Media properties should look to optimize their Virtual Front Page zones in four key areas: Terminology, Placement, Emphasis, Content Selection. I’m not suggesting aggressive change- we’ve seen the reader backlash with Newsweek, Gawker and the likes but surely some uniformity wouldn’t be a bad thing? We’re not a static news audience, we’re migratory – we have our favorites but just like retail we’ll still look into other shops and, with that in mind, a Publisher has an opportunity to win us over- help me see what else is on your menu today, front and center and in a terminology and location that’s familiar.

I spend all my time speaking to online media publishers about the importance of them viewing the front page as a channel on par with Search, Social etc. These discussions keep exposing, as expected, a very similar set of processes being in place for the task of programming the front page. This is a process that is defined by Editors being commissioned with the task of setting the front page to the best of their ability. The objective with which they are to program the front page varies slightly, such as what is most important to what generates the most article views – but the process pretty much stays the same.

I was going through some interesting Facebook Like data, collected and analyzed by Yury Lifshits (45 sites, 100K+ articles, 40M+ reactions). What really caught my eye though, was this specific recommendation: “Improve promotion of your best content. [...]. To get maximum return on your hits, change your Front Page policy. Best stories should be highly visible”

About half of all the Article Views generated on any given day for an average publisher can be attributed back to the Front Pages. Accepting this and expectantly applying technology to help your editors program your front pages – the next natural question would probably be; what about the other half of article views coming in the side door?