hey, at least nobody is talking about "hits" to a website anymore!

Lastly, search engine optimization (SEO) is still something all publishers have not fully embraced. I just don't understand why. This past summer, publishing consultant Bill Rosenblatt summed it up well by saying: "To print publishers, SEO is a magic fairyland on the planet Zargon."

SEO is not just about keyword research or optimizing a web page title tag in order to get as much traffic from Google that you can. It's a process that requires time and resources. Good SEO should not fall on just an editorial staff, but needs to involve technology, graphic artists and marketing. In other words, your SEO "TEAM."

I'd love to hear your comments on any of these subjects, or something else on your mind. As always, feel free to leave a comment here and I'll respond, send me an e-mail or give me a call.