07

Mar

By Dennis R. Mortensen
5 comments
Article to Article optimization – and the need for a Virtual Front Page

If you examine the data I presented over at the Nieman Journalism Lab website, there is little doubt that the biggest Article View driver is indeed the publishers own Front Page. The data concludes that about half of all the Article Views generated on any given day for a traditional 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 everyday coming in the side door?

The side door is defined as people arriving directly on Articles (inc. text, gallery, video, podcast etc) from outside the destination itself, such as referrers from Search, Social or News Aggregators etc. In this scenario you are left with the responsibility of performing Article to Article optimization, assuring if at all possible, that people don’t bounce off the page and leave the destination after a single view.

Article to Article optimization is for me, something that is done best by focusing on two distinct sets of recommendations – the shared purpose of course is to increase engagement and have people click into the next article. The most common Article to Article recommendations are:

Contextual Links
Most publishers should have some sort of contextual links in place on all of their article pages, whether that be editor driven in article links or more tech driven content recommendations at the end of the article.

Virtual Front Pages Links
Equally important to contextual links at the end of the article is the call for editors to show ‘what else is on the menu today’. This request is not related to the story, but related to the property as a whole and is typically presented as top picks, top stories, editors’ picks, most popular etc. At Visual Revenue we call this concept a Virtual Front Page, simply due to the fact that you have the same traditional front page responsibility and very similar intent and interest flowing into it. The virtual front page is essentially a piece of the primary or section front page carved out and placed on an article page. It should be noted however that the VFP article promotion will be different to that on the front pages because you’ll be catering to a contrasting audience than your loyal readership (those who primarily visit your front pages).

Find below a picture which illustrates how contextual links and virtual front page links are deployed on The Telegraph.

In conclusion, the other half of your audience, which arrives through the side door and cannot be directly attributed back to the front pages are best advertised through two article to article optimization techniques; Contextual Links and Virtual Front Pages Links.

n.b. we worked really hard to assure that the VR Front Page Automation Platform provides publishers the opportunity to receive article recommendations on Virtual Front Pages on top of the traditional front pages – which also seems to be the first set of zones that gets semi- or fully automated.

How do you work your virtual front pages today and what technology are you using – and do you think we’ve baptized this correctly ?

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

  • Pingback: 50 Media Properties and their Article to Article Optimization Methodologies | Visual Revenue

  • http://www.targetfuel.com Dan Piche

    Dennis, Great article. Having worked with publishers on layouts, testing, heatmaps and other optimization projects, I couldn’t agree with you more.

    You’ve hit the nail on the head in promoting both a front and side door approach, both using a combination of contextual links as well as a virtual front page.

    Another method that is increasingly gaining traction with publishers is using targeting technology throughout their site. (I’m not talking Ads here, but content). Taking GEO as an example, a NY based paper may move around content on the page, or place different content that is more relevant to NY visitors, visitors from different burroughs within the city, or visitors from outside the city. Also, as visitors make content selection, more relevant content is promoted (recommendations) but in future visits more relevant content is promoted as the site learns that particular visitor interest, the current intent of the visitor, or other information which helps make the visit as relevant as possible – resulting in greater engagement (and page views to satisfy the Ad revenue).

    Looking forward to other articles within the publishers vertical.

    Cheers,

    Dan Piche

  • http://ConversionWarfare.com Ryan Urban

    Dennis, I think a sexier title for this article would have been:

    “Baptizing Your AtoA Sidedoor Correctly”

    1) It is all your language, which I love btw (Who uses “baptizing” when talking about articles…Dennis)
    2) It is damn interesting

    Any who, nice article.

    P.S.: Dan Piche; get back to getting funding.

  • http://visualrevenue.com/ Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hi Dan,

    Good input – we spend a lot of time thinking about personalization as well, but not just the tech part, but also the editorial impact and how to handle that.

    We are all about publishers these days, so any next post will certainly be within that segment. :-)

    cheers
    d.

  • http://visualrevenue.com/ Dennis R. Mortensen

    My Dearest Ryan,

    Thanks! I’ll of course have to keep up to expectations of posts using juicier words now.. :-)

    Yours Sincerely
    d.