Website Updates to Meet Audience, Technology Needs for Publishers

Website updates come to Meredith Corp., Time Inc., and Business Insider

Website updates tend to be commonplace in the rapidly-changing digital landscape. Today we’re looking at three websites making changes for a variety of reasons.

Our first story involves Meredith Corp.’s Parents magazine and the redesign taking place. MediaPost reports, “The Meredith Corp. magazine’s new design includes a modern logo with a new typeface, the “Parents Stencil.” There are also new layouts, photography and additional coverage.”

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According to Liz Vaccariello, Editor-in-Chief of Parents and Meredith Parents Network, the goal was to evolve “the personality of Parents “to reflect the candor and humor and confidence of today’s mom.””

Vaccariello stated the update will focus “on the needs of diverse millennial women in families of all shapes and sizes. I wanted more fun, more solutions and ideas, and more personal stories and perspectives to enhance the expert advice.””

The article continued with a look at the process took by Parents. “The company spent six months researching Parents’ print reader to find out what they wanted from the magazine. She said advertisers like “that changes are rooted in research.” Steven Grune, VP and Group Publisher of Meredith Parents Network, stated the redesign is “generating a lot of buzz and excitement within the advertising community.””

Our next story on website updates looks at Time Inc. and its new platform. Tech Crunch reports, “Time Inc. websites will be getting a new look over the next few months, thanks to a new in-house platform called Element.”

Ben Ronne, Time Inc.’s Executive Director, product, platforms, told me that this is part of a broader effort to centralize the company’s technology — for example, he said that in the past year, Time Inc. has gone from 14 content management systems to just two.”

The article continues with a look at the goals of the new site. “Faster, cleaner pages are a nice goal, but how can Time Inc. balance that with the need for advertising? For one thing, Ronne said the team did a “huge audit” and was “ruthless” in removing things (like ad units and audience-tracking technology) that were no longer useful. Element also includes more room for native ads, which hopefully means Time Inc. can make money while using fewer banner ads.”

Lastly, we look at Business Insider and its efforts to improve campaigns through website updates. Ad Exchanger reports, “Publishers like Business Insider have already taken steps to improve viewability, like site redesigns and lazy-loading ads – where ads render only when the user scrolls down.”

Business Insider is also looking beyond its own site to improve viewability. It’s ensuring its advertiser partners aren’t making their ads less viewable, and leaning on viewability partners to automate more tasks around campaign optimization.”

The article continues by addressing four ways Business Insider has increased ad opportunities. This includes:

  • Enforcing IAB ad size maximums.
  • Leaning on viewability partners to optimize campaign delivery.
  • Resolving tracking discrepancies.
  • Digging even deeper to improve site viewability.

Do you wonder about the website updates you can be making to increase website traffic and sell more products? If so, set up a time to speak with us. We have helped hundreds of publishers optimize their digital publishing efforts for greater success.

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