Here are the notes from Peter’s presentation on Intent Driven Media.

How content was from Gutenberg to 2001

• One to many publishing.
• Reader makes a choice based on brand.
• Publisher controls timing, coverage, audience access to information and vendor access to audience.

Then Search happens

• Impatient readers expect to be in control
• Every page is now a front door

  • You should be getting at least 50% of your traffic from search engines.

• The first five seconds are crucial!
  • A reader comes in from a search engine into an article page.
  • They will decide whether this page is for them within five seconds, before pressing the back button.
• The first sentence sells your article and keeps them on the page.
• Magazine and newspaper writers assume people want to read their article – online you have to assume they don’t – hence no puns, plays on words or in-jokes.
• Users will scroll down to your content, so they probably won’t even see your logo – convey your brand with colours etc.
• You need to sell them the next click, so put related articles near the middle or top of the article. About.com got a 15% CTR when they did this.

Five corner-stones of successful content

1. Relevance – Readers are looking for complete solutions.
2. Resonance – Expertise is relative – they are looking for the like-minded, pro or otherwise.
3. Specificity – The specific always drives off the general.
4. Speed – Readers need the content on demand.
5. Comprehensive – Readers want the full story, so they value input from peers.

So a mix of content is required, from broad to narrow; from small audiences (long-tail) to large audiences (mass) – delivered from a range of sources, from editorial content , blogs, UGC, Forums and ratings, reviews and comments . For example narrow content might be a search for gardeners in my area, whereas broad content might be an article about gardening trends.

Tips for monetisation success

• Metrics drive innovation.
  • You can pretty much test everything on the web.
  • The ability to learn and to iterate is your competitive advantage.
• Web development and design is a process, not an event.
  • The first day after a redesign is the worst.
  • The day you stop tweaking a website is the day it dies.
• Make informed decisions, understand costs and benefits.

Focus on three simple things:

1. The cost of audience acquisition
   • Don’t make a net loss in driving traffic.
   • Consider PPC as a cost-of-sale rather than marketing.
   • Your online audience should be a superset, rather than a subset, of your print audience!
2. The cost of content creation.
3. Your rate of monetisation – ie yields.
   • And it’s not just about ads!

“This is the age of atomised information bound by reader interest.” (as visualised by Digg Swarm).