Interview with Larry Chase, founder of Web Digest For Marketers

Posted by Rachelle Money on 26 June 2008

The Web Digest for Marketers has been in existence online for 13 years. At first Larry Chase, founder and editor of the newsletter, had just one topic to cover – online marketing – but as the industry went forth and multiplied, online marketing expanded to cover 52 different niches. Chase's staying power comes from his ability to explore these niches and create great content for his subscribers. Here he tells us everything there is to know about creating longevity through long tail content for newsletters.

Larry Chase is the elder statesman of online marketing. He was so ahead of the game when he first established himself on the internet that it took the rest of the world two years to play catch up. In 1995, he launched the Web Digest for Marketers, and today it's still going strong with more than 47,000 subscribers.

“Back in 1995 we had just one category – internet marketing – and now we have 52 categories with SEO, PPC, email marketing and social media. It went from one world to 52 worlds and so each week we have to cover a different segment of the marketing pie,” says Chase.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is his tool of choice and it enables him to tap into what people are searching for online, which in turn exposes the very niche content that has helped Chase stay a few steps ahead of the game.

“When we want to know what people are interested in we use the Wordtracker tool. It tells us what's on people's minds and what kind of information they are searching for.

“A few years ago I had an idea about thought leadership marketing and to make sure it wasn't just something in my head I found that a lot of people were searching for it - but that there wasn't a lot of content out there.”

The broadening marketplace has of course meant that much of the niche readership he once had is now mainstream. Nowadays competition is hot which Chase believes has brought “a lot of chaos”.

“Anyone can be a media maker and most people are,” he says. “Whether it's a blog, or whether they're on Twitter or Facebook or an email newsletter or a website, there are hundreds of millions of micromedia properties out there, and the core of my newsletter is to make order out of the chaos for internet marketers. That's really the secret of any great publication.”

If you could win medals for staying power, Chase would be one of the most decorated marketers out there. He has witnessed the information overload we now live in and has used the expertise he's built up over the years to deliver the signal amongst the noise.

“It's a bit of gut intuition planted in experience on what has come before. We help subscribers get perspective on what a particular tool, article, or website means to them.”

Chase does just this in his fortnightly newsletter, Web Digest for Marketers, which is full of top tips and links to resources he's found on the net. Things like '12 essentials for building inbound links to your site' or '12 trends for the next three years for internet marketing' and in his latest newsletter, '12 tools, tactics and resources for social media marketing.'

No news in newsletters

What is conspicuous by its absence however, is the lack of news on Chase's newsletter.

“There are people who cover the news and then there are those who cover the news that's already been covered and that leads to a reverberation, which adds to the chaos - so we have to avoid that.

“The problem with a lot of newsletters is that they have news in them, and it becomes redundant quickly. We don't, and this is what sets us apart.”

Evergreen content

Chase says he chooses to publish what he calls “evergreen material” that will last for years and it's this material which has led to longer tails and more inbound links to his site.

“We notice with the clickthroughs that the tail is getting longer and goes up to about a year. We have a few thousand inbound links and that's because they like the resource center and the content there.”

Similar to Wordtracker, WDM invite guests to write content for their newsletter. “We get people who are deep in their game to write for us tips, tactics, resources and strategies, so that the reader can get the inside scoop on what the real deal is.”

Chase says he also keeps a close eye on Trendpedia (a trend tracker) and Techmeme, which is a piece of software that scans the universe for blogs and articles to see what people are talking and writing about.

“I also look at the search tool on my own site because people presumably come to the site to learn something about internet marketing, and in the search tool I can see what they're looking for. I also get an idea of who is looking because often people will search for their own name.”

SEO

In terms of search engine optimization, Chase says he “turned his website inside out” to make the content more search engine friendly.

He explains: “We took reviews out of our site and into a paid archive, created a database for the reviews and called it an Internet Marketing Resource Center. When you go to the site there are 52 categories, so if you're looking for PPC or SEO or something else they are all listed in their appropriate category.

“We organized it in such a way that it's all optimized. We use the content of previous newsletters for SEO and we organize it so that it's not just last week's issue, because that would be boring and confusing and hard for a visitor to locate what they're looking for. The search engines pick this up and we rank pretty high because of it.”

While organizing his site Chase said it was crucial for him to think about what people are looking for.

“People don't look for a newsletter on internet marketing, they look for customer retention marketing or search engine optimization, so they look for the categories first and then find our newsletter.

“This is what we call lean in content, so people look at it and say 'oh this is good,' bookmark it or subscribe to it.”

Advertising

Other than subscriptions, Chase makes his money through online advertising on his newsletter and website. He talks at length about the pitfalls of accepting any advert just to get cash.

“I tore up a $5,000 check for an advert because this particular company wanted you to fill out 23 fields of information and all you got at the end of it was a two-page sales sheet.”

Chase said he didn't want to risk annoying his readers with this kind of ad. “If something looks bad, is cheesy or phoney then it will reflect badly on you and what will your subscribers do? They'll complain or unsubscribe.

“I felt I couldn't risk my reputation by putting this kind of thing up on my site.” He said people have to remember that when they are creating a newsletter they are “building up a community based on trust.”

Once your newsletter becomes a trusted resource for information, the number of inbound links you get will grow. But this presented Chase with some problems.

Keeping the bloggers happy

“We started getting complaints from bloggers,” he explains, “because they would link to our most recent newsletter tagged 'current.html' but of course as the new newsletter came out that would also be tagged 'current.html'.

“We now put the newsletter into a permanent address so bloggers can link to it. If you have bloggers who like the content and want to link to it, tell them where it is, and make sure it will live there permanently.”

Chase admits this is something he “should have learned years ago,” but then that's the great thing about being in a growing marketplace - it's always evolving and changing, and new problems and resolutions will present themselves along the way.

To read Larry Chase's 12 best practice tips for email newsletters visit Email Newsletter Best Practices

For ideas on optimizing the content on your web pages, have a look at our Web Content page.