Mequoda Library: Roger C. Parker

Contributing Editor
Roger C. Parker

Roger C. Parker, the 32 Million Dollar author, has catapulted the careers of firms, including startups that were later acquired by Best Buy in 87 Million Dollar buyouts. Over 1.6 million readers around the world own copies of his books. His corporate clients include Agora Publishing, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, John Deere, Microsoft, Shearman & Sterling, and Yamaha.

Roger’s current focus is helping firms develop low-cost, content-intensive tools that create a synergy between web and print marketing. His column provides critiques that evaluate websites from a balanced perspective, which include recommendations for improvement.

Roger writes, speaks and consults with organizations interested in implementing marketing programs based on 3 unchanging truths: market education, target marketing and consistent visibility. Roger offers two tools to help achieve these goals: www.onepagenewsletters.com and www.publishedandprofitable.com.

Visit his site and download the 8 Biggest Mistakes of Newsletter Marketing.

Reports by Roger C. Parker

Firehouse.com Membership Website Review

Executive Summary

It’s a truism that income opportunities from trade books are very limited. To earn a fair and reasonable living, enterprising authors who desire more have to develop back-end revenue-generating opportunities. During the mid-70s, Dennis Smith, a New York City fireman, wrote a very fine “occupational biography” entitled: Report from Engine Co. 82. Following the popularity of that book, Dennis wrote a few more books, then started a magazine, Firehouse, targeting both emergency service personnel and civilian “fire buffs.” Firehouse Magazine has since morphed into a highly successful, niche-market website, Firehouse.com, that covers all the information bases—and most of the revenue opportunities that community service and timely content creates. This Membership Website Review looks at how Firehouse.com scores on usability and design best practices.

This review is part of a handbook titled Membership Website Publishing.

Handbook: Membership Website Publishing
Chapter 23: Firehouse.com Membership Website Review

RichDadPoorDad.com Membership Website Review

Executive Summary

Few nonfiction books of recent years have had the success and staying power of Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!, authored by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter. It was almost a foregone conclusion that the book would have an aggressive Web presence, which it does. But does the site score well on overall usability principles? This Membership Website Review looks at how RichDadPoorDad.com scores on the 14 website design guidelines that are key to membership website success.

This review is part of a handbook titled Membership Website Publishing.

Handbook: Membership Website Publishing
Chapter 26: RichDadPoorDad.com Membership Website Review

ChristianityToday.com Website Design Review
Although it Scores Well in Many of Mequoda's Website Design Guidelines, ChristianityToday.com as a Whole is not as Satisfying as its Individual Parts

A fascinating blend of religious goals and secular marketing, ChristianityToday.com offers an interesting look at providing resources and community in the Internet Age. The site is maintained by Christianity Today Incorporated, backed by over fifty years of publishing experience.

ChristianityToday.com is a curious mix of successes and frustrations. The site is a huge one, effectively divided into sections that serve its various submarkets: pastors, married couples, teens, etc. Each can find relevant content, and easily communicate with others who share their concerns.

Yet, it's this diversity that prevents the site from projecting a strong and engaging image, other than "everything Christian." Added to this, there are some annoyances, such as newsletter subscription pop-ups that keep showing up on until the visitor either finally breaks down and subscribes, or goes away in disgust.

Although it scores high in many Mequoda Library Website Design criteria, ChristianityToday.com is a site where the whole is not as satisfying as the individual parts.
Because of the breadth of the site's mission, the site functions mainly as a relatively innocuous conduit for content and community.
Perhaps the ambivalence of my feelings towards the site is rooted in the very breadth of the site's mission and markets.
As described below, perhaps an alternative organization within the site, or between several sites, might provide the basis for a more satisfactory arrangement.
The overall impression left by the site is "neutral."

UsedBoats.com Website Design Review
Website Design Critique of UsedBoats.com Reveals Functional Design Lacking Personality and Appeals to Loyalty Beyond the Dollar

Whether or not you're interested in used boats, a website design critique of UsedBoats.com reveals numerous important lessons.

