It’s really getting frustrating reading about newspapers getting bailed out by questionable individuals, newspapers suing each other over… linking? really? Linking? uh… ok, and just the overall death of newspapers as the major source of news and investigative journalism. So lets focus on something positive like the title of this post: What Newspaper Websites Can Learn from Darren Rowse and ProBlogger – First Impressions.
If you don’t know Darren Rowse or ProBlogger and you run a news site or any blog really, it is imperative you start following his blog and take the time to dig through his archives. Ok, enough of that.
First, watch the video below from ProBlogger regarding the “first impressions” that a blog (or any site) makes on their visitors and what it means for engagement. Then we’ll go through some main points.
The video talks about 5 things you can do to make a good first impression – he’s talking about blogs, but if you run a newspaper site, just replace the word blog with site and you’re already thinking better about improving expectations and the users’ experience than most news sites out there. Also, keep in mind the following question Darren asks, “What are you communicating to prospective long term readers in those first moments when they arrive to your blog”?
- Blog Title – Logo or Words. It is really important to have a blog title which sets the tone of your site. People will read into the title of you blog.
- Design of the blog – Design impacts the overall feel and tells people if you are “warm” or “standoffish”, it tells what kind of “voice” you will be speaking in.
- Tagline -expands upon the purpose of the blog. Why do people come here? What’s it all about?
- Title of Posts – as Darren states and I can confirm (not that he needs any confirmation on this) the majority of your incoming traffic will go directly to single posts, not your homepage. The title should get people to read the first sentence of your post. It should also draw people in further. Think through the title.
- First line or Paragraph of a post – people make a judgment call within the first words or sentences. Make them count, get people to keep reading.
3 Questions about first impressions
- What do you want to convey? As the blog or site owner, you must know the answer to this or you’ll wind up conveying something unintended.
- What first impressions are you currently giving off? Ask people. See if it fits with #1 above.
- How can you convey your purpose better?
After watching this video I hope all site owners go directly to their site and review it. I know I did, and changes are a comin’.
On a side note, If there are any journalists with machinations of launching their own news site and making money on day one note that Darren took over 2 years blogging before he could earn enough to do it full time.
Going full time was a very gradual process for me. I went from it being purely a hobby to being a part time job to a full time job (and beyond) – that process took me around 2 and a half years (although it’s hard to pinpoint completely as income went up and down a little from month to month. -from LifeOfJustin.com
Now lets check out a news site that I’ve been beating up on lately: WashingtonPost.com – I do this not because I think the company is awful, quite the contrary, I think the company is well positioned to succeed (Kaplan revenue stream), but I think their news site can be so much better.
- Site Title – WashingtonPost.com when I hear that title, I think national politics. I’m not the only one either. The very site title itself implies posts regarding Washington. A quick look at Delicious tags for the site reveals that the top 10 tags for the site are, in order of popularity:
- news
- newspaper
- washington
- newspapers
- media
- politics
- daily
- dc
- usa
- washingtonpost
- Design of the site - washingtonpost.com looks like your typical newspaper website, hundreds of links on the front page, clutter, confusion, poor user engagement, poor user experience, no obvious links to the “top draws” on the site and no branding. The design of the site says, look at me, I’m a big random news site with no personality like Google News or Topix.
- Tagline – this goes back to point #1. The site has no tagline, but the title tag says the following:
[title]washingtonpost.com – nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines[/title]
so… you are a big random news site with no personality and you cover… everything? and Washington? So why do people come here? What’s it all about? - Title of posts – These look pretty good. I have no specific complaints here.
- First line or paragraph of a post – Again, no complaint here. These writers are pros.
3 Questions about first impressions
- What does the washingtonpost.com want to convey? – I’m not quite sure they know the answer to this question. I think that like lots of big newspapers, The Post is suffering from a direction crisis. Do they go local? National? International?
- What first impressions is the site currently giving off? Ask people. – I’m people. When I think of The Post, I think politics and the site design is bland as hell, so that follows.
- How can the site convey its purpose better? - Not being the site owner, I don’t know. I hope it has become apparent by now what the focus of this exercise has become.
I learned a lot from this exercise. I’ll be revisiting my header logo and placing a tagline in the new header. Looking at the washingtonpost.com example we can see that big newspaper is suffering, not from content and writing, but from vision and execution (or lack thereof).
What of your own sites? What have you learned about this exercise on first impressions? For fun, go and type your news site into Delicious.com and find out what the most popular tags are for your site. They should be in line with what you expect. Are they? Do share.
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