The role play of "homepage" in the information website

"Home" role play in the information site, with the rise of SNS such as Facebook, Twitter, as well as mobile devices increasingly become portals, is changing.

Previously, it is a portal to information sites, is a driving factor in traffic, and now, more contribute to the site's brand image.

Niemann News Lab (Nieman Journalism Lab) recently published a blog post expressing the view.

When it comes to the evolution of American newspapers, some industry insiders are now predicting that the flow of the home page, which is not very long, is declining.

In the case of online newspapers, although they are no longer in the center of the internet media, but far from the disappearance of the extent, and no one thinks that the front page of these media will completely disappear. But as more and more netizens begin to access various information sites through "Pang" (such as search engines, links in emails, Facebook or Twitter), these news media providers are beginning to realise that their home pages are no longer responsible for the portals of the site for many years. And the rise of the mobile device industry has led news sites to no longer simply provide users with a single regular website user interface, but also to provide optimized web sites for mobile devices, while consolidating applications and more interactive features (currently, after creating a regular desktop Web site, Immediately thought of creating a Web site for mobile devices.

I bet most of the American netizens who read this article did not come through the Nieman Lab home page. Only less than 7% of all visitors to the Nieman Lab site are currently starting from the home page.

Practitioners should focus more on content pages than on the home page

Earlier this summer, we sent a survey request to a number of news organizations, hoping to find out about the flow of these news sites in recent months. In the New York Times, for example, in the early 2011, of all the visitors to the newspaper's web version, about 50%~60% was visiting through its homepage, nytimes.com. The ratio has declined in recent years, with a corresponding ratio of 48.6% in March this year. Access to the site directly through the search engine is 17.1%. The rate of access to the New York Times by social networking sites is still very small: the corresponding ratio of Facebook visits to the New York Times is only 1% per cent for 3.1%,twitter.

But the "pang" approach is even more important for branded sites that do not have a long history of the New York Times. As an example of news aggregation website BuzzFeed, a spokesman for the site confirmed that 37% of its traffic came from social networks and 17% from search engines. Of course, BuzzFeed provides a lot of celebrity pictures and other interesting content, so it's reasonable to be able to get the favor of young social network users. This also means that social networks have become an important channel for BuzzFeed content distribution. ProPublica, a for-profit private news site, says that the traffic from search, social networking, and email links is "much higher" than the access flow directly through the home page.

Richard Gingras, the head of Google News products, Richard Gigras that the change in Internet traffic patterns means that industry insiders should "redefine the site" by focusing more on "content pages" than on the home page. Atlantic Digital, editor of the Atlantic Monthly digital edition Bob Cohn (Bob Cohn), previously wrote that the home page will assume more of the "Ultimate Brand statement" function, and its ability to pull traffic will no longer become so important. He said that the home page function, is to guide the overall idea of the site's role.

"As far as the Atlantic Monthly is concerned, netizens are mainly looking at the articles page of our website," says Mr Cohen. The idea that every page must be a homepage is never a reality. Netizens are directed at articles, and this purpose can bring them a good reading experience. These articles must be readable and complicated. If the reader has finished reading these articles, then he would have thought of browsing the other content on the site. ”

In response to the flow of news sites in the United States, I asked them the following four questions about the details of the data:

1, in the past 30 days, from the search engine traffic ratio for how much?

2. How much is the traffic rate from Facebook?

3. What is the rate of traffic from Twitter?

4. What is the rate of flow from the homepage of the website?

Only a few news websites have provided me with specific figures. But other sites have also talked about the changes in traffic patterns and the measures they are taking to address these changes.

The Wall Street Journal

Raju Narisetti, director of the Wall Street Journal's Digital network editor Raja Nariseti, said that visitors bypassing the home page of the Wall Street Journal were very clear, but charged and non-charged users (note: The Wall Street Journal Network version is in the form of fees, only for paid subscribers to open all content) The frequency of access to the home page varies (Nariseti talked about traffic figures in an interview, but the Wall Street Journal declined to provide a percentage of the flow in different ways).

Nariseti said: "Of all the Wall Street Journal visitors, about 60% did not go through the home page, so most visitors do not have the home page experience." On the other, I am more concerned about the activities of the Wall Street Journal's charging users. We have a large number of users on the home page, because they have paid, they have in the browser to the Wall Street Journal page added bookmark. Instead of paying users to find our content in other ways, they are mostly from ' pang '. ”

Nariseti revealed that in the total flow of the Wall Street Journal, about 6%~10% from social media. For example, on the day the US President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, the newspaper's flow from social networks reached a high end (Nariseti admits that the growth of such traffic on that day was linked to intense discussions with Twitter users about the matter). But Nariseti points out that even if the rate of social media traffic is increasing, even many visitors do not "patronize" the home page, but the home page is still an area that editors should pay attention to, and to convey the editor's news perspective.

Nariseti said: "The ultimate effect is: After a unique arrangement of the home page, will attract netizens to converge to the big brand flag down, right?" The trick is that we don't have to worry about where the traffic comes from, but what kind of activities they will do after they come. If I start to reduce the focus on the home page, then we will not be able to achieve this goal. I still need to ensure that the home page has a high degree of participation: this is not to say that a lot of people will be dragged there ... But to enhance the user's participation. ”

Homepage in order to reflect the position and perspective, Content page in order to retain people

Scott Klein, ProPublica News application editor, says the frequency with which content is published can have an impact on readers ' access to traffic habits.

Klein said: "ProPublica is a rare species in the news organization, our service model is more alternative." For the vast majority of news sites, because of a large number of daily news events occur, and these sites have to be reported at all times, so their home page easily become the starting point for readers to choose. In ProPublica, we've got more traffic from social networks, search engines, links, and emails than the home page. But the homepage still plays the key function, it can reflect the editor's standpoint and the angle of view. For those who do not know a particular news organization, the home page is able to answer questions such as the organization, main business, and operating procedures. ”

Klein said he could not determine how many ProPublica readers started reading other content from the homepage, but about 24% traffic came from search engines, 9% from Facebook and Twitter, and 8% email reminders from ProPublica.

The head of every news agency I interviewed agreed with the view that the home page still needs to be retained. But given that more and more readers are paying more attention to the content page itself, what should the news service do with the pages? The Atlantic's Cohen says more pictures should be added to these pages.

"Reducing text content and adding picture content will help improve the flow of our pages," Cohen said. Instead of being a text-intensive site, we combine large, high-quality images with text content. The title font size will also convey the idea and vitality of our station. In my opinion, we should also make great efforts in the non-text, and we need to put it into practice as soon as possible. ”