Why pay attention to the homepage of the news website?
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “all-media school” (ID: quanmeipai) , Author: Tencent Media.
The Washington Post knows that people who visit its website are more likely to become subscribers, and those who visit the website ’s homepage are less likely to lose. In order to attract more readers and reduce the churn rate, the “Washington Post” recently carried out a “new revision” of its website homepage.
In addition to the “Washington Post”, the “New York Times”, “The Economist” and other media have also carried out meticulous revisions of the official website homepage. At a time when social media is still dominant, the redesign and revision of the homepage of the news site seems to be somewhat of a “retro” effort. However, after reading this article, you may have more understanding and thinking about the unique value of the news media official website homepage.
This issue of the All Media Group (ID: quanmeipai) brings the latest homepage revision plan of the Washington Post, and together with you, you will learn about the “back story” of the media homepage revision.
For a better reader experience
On March 9 of this year, the Washington Post tested a new design on its official website homepage, which allowed the page to present more coverage. Different from the previous list of articles on the website according to classification and detail, after this revision, each part will present a story set carefully selected by the editor.
This revision will first be launched to 20% of readers of the Washington Post in the United States. Because most people who can pay attention to the changes of the website are subscribers of the “Washington Post”.
In the beta version of the homepage, the story content will fit the width of the entire page. Readers will see more chapter modules and story collections that are highly visualized and curated by editors. The new design will highlight point-of-view content on the homepage, which will give those “voices” issued in the post a higher priority.
Redesigning the homepage is the first step in the multiple design updates of the Washington Post. This set of revision plans will be implemented in the Post ’s newsletter, article page, and mobile app. These changes will not bring about a “higher” pay wall for the Washington Post.
“One of the most important things we understand through user surveys is that people are really“ overwhelmed ”by a lot of information,” said Kat Downs Mulder, vice president of products for The Washington Post. Do everything) to ensure that the news we produce is easily consumed. “
“Readers’ time is precious. We should make it easier for them to find the stories they care about, and let them understand the most important news of the day more seamlessly. “Emilio Garcia, editor-in-chief of The Washington Post Ruiz said.
Downs Mulder said that in the future, the Post plans to adjust the homepage every few weeks. The product team will assess the user’s response to it in a qualitative and quantitative manner. In the quantitative indicators, the number of homepage visits and the time interval between visits will be the focus of the team.
The homepage still has “a place”
In order to better display their daily audio programs, newsletters and other digital news products and stories carefully selected by the editor, in 2018, the New York Times also redesigned its official website homepage.
In order to better help people find the content they need on the homepage, the designer conducted a real-time test on 4% of the readership, received more than 15,300 survey responses, and conducted in-depth interviews with 60 readers. They found that although the conceptual homepage design can theoretically motivate people to slide, in fact, readers do not like such an “empty” design; too many photos are not feasible.
Finally, the design team established a new layout for the homepage. The revised homepage will still present a lot of content on the page, but it will be organized according to the “most popular”, “discovery”, “column” and “other news” (non-US news stories) and other sections.
This new homepage design not only makes it easier for readers to find the content they need, but also simplifies the work of editing the homepage. To achieve this goal, the design team worked with the homepage editors to observe how they respondedSend news. The designer eventually built a back-end tool for editors to combine related stories in multiple formats on the homepage.
In a world where social media still dominates, the New York Times is still convinced that the homepage is actually the digital newspaper version A1, which plays an important role in the release of news content.
Homepage is still an important channel for subscriptions and advertising
A few years ago, The Economist revised the official website homepage in a gradual way. This step-by-step approach helps designers to better understand the readers’ opinions. They found that although the editorial department favors the design of “blank” pages, the readers actually prefer rich content. As a result, they added more article links on the homepage, and after that, readers who jumped to article reading through this channel increased by 8%.
The content of the revised homepage has been unified, which is more neat than before. In the main navigation bar, the article topics have been reduced from 6 to 3.
The new design also greatly reduces the loading time for people to open the second page on the homepage. Compared with the previous version, the revised “Economist” paid subscribers’ content consumption increased by 10%; at the same time, those non-subscribed readers who registered with their personal email can read three articles for free every week. Consumption increased by 12% over the past.
In the revised edition, The Economist is cautious about personalization. They believe that “subscribers pay to enjoy the check-up and editing services we provide.” Rather than generating the reader ’s own content stream, The Economist “bundles” content on similar topics, making them more visible on the homepage, “This allows people to see the breadth of our coverage, and at the same time allows people to Feel the timeliness of the information. ”
The homepage is of unique value to The Economist. In addition to being a “window” for displaying content, the homepage is also the most popular channel for subscription purchases. For “The Economist”, the official website homepage advertisesIncome is still important. After the revision, although the number of ad units is still three, the average time to read ads has increased by 30%.
Why pay attention to the homepage
In the past ten years, with the rise of search and information distribution, especially the size of the audience has become the first priority, many media have been forced to rethink (actually question) the meaning and value of the official website homepage. But recently, as the media began to focus on establishing direct connections with readers and using this to promote paid subscriptions, homepage content is becoming increasingly important.
For the “Washington Post”, one of the most important purposes of the homepage revision is to give the post readers access to more extensive and rich content.
“The homepage is the best place for the media to promote its content and declare its value proposition.” Code & Theory chief executive Dan Gardner said, “For any typical news website, the homepage is always The page most likely to receive the most independent visits. “
This duality means that the presence of “people” must be continuously displayed on the homepage. Although later in the year, the Washington Post will test some personalized features to automate the release of some content on the homepage, but the new module that appears on the homepage will still be selected by the editor.
“Most of our readers can see what the editor thinks is the most important and the most worth watching.” Downs Mulder said, “This is also related to how we position them in storytelling.”
Reference link:
1.https: //digiday.com/media/washington-posts-homepage-redesign-designed-fight-subscriber-churn/
2.https: //www.washingtonpost.com/pr/2020/03/10/washington-post-tests-new-reader-experience-that-prioritizes-speed-relevance-convenience/
3.https: //www.fastcompany.com/90216400/the-new-york-timess-redesign-proves-journalism-matters-more-than-ever
4.https: //digiday.com/media/economists-go-slow-approach-site-redesign/