The commercial success of UsedBoats.com can be gauged by the claim that the site listed 87,058 searchable used boats, calculated from the total number of boats listed on the site, based on adding the total number of boats listed in the various categories. On the day I visited, I counted 25,000 boat listings.The primary concern, of course, is whether or not a website design critique of UsedBoats.com reveals lost opportunities—and, if so—what role does design play in creating barriers to a pleasurable and efficient user experience?

The website's intent is immediately obvious from the homepage title, "Used Boats for Sale: A Boat Trader Directory by Used Boats" and the site's motto: "Thousands of boats. Millions of buyers."
Given the pleasure orientation of boating, even a generic 30 or 60 second video clip of a boat on a beautiful day, or a melody of the sounds that often accompany boating, would add to the site's emotional resonance with visitor
Navigation in this website design is logical and persistent—beginning with the "big three" on the homepage, and assisted by primary and secondary navigation links, the site can be efficiently utilized from the first visit
The persistence of the assessment pop-up, every time I revisited the homepage, was very irritating—perhaps the pop-up disappears when you take the assessment, but it irritated me so much I refused to give in
The website design is "all business" to a fault. It is surprising that there is no attempt to communicate even a touch of the "pleasure" or "recreation" that boating provides for male bonding or family enjoyment

Career Coach Website Design Review
Devoting Too Much Homepage Real Estate to Website Navigation and Graphic Images Demonstrates a Compromise in the Selling Power of Text—a Major Mistake for a Lead Generation Site like CareerCoach.com

We have often heard prospects say, “Executives don’t want to read,” or “Your site has to really stand out to be taken seriously.” We suspect this perspective guided the development of Jerry Stein’s CEO Perspectives: Executives and Leadership site at CareerCoach.com. The site is graphics heavy to a fault, with elaborate transitions between “executive art” that accompany each page change. Unfortunately, the design relegates text set in a small type size way down on the screen—often, below the fold.

Each time you choose a different navigation link, a different visual appears, often accompanied by a left-to-right fade. The majority of the screen real estate on each page is devoted to the navigation and the graphic images that accompany the link. Regardless of the actual success of this site, it is more an “image” site than an aggressive lead-generating site.

The newsletter description is a restatement of the firm’s description and mission, rather than a benefit-oriented description of why visitors should sign-up for the newsletter. The site does not feature any community involvement options: forums for exchanging ideas or commenting on matters of joint concern. A short video of the firm’s founder, Jerry Stein, could have personalized the site - short audio testimonials from satisfied clients could add impact to the testimonials. The site lacks a “marketing funnel” that would allow visitors to gradually build a relationship with the firm before making a commitment to go all the way. Even if I were an executive, I doubt that I would return to the site, because—without content, only brochure-like “descriptions”—why bother?

Briefings.com Website Design Review
Integrity and professionalism abound on the Briefings Publishing Group's website, but their "all business” approach may be responsible for letting a lot of potential business remain unsold. It seems Briefings.com’s future may be based on satisfied readers, not website “sell.”

Briefings.com, the website for the Briefings Publishing Group, is more similar to a print document than a contemporary Mequoda-type website. It’s more an order form for people pre-sold on the company’s wares, than it is an introduction to first-time visitors. If you know what you want, the site can competently sell it to you. But, as a publisher’s website in the contemporary, and highly competitive, “communications, marketing, and customer satisfaction” arena, the site's “all business” approach may be responsible for letting a lot of potential business remain unsold.

In researching how well the site reflected the editorial integrity and professionalism to be found in Briefing’s numerous publications, we found that integrity and professionalism were there, but very little by way of introduction to the firm’s numerous other newsletters, audiocassettes, audio teleconferences, and video recordings.

If you want to subscribe to one of the Briefings Publishing Group’s publications or you want to attend one of their audio conferences, the site works well. But, instead of offering a few pages of a sample newsletter--with an option of downloading the full newsletter in exchange for submitting your e-mail address and permission to receive future e-mails—the site makes no attempt to capture the visitor’s e-mail address. The sample newsletters are not actual issues, they’re specially compiled issues, detracting from their credibility and timeliness. It’s a “safe” site, it’s an appropriately “concise” site, but it’s just not a “highly motivated” site.

