Gourmet Magazine: Meant for Print?
The demise of Gourmet magazine took me by surprise. It seemed that Gourmet (along with Modern Bride) was working a beat that was meant for print. Sure the index was handy but readers wended this way through this magazine, finding the content that appealed first to their eyes. Argue that content is king if you will, but the photography and design had all the constitutional power. Think of other magazines (Wooden Boat, Fine Woodworking, Architectural Digest, Garden & Gun) that use print to create experiences and evoke emotion in ways their websites have yet to approach.
Conversation Marketing has an interesting take on some of Gourmet’s self-inflicted wounds from an SEO perspective.
I suspect their achievement in print may have allowed management to think–as I did–that they were meant for print. That yes they would commit some resources to an “online version” but that their energy was better focused on what they knew was their prestige product. But perhaps you don’t focus on online because you think it is going to replace your print. Perhaps you focus on online because that is the only thing that is going to allow you to keep printing.
Certainly their lack of attention to online contributed to end of a rich tradition. For the sake of the printed art of magazine publishing, I hope others mark this shoal on their charts.
The real death knell is their keyword count: According to Compete.com, Gourmet.com gets traffic from 355 organic search terms. Epicurious gets traffic from 8,040.
That has nothing to do with brand, and everything to do with SEO. Gourmet has thousands of pages, and thousands of great incoming links. They could have doubled or tripled their traffic with a concerted, ongoing SEO campaign.
Read more: http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2009/10/why-gourmet-died-publishers.htm#ixzz0UDonPlQP
