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3 Reasons Why It’s Better to Publish on a Centralized CMS

The tech tug of war between publishers and the Facebook/Google duopoly is a never-ending power struggle. At the end of 2017, the two tech giants accounted for 90% of ad revenue on the internet. This year, the pendulum has begun to swing the other way thanks to Facebook's information scandal, which prompted both platforms to clean up their ad space and data management practices. The continuing scrutiny of the duopoly is a window of opportunity for publishers to take some of the power back.

Even high-ranking media executives — including BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti and Bloomberg Media Group CEO Justin Smith — have been vocal to both the press and other publishers about the dangers of forming a digital strategy that's dependent on any of the major platforms. And they're right. The revenue exchange between the duopoly and publishers needs to become an even playing field. But until that day comes, now's a perfect time for publishers to focus on growing organic loyalty and meaningful audiences to make up the difference. This is the true pathway toward building a foundation of followers who are familiar with your brand, not just your content when it appears in third-party feeds.

Capitalizing on the shift back to on-site experiences means your choice of CMS is important, too. WordPress, Drupal, and other custom publishing platforms are all independent, unconnected instances that each need to be updated on a per-site basis. At RebelMouse, our platform is unique in that our technology is built upon a centralized platform designed to keep up with the speed of the dueling duopoly. In the current publishing climate, the choice between a centralized and non-centralized CMS could make or break your site's success. Here's why:

1. It’s Safer

There are over 87 million instances of WordPress in the world, and every security update and feature upgrade — no matter how big or small — has to be manually performed for each individual site to avoid outright breaking custom code, plugins, and more.

This leaves CMS options like WordPress constantly vulnerable to security threats. Every time a security breach is announced, the proper updates have to be made one by one. This is because the only way WordPress core developers can patch significant flaws within their software is to deploy fixes to users in the form of product updates. And WordPress has deployed a lot of these since its inception in 2003. 238 releases over the past 15 years, in fact — and many of them have been to fix security issues.

The frequent updates have led many WordPress developers to disable the automatic update features on their sites altogether, in order to avoid adversely affecting their site's design and function every time one hits. As a result, about 5% of WordPress sites are not updated with the latest, most secure version. The time it takes for your site to be updated could be catastrophic.

This isn't an issue with RebelMouse. All of our updates are quickly deployed at once to every site we power. We often deploy multiple updates on a daily basis. Our proprietary technology is protected internally, making it nearly impossible for any hackers to crack. And on the rare occasion when a security loophole or technical bug does surface, we patch it up within minutes — most of the time without our clients even noticing.

​2. It's Cost-Effective

Securing your WordPress site is costly. Simply purchasing a WordPress instance isn't enough to protect your data. Users have to buy WordPress security plugins and installs from third-party companies to not only protect their site, but to also stay updated on new, emerging vulnerabilities.

Think about it: You have to pay a third party just to make sure your site is secure, updated, and performing at its best. This is where the decentralized model begins to fall apart, especially for larger-scale web properties. Depending on how large your site is, it can quickly become a costly endeavor. Pagely's most expensive offering is listed at $20,000 — a month.

Thanks to RebelMouse's streamlined nature, all those must-have features aren't upgrades — they simply come with our enterprise-level publishing platform out of the box. We remove the burden of worrying about tech and security from your shoulders so you can instead focus on creating high-quality content that fuels viral growth with every publish.

​3. It's Flexible

The WordPress ecosystem is so vast that there's no clear formula to determine who to trust. You're always at risk of contracting with a WordPress developer who could still be learning the ropes or simply not know which plugins are trustworthy enough for your site.

RebelMouse is a developer-friendly platform that uses the languages of the open web. Any developer with front end skills can easily learn our platform, become more productive, and create higher-quality work on our CMS, rather than trying to navigate the wild west of WordPress' plugins.

Since we operate off of a centralized model through and through, RebelMouse is made up of an agile team located all over the world that's ready to not only keep your site safe, but respond in real time to any requests you may have. We understand that content creation is fluid, and that by working with a smaller, centralized platform and team, you'll have more control over your content and how it's displayed.

​Make the Switch

We migrate sites off of WordPress all the time. Our replatforming process is easy, and includes optimizing your site for page speed, user experience, ad quality, and monetization opportunities.

We're also a creative agency that can help you optimize your social, search, and site if replatforming isn't in the cards right now. Let's start working together so you can realize your brand's maximum potential.

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Rank Higher With Keyword Suggestions and Search Volume Data

Take the guesswork out of your search strategy

The art of search engine optimization (SEO) can be tricky to master. A lot of publishers adopt a trial-and-error method in hopes that their strategy happens to align with Google's fickle algorithm. At RebelMouse, we take a proactive approach to SEO, pairing the tools and best practices already available with our proprietary search technology that's designed for keyword wins with every publish.

Writers are already tasked with the responsibility of creating quality content that's shareable, searchable, and monetizable. Ranking high in search is a key factor that makes growth in all of these areas possible. This is why we've taken the guesswork out of choosing the perfect keyword or search phrase to get you onto page one of Google.