Entrepreneur.com Website Design Review
Advertising-driven Entrepreneur.com makes the crucial mistake of forgetting that readers must first find the content they seek, or they won’t hang around long enough to maximize the valuable advertising inventory that publishers crave.

Entrepreneur.com, the online arm of Entrepreneur Magazine, is a valuable resource for a wide range of business owners. However, there's no avoiding that it is an advertising-supported site. On arrival at Entrepreneur.com, visitors first encounter a large banner ad that occupies a great deal of the initial screen's real estate. Within ten seconds, of course, the large, rotating banners, are replaced by a homepage with a smaller banner. But in those first, valuable seconds, one's attention is focused on the advertising, not the content.

In this website design review, Roger C. Parker takes a close look at how this site does in terms of effective website design. He determines that while articles are easily read, and contain numerous subheads and visual enhancements, the persistent and continuous presence of advertising banners, and the lack of a "printer-friendly" version of articles, hamper the site's effectiveness. Clearly this is a professional site offering numerous valuable resources, yet it doesn't particularly encourage consistent or frequent visits.

RichDadPoorDad.com Website Design Review
Few nonfiction books of recent years have had the success and staying power of Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!. Authored by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter, this has been a staple on numerous best-selling books for over 241 weeks (since April of 2000).

Rich Dad, Poor Dad has also spawned a series of line extension books: Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom, Rich Dad's Retire Young, Retire Rich and Rich Dad Poor Dad for Teens: The Secrets About Money That You Don't Learn in School! With a track record like the above, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the book would have an aggressive Web presence, which it does.

We had Roger C. Parker do a website design review of RichDadPoorDad.com to see just how aggressive its presence was. After running it through the 14 website design guidelines, Parker determined that the site is friendlier, more valuable and infinitely more focused on building the brand's opt-in email list. He gave them a B for their overall website design efforts.

Firehouse.com Website Design Review
It’s a truism that income opportunities from trade books, i.e. books sold through channels like Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, are very limited. To earn a fair and reasonable living, even if a book is successful in publishing terms, enterprising authors who desire more have to develop their own back-end revenue-generating opportunities that capitalize on their book’s visibility.

One of the best examples is the route that Dennis Smith took. During the mid-70s, Dennis Smith, a New York City fireman, wrote a very fine “occupational biography” entitled: Report from Engine Co. 82—the firehouse where he was stationed.

Following the popularity of Report from Engine Co. 82, Dennis wrote a few more books, then started a magazine, Firehouse, targeting both emergency service personnel and civilian “fire buffs.” Firehouse Magazine has since morphed into a highly successful, niche-market website, Firehouse.com, that covers all the information bases—and most of the revenue opportunities that community service and timely content creates. In this website design review, Roger C. Parker runs Firehouse.com through the 14 website design guidelines and determines they deserve an A.

Can You Convert Your Book into Ongoing Subscription Site Revenue?
It’s a truism among authors that the “real” profits from writing a non-fiction book are its contributions to your business, not the advance and royalties you receive from book sales. Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the 25-year best-selling Guerrilla Marketing series, said it best in an interview in my How to Become Both Published and Profitable:

Someone once asked me how much I made for my first "Guerilla Marketing" book. The answer I gave was $10 million…The book, itself, only paid me about $35,000 in royalties, but the speaking engagements, spin-off books, newsletters, columns, bootcamps, consulting, and wide open doors resulted in the remaining $9,965,000.

Authors were early adopters of Internet marketing itself. Authors quickly put their websites to work selling audio recordings, yearly updates and special reports, while promoting their consulting services and cultivating speaking engagements. Although these backend activities can be very profitable, the resulting income is sporadic. “It’s either feast or famine,” as more than one Web marketing author has found. Which brings us to the subject of membership and subscription sites.

