The Washington Post had over 53 million digital visitors in July 2015, with 38 million on mobile. The Post homepage uses four main content "zones" including prominent top stories and a news stream below. It also analyzes metrics like Chartbeat to understand traffic and check trending articles. The Post curates its homepage to focus on U.S. politics and other topics within its scope, while also considering traffic and balancing different viewpoints. It tests headlines and images to maximize engagement and sends breaking news alerts to drive traffic.

1. @doristruong | #NISWAW
Homepage strategies
from the U.S. capital

2. • The Washington Post recorded 53.5 million digital
unique visitors in July 2015, up 36% from 2014.
• 38 million mobile users (up 58%).
• More than 19.4 million desktop users (up 5%).
• 41% of total digital audience are millennials —
a demographic with rising engagement (Post-
branded outreach includes Snapchat).
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3. Homepage: 4 ‘zones’
• “In the News” cues a topic’s importance. Nieman
Lab reported in December 2014 that 5-25% of site
traffic comes from Google News.
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4. Top table
• The big stories of the day (usually on the left).
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5. • A set of related stories takes over the entire top
when there’s major news.
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6. • The “feature display,” usually on the right, can be
used for a topic that isn’t hard news.
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7. Newswell (or stream)
• This is a mix of news, opinion and features
immediately under the top table. Each of the
8 to 10 items gets prominent headlines,
thumbnail art and short descriptive blurbs.
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10. Downpage
• Topic areas that require little human oversight.
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11. Broad vs. Regional
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12. Code name: Rainbow
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13. Analytics
• The Post uses
Chartbeat, including
the heads-up display.
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14. • We regularly check the Chartbeat dashboard
for the top 20 trending article pages as a guide,
but that’s imperfect.
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15. What qualifies for
washingtonpost.com?
• We curate the homepage so it contains content
that is within our wheelhouse. U.S. politics, yes.
Fluffy kittens, no (usually).
• We do consider when something gets sideways
traffic: Does this meet homepage standards, or
will its audience find it on social?
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16. • We also consider overall traffic on an article. It’s
fairly normal for a highly read piece to remain on
the homepage for 24 hours but in different parts of
the page throughout the day.
• We try to consider the mix of stories currently on
the page. We aim for equal play between political
parties and favor news over features — however,
consumer interest stories (Does grilling meat
cause cancer?) do well.
• Breaking news will always trump any plans we
make for the day.
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17. A/B testing
• The Post receives
real-time numbers
when we use alternate
feature images or text
for the same article
on the homepage.
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18. The same headline
treatment is used
throughout (Germany
reduces Brazil to tears),
but one image clearly
outperforms the rest.
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19. Breaking-news alerts
• The Post drives traffic to the homepage by quickly
sending e-mail alerts (about four times the
number of subscribers receive our “national”
alerts vs.“local” alerts) as well as mobile push
alerts, which ping users with any version of the
app — including Apple Watch.
@doristruong | #NISWAW

20. Thank you (Dziękuję)
For more information: doris.truong@washpost.com
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