In our latest update, we've expanded our proprietary search functionality to include recommendations for keywords that are of high value. Through the creative usage of APIs, we ensure writers and editors on our platform are armed with the right information when optimizing their content for SEO.

When typing in a search phrase to target in our Entry Editor, users will now see suggested key phrases appear:

In the example above, the drop-down list is suggesting phrases that are already performing well on Google. The number next to each recommended phrase is its monthly search volume. This helps you determine which phrases are easy to win, or perhaps too competitive to strategize for, on an article-by-article basis.

At RebelMouse, we premiere game-changing product updates like this weekly in our pursuit to improve our platform and fuel growth for our clients. If you aren't publishing on RebelMouse yet and want to take advantage of features like this, request a proposal today and let's get started.

If you're already publishing on RebelMouse and have questions about this update, please email support@rebelmouse.com or contact your account manager.

Note: This update is currently in beta, but will be available on all RebelMouse-powered sites soon.

A PSA to Brands: Control Your Context

Resonate with your audience the right way

Programmatic Advertising Is a Gamble

For years, brands have relied on display ads and programmatic levers as a cheap and easy solution to spend large portions of marketing dollars. But the major frustration with programmatic advertising has always been the lack of control and transparency on where ads actually show up. And as banner blindness spreads, ad-blocking technology becomes more prevalent, and subpar or broken sites crop up at increasingly high rates, programmatic advertising will only become more expensive, unsustainable, and a huge risk.

According to a recent study from Integral Ad Science, when your programmatic ads happen to show up in high-quality environments, it could lead to a 30% lift in brand recall. But on the flip side, when your ads appear in low-quality environments, the consequences can be brutal: Ads in low-quality environments were perceived 74% less favorably, and even harshly, compared to the same ads seen on high-quality sites. Overall, users were four times less likely to think a brand cared about them after seeing the brand surface next to inappropriate content. Finding your ad in poor-quality environments creates a stronger impression among audiences, and it's not the kind of impression you want. Plus, it means that your paid marketing needs to work harder to boost your brand reputation, convert customers, and do damage control.

It's Time for Brands to Become Publishers and Take Control

As a brand marketer, you need to reclaim ownership of where and how your messaging shows up. One key way to control your context is to become a publisher. According to NewsWhip, 70% of people would rather learn about a brand through content than through ads, and 68% feel more positive about a company after engaging with the brand's content. And it's a good time for brands to go all in and create an advantage with content, too. Now, more than ever, page performance matters for audience reach, retention, and revenue. Google, along with Facebook, have explicitly made page speed a factor in search results and News Feed, while site visitors will quickly leave a page that takes more than three seconds to load. Media companies that have survived in the past with broken sites now feel the consequences of their low-performing properties due to their inability to provide solid returns to advertisers.

As a CMS platform and creative agency, RebelMouse partners with brand teams on best practices and innovative ways to build content experiences that will break through and resonate with audiences. For example, our work with United Airlines has produced a better-performing site and helped them beat out media companies to win travel search phrases for organic audience growth. Our partnership is a key reason why United Airlines' content now drives the most web engagement in their industry.

Choose Your Media Partners Wisely

If you plan to rely on media partners to place your messaging, then be selective and spend on the right context. Build direct relationships with quality publishers that prioritize the user experience and know how to pair editorial with premium advertising (in particular sponsored content) to maximize eyeballs and engagement for brands. RebelMouse powers a tight ecosystem of quality publishers, like PAPER Magazine and Motherly, that have built valuable, new media properties. We can connect brands into this network of quality sites to execute premium and effective campaigns at scale.

Build for the Future

Moving away from the inefficient world and disadvantages of programmatic advertising and creating a sustainable content marketing strategy is not easy — it takes organizational commitment, patience, and the right technologies. If you're a brand marketer, reach out and learn how RebelMouse's full-stack content marketing solution is ideal for your growth into a publishing powerhouse. If you're a media company and sell premium advertising, guide your advertising partners on how to build mutual value on your site when they're tempted to blindly toss marketing dollars on cheaper impressions.

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30 Days Post Launch: Understand the RebelMouse Growth Effect

We're giving you a glimpse into our power to fuel swift growth

For sites with heavy traffic, or even new media companies looking to spark viral growth, page speed is a do-or-die factor when it comes to building audiences and revenue. Publishers big and small are on the search for a CMS that will set them apart in a saturated ecosystem, and this means making strides on site, search, and social. Usually this translates into shelling out big bucks for custom CMS builds or heavy developer costs on other options like WordPress.

At RebelMouse, we've simplified the open web:

It Starts With Speed: We power some of the biggest new media companies to date, and their PageSpeed Scores rival big-name, legacy publishers.

Speed Brings Search Success: Prioritizing site performance gives us the keys to Google's SEO roadmap and, in turn, accelerates the search ranking of RebelMouse-powered sites. Our proprietary search technology prioritizes key phrases with every publish.