AutoTrader.com Website Design Review
No matter how profitable a website can be, using “conventional” revenue sources, like AutoTrader.com’s classified approach (augmented by banners and context-specific ads), new revenue possibilities appear after analyzing the site’s content and comparing it to what the reviewer—as a consumer—wants from the site, and is willing to pay for.

In this website design review, Roger C. Parker looks at AutoTrader.com and sets out to critique the site using the 14 Mequoda website design guidelines. Also, being familiar with Cars.com, he was interested in seeing how AutoTrader compared. In general, after running it through all 14 website design guidelines, Parker found AutoTrader was easier and faster to use (and offered more selection) than Cars.com, although before making a major purchase, he’d probably want to check both to make sure he's checked all opportunities within his marketing area.

Where AutoTrader.com excels is in its “one stop” integration of buying and selling. You can easily see what’s available, what your options are and what your current car is worth. You can explore financing and insurance options and calculate payments. No site is perfect, and Parker finds two ways the site could become far more effective.

BookReporter.com Website Design Review
From some perspectives, it’s a bit intimidating to review BookReporter.com as it is an obvious success, and—as such—has been the subject of a previous Mequoda Library case study.

After all, how many websites earn substantial revenues with just a handful of employees and the bulk of their content created by visitors?

Yet, we can’t allow complacency and obvious success interfere with analyzing BookReporter from the perspective of the 14-point Mequoda Website Scorecard™. There’s always a chance that a fresh look may reveal opportunities for refinement, which could increase the site’s performance and revenues.

After spending time at the site, I felt the BookReporter.com story still hadn’t been completely described to me. As an author, there is a very reasonably-priced sign-up (for the AuthorsYellowPages.com), but the sign-up doesn’t tell me to how many readers my listing could possibly be exposed to. As a reader, I got the impression that the site’s emphasis is on fiction more than nonfiction, and the site was geared for a different type of reader.

Overall, this is a classic example of a successful website that could only be more profitable if they implemented a few simple changes.

Ragan.com Website Design Review
Few organizations have done more to improve the quality of corporate communications than Chicago’s Ragan Communications.

And, I suspect, few firms have done as much to maintain the morale of corporate communicators than Ragan Communications.

Started in 1970 by Lawrence Ragan, the firm is a leading provider of information and skills-building techniques. It publishes a variety of newsletters, audios, special reports and teleseminars. The firm also conducts face-to-face training throughout the year via seminars and workshops.

The firm’s “doorway to the world” is located at Ragan.com, a business-to-business site intended to sell its subscription newsletters and ongoing series of teleseminars, webinars and in-person conferences and workshops, as well as one-to-one coaching and consulting services.

Overall, the site fails to live up to its potential as an accurate reflection of the firm’s products and services. The site would benefit from technology used to effectively communicate content and personality.

Writersstore.com: a Professional Outlet of Hard-to-Find Resources
The Writer's Store is a competent site serving a tightly focused niche market. While they do well in most areas, a few, relatively easily-implemented changes could increase sales by building a stronger emotional bond between the store and its customers.

The Writer’s Store is great as it is, but because of a lack of emotional bonding with customers and visitors, it is vulnerable to price and selection competition from elsewhere. Suggested improvements to protect the Writer’s Store’s franchise include: “E-Mail this Article to a friend” feature, “Personalized working area” for articles and products I want to access, “Printer-friendly” versions of articles and product descriptions, Revising template to eliminate possibility of long-lines, Interactive question-and-answer forum, Stronger contributor’s guidelines emphasizing short paragraphs and frequent subheads, Photographs and profiles of store staff, typical customers, “writer of the month,” etc. and Tip of the day (or week).

Beyond Email: RSS and Subscription Site Success
Subscription site success is heavily dependent on email. Subscription publishers use email to keep members informed about timely information, new site content, and upcoming events.

How to format attractive, easy-to-read, printer-friendly pages
Many subscribers prefer to "print and read," rather than read on screen. But, often, printer-friendly pages appear only marginally better than the original web page.

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