Ryan Dohrn of BrainSwell Media shows how to design websites that make money. He uses Dallas Observer, Memphis Flyer, and San Antonio Current as examples, explaining how ad placement that follows natural reading patterns, bold colors, and interactive calendars boost both user retention and advertiser visibility.
Hi, this is Ryan Dohrn, and this month I wanted to take a couple minutes and share some really cool websites with you in the publishing business as we talk about revenue-centric web design. This is DallasObserver.com, and one of the things I really like about this concept where they have ads or promo items at the top right and left of the page is it really embraces the concept of people reading, users reading left to right and top to bottom. And the nice thing is with most of your content management systems, You'd be able to use this in any particular order. So I know this is a little bit of a throwaway from the traditional 728 by 90 that you see across the top of most sites. Here is the Memphis Flyer publication. You'll notice that they've got a 728 by 90 here on the top. But one of the things that I think is really unique about this is that it definitely draws advertisers' eyes in different ways. Another thing that you might want to observe is look how they have a really neat banner ad here, one of those old-school, if you will, banner ads. You know, going back to the newspaper business. When it comes to the web though, there's nothing old school about this. This is really kind of a cool concept. Also notice here on DallasObserver.com, you're also going to see different tabs and different banners as we scroll down through the website. You'll also notice they've got their standard 300 by 250, and you notice here's their calendar, which one of the things if you check out their site, you'll notice their calendar also has a lot of cool interaction. With it as well. Let's take a look at another calendar I think is really well done. This is over on the San Antonio Current website. You notice how they got their calendar just really big and very, very prominent. One of the things to remember when you're talking about revenue-centric websites is people's reasons for coming back over and over again. Remember, in all of our classes, one of the things we've talked about is there's 4 sides to the revenue funnel. User acquisition and user retention, advertiser acquisition and advertiser retention. Well, this is a really good user retention concept here. Now, one of the things I also wanted to point out is that they're using Google Search. When you use Google Search on your website, it forces Google to index every page of your website. Now, you might say, well, Ryan, doesn't Google index every page already? Well, not always. It really just kind of depends on the situation and circumstance. One of the things I really like about this is it's absolutely going to show Google what's happening within your website. That's one of the things I think is also really, really cool about the San Antonio Current. That's sacurrent.com. Here over on the Memphis Flyers site, one of the things I wanted to share with you is if you scroll down, you'll notice that they have advertisements right here in the center of the page. One of the things that I really like about having advertising here is it's a little bit of a non-traditional space. It's really a neat way to be able to put your advertising right next to a lot of content items. Another thing to point out under their top stories is they've got a nice graphic image. Everything is very cylindrical in the way that it's designed. So what it does is it forces readers to follow this cylinder down, whereas a lot of you lay things out across the page. What we seem to see across the web over the course of the last 6 or 8 months is that people are really building a lot of cylinders and it really allows people's eyes to be able to follow down the page. One other thing to point out, they've really done a nice job of using colors like red here, okay, on their events, music, dining locations to draw your eye in. The other thing, if you notice here at the top, let's go back over to the SA Currents website. They're using red here, red here at the top, help wanted, red on the date, okay. So the use of color is really important when we're talking about revenue-centric websites. So, you know, every month as we get together and we talk about these issues, I really wanna share new and exciting things that I'm seeing across the internet. So again, let me tell you the name of those websites. This is thedallasobserver.com. You're also gonna notice they've got a lot of great other ways to display their content. The other website is another newspaper called memphisflyer.com. And then the third website that I showed you was sacurrent.com, and this is from the San Antonio Current. Anything we can do to help you, feel free to let us know. This is Ryan Dohrn, founder of BrainSwell Media, and we're in the business of helping publishers with media sales training as well as revenue-centric web design. When it comes to the internet, we want to help you make money. Take care and have a great week.