Accessible Content Encourages Engagement: Since our sites are quick to load and even easier to find, they're also naturally shareable across all social platforms. Plus, within our Entry Editor, creators can identify influencers to build organic reach before the article has even gone live.

Intuitive UX Builds Loyalty: Our CMS is an editor's dream toolbox. We create sites that look dev-heavy but really only require a few clicks. Publishing as a mobile-first platform, we offer personal user experiences that are collaborative and increase time on site.

Modern Monetization Secures Stability: Easy-to-use ad integrations provide more opportunities for revenue for publishers without sacrificing the experience of readers. Our pageview methodology has secured a sustainable content lifecycle.

The Data Speaks for Itself

But don't just take it from us. Here's a look at actual data from sites that switched to RebelMouse from other CMS platforms, just 30 days after launch:

At RebelMouse, we focus on the metrics that matter. We live close to our client's data through custom-built Google Data Studio dashboards. This allows us to identify key growth trends and adjust strategy for our clients when needed.

A lot of publishers are just getting started in the competitive digital landscape, and RebelMouse is the perfect launching pad. Here are some data snapshots from publishers who started with zero traffic, 30 days after launch:

So, how much can you grow? We support web properties of all sizes, and can even host hubs of entire content networks. For example, DanceMedia has been a wonderful partner of RebelMouse for close to three years, and in this time they've built out a healthy network of RebelMouse-powered properties that surge together around viral content. They went from a collection of scattered sites to an intelligent, self-growing site network in no time:

Launch on RebelMouse and Grow

Check out the rest of our data-focused case studies here. Experience growth on your site and social channels, too. Request a proposal today and let's start growing together.

Turn Casual Visitors Into Loyal Subscribers With Newsletters

Extend your content with a winning email strategy

For publishers, the effort that goes into creating dynamic, quality content isn't a short-term game. The goal is to always convert casual visitors into committed subscribers. This means content must not only be quick to load, but easily accessible across all platforms.

An email newsletter is a great extension of your site's content that puts the experience back in the hands of readers. After all, users prefer to read and consume content on their own time in familiar interfaces, like Gmail. Data shows that 81% of small and medium businesses rely on email as their primary customer acquisition channel. It isn't just a great idea for small businesses either — 49% of consumers say they wouldn't mind regularly receiving a promotional email from a brand they like.

But what makes a successful email campaign? According to Campaign Monitor, these are the averages you want to be seeing:

While these benchmarks may seem low at first glance, the remarkable upside to email marketing is its ability to reach a targeted audience. The users that are willing to take the extra clicks to interact with your campaign are more likely to take further steps to continue engaging with your brand. This makes content strategy around emails even trickier. Content creators need to ensure they're curating the right content for emails to maximize audience attention.

At RebelMouse, we recommend a newsletter strategy that breathes new life into your most relevant and popular articles to increase the consumption of even more content. Here's how it works.

A Winning Newsletter Strategy: Axios

RebelMouse is proud to have launched some of the biggest new media companies to date, including Axios. The news publisher has mastered the art of the newsletter, shattering industry standards with their daily email updates. According to Nieman Journalism Lab, out of the 10 million unique monthly visitors that visit their site, Axios has 1.5 million non-unique subscriptions across all 19 of their newsletters.

One way Axios is able to do this is through their daily campaigns, Axios AM and Axios PM, which feature the latest top stories of the previous 12 or so hours. Here's what's unique about their daily emails:

  • You Don't Have to Click Every Headline: Each story is summarized so the reader doesn't have to leave their email interface to get the whole story. There are, however, CTAs that allow you to go in-depth on a topic, share it to social, and/or read supplemental content. This strategy allows readers to spend more time reading the email, clicking through only when they're already engaged with a subject.
  • The Newsletters Are Stored on Site: Axios features its "Newsletter" section in the top navigation of their site. It's there that full browser versions of every email are archived and available to read at any time. This means page views and traditional web traffic data can be captured on newsletter content.

Replicate This Content Flow on RebelMouse

RebelMouse's CMS makes creating a newsletter content workflow like Axios easy to create and maintain. Our Entry Editor has functionality that can turn any post into a newsletter. So whether it's crafting daily, weekly, or even monthly emails, each newsletter can be created to replicate the experience of an article page.

By converting a RebelMouse post into a newsletter, you'll automatically get a browser version and a post permalink for the article. This means you can capture page view data and keep an easy-to-read archive of every newsletter in a dedicated section, very similar to Axios' method.

Modernize Your Email Strategy With RebelMouse

RebelMouse's Newsletter dashboard makes it easy for you to set up and manage your newsletters to keep audiences engaged with your content. We offer out-of-the-box Mailchimp, Sailthru, and WhatCounts integrations so you can customize the frequency of how often you contact your subscribers, and we make it easy to maintain your third-party email groups, lists, and template designs.

If you want to update your email marketing campaigns to grow a more loyal readership, request a proposal today and let's start working together. If you already publish on RebelMouse, email support@rebelmouse.com if you need help setting up your newsletters.

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