Article Page Redesign

Challenge

The main goal of our client was to increase registration on the article pages of the site, for most of the traffic comes from search.

Hypothesis

To increase conversions, we wanted to appeal to new users in a few ways. First, and most importantly, we wanted to eliminate the right rail of the page, as it was very cluttered with related articles and CTAs. Patterns like these feel dated compared to some of the modern examples we found in our benchmarks. We wanted to instead arrange more subtle persistent registration CTAs throughout the page and only make a larger ask at the end of the page (when the user’s interest was made clear).

Approach

We held a workshop with our clients and had them invite people from their editorial, product and dev teams to get a wide range of opinions. We broke out into three teams, sketched out modules over large mock article printouts, and went to work trying to reimagine the reading experience. One consideration we all agreed on was the break the flow of reading into three sections (initial landing, mid-article, and post article) to make sure we were considering the user’s state of mind as they made their way down the template.

While presenting the work, some great ideas came to light:

For instance, if a user lost interest in the article, we provided a subtle indented module serving up more articles.

We addressed variety by bringing in elements like branded pull quotes.

Analytics also informed us that users that clicked on a module called "Dig Deeper" (a link to category landing pages) were more likely to convert, so we made sure to give that module prominence at the end of the article. 

Instead of bombarding users with annoying pop ups or modals that would block content, we created a full width banner that would appear halfway down the page and act as an interactive poll.

To not ask for registrations over and over the same way again, we presented gated content inline with the content to create new entry points. 

We then went back to the lab to unpack all the ideas and feedback from the the presentations and that gave us the building blocks we needed to arrive at a solution that best solved the user and client goals. See the wireframe

Results

 from A/B test

OVERALL - Conversion on the new design is now higher than the old (0.42% vs 0.35%); Registration starts are also higher for the new design (1.3% of impressions vs 1.1%).

Before and after time on site hasn’t changed/been compromised.

Old design top 3 promos (CTR): modal (0.95%), inline (0.91% ), dig deeper / FOMO banner (1.03%).

New design top 3 promos (CTR): modal (1.32%), inline (1.31%), wide banner (0.75%)

Old right rail elements:  Trending / You Might Also Like (YMAL) – combined CTR 0.25%/  registration conversion – 0.01%

New trending elements:  People Are Also Reading; Trending combined (articles & gated); More in Topic – combined 0.51% CTR;  / reg conversion 0.04%