Barrick Schmitt, VP of User Experience from Avenue A/Razorfish published a great article called “does the home page still matter?: Why distribution trumps destination for publisher and advertisers” in their recently published report “2008 Digital Outlook Report.”
The report is about 150 pages long and is filled with valuable data and observations. I HIGHLY recommend taking the time to read it. I am only about half way through the article and have a feeling I’ll be posting more excerpts from it in the coming days.
Here are some excerpts:
Despite all of these changes, the waning power of the home page is not a doom-and-gloom scenario for the industry. here’s how publishers and marketers need to adjust:
1. Adopt “traffic distribution” as a key site metric. To ensure that your digital content and Web properties
are fully optimized for this new distributed ecosystem, make sure that you add traffic distribution as a
key performance benchmark. Traffic distribution is comprised of all traffic driven to your Web property
(either directly, referring, or through search engines) and the distribution of that traffic beyond the home
page throughout the rest of the site. Our recommendation is that the total number of page views for
the home page during any given time period should not exceed 35% of the total number of page views
for the property. In other words, approximately 65% of a property’s traffic should originate from somewhere other than the home page. In addition, make sure that traffic from referring sites and search engines combined exceeds direct traffic to the property.
2. Treat every page like a home page. Every page is now a home page, each of which will have a wider reach, a lasting shelf life, and the ability to attract a new audience like never before. To capitalize on this, ensure that every page has a strong, clear global navigation scheme and related content that is visibly promoted. And don’t forget to make sure that display advertising gets prominent, above-the-fold, home-page-like treatment (300×250 rectangles and 728×90 leaderboards). Remember, every page can be accessed in any conceivable manner and in any conceivable order—you can’t design properties to control user flow anymore.
3. Distribute content widely and freely. Distribute content through syndication partners, promotion on social
networks, linkage from blogs, and other viral techniques. Every page should sport a “Web 2.0 toolbar” that enables consumers to share freely via applications such as Digg, Reddit, and del.icio.us. If you have video, post and distribute it through all major platforms, including YouTube, Veoh, MySpace, and Facebook. Cast your net as widely and freely as possible to ensure maximum reach for your content.
4. Track performance across all digital touchpoints. Success of Web properties now needs to be measured
both on-site and off. Detailed tracking of content syndication efforts, RSS feeds, e-mail subscriptions, widget downloads, podcast downloads, search engine performance (paid and organic), blogsophere linkage, and video consumption gives the most holistic measurement of Web property performance. You need to start thinking about the entire channel to measure success and not just the Web site itself. Ultimately, we believe that publishers, advertisers, and consumers will all prosper in this new distributed environment—the industry just needs to adapt, again, as consumers continue to travel the Web in ways that circumvent “home.”
Blogged with Flock
