In the last year, dozens of publications (such as The Atlantic, Fast Company, and Poynter) have reported on the so-called “Death of the Homepage.” These publications are refering to the steadily declining levels of web traffic to the homepages of a number of large, traditional news outlets such as The New York Times.
They typically focus on the shift to personalized content and the increased importance of social media reference for traffic — but I believe making that the focus is missing the point.
In reality, the phrase "death of the homepage" doesn't purport to mean that homepages no longer matter. Rather, it indicates that in many cases, the homepage will no longer be the main channel for content between a company and their audience.
The rise of social networks (and the increased levels of interaction and engagement within those networks) mean that rather than users primarily spending time on their favorite homepages and venturing to social media to share content, they are primarily spending time on social networks and occasionally venturing to homepages to read content. This is an important difference that content producers and businesses should keep in mind.
This shift means that unless your homepage provides a significantly improved experience than social media platforms do, there is little or no incentive to maintain a dedicated website: indeed, there are news platforms that have opted to live entirely on social media networks like Instagram or Facebook, foregoing a website as a primary means of content distribution.
This method is in stark contrast to the alternative IndieWeb movement. IndieWeb operates on the mantra, “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere,” citing control, content ownership, and increased connectivity as reasons to do so. The problem with IndieWeb is that while the movement sounds good in theory, it’s often incredibly impractical and puts a huge damper on potential exposure. Imagine if PSY’s ridiculously viral music video “Gangnam Style” was never uploaded to Youtube, but rather added as an HTML5 embed to his site and only linked to on social media. Would it have ever gotten to anywhere near the same levels of popularity? Did PSY lose out from failing to self-publish? I believe a much more important factor is the fact that the content was unmistakably attributable to PSY, and PSY alone.
It is with this in mind that the recent prevalence of long-form writing makes sense. Long-form content allows for more depth and details, and by virtue of length means that consumers will spend more time interacting with your content, even if not through your site. Many of the most successful news/opinion sites in the last few years have focused on producing this sort of content. Tim Urban's excellent blog WaitButWhy publishes incredibly involved posts that occasionally exceed six thousand words, and are often filled with hilariously drawn images. Huffington Post's blooming, humanizing Sophia Project averages around four thousand words, and Buzzfeed has expanded from a greatest-common-denominator listicle viral site to publishing interesting, image-driven stories. While all of these sites provide a pleasant reading experience, the true star of the show is the content itself: if any of them opted to publish entirely on Medium or a similar service, the fans wouldn’t dissapate: they are loyal to the content, not the site.
Facebook's Instant Articles is another massive indicator of this trend. Facebook realizes their growth is approaching stagnation and will potentially be overcome by newer, more rapidly growing competitors like Instagram or Tumblr — but they’re prepared.
Instant Articles allows for medium-to-short length content to be published directly to Facebook, where it can be consumed in a beautiful interface. Instant Articles keeps users entirely within Facebook's network while allowing them to experience external publisher's (like National Geographic's) content - and since it’s going to be a native feature, articles will load much faster than opening up the same article in a separate browser tab. In the future, it’s likely similar forms of content publishing will pop up among other social media networks — just look at Snapchat’s “discover” feature, or LinkedIn’s recent changes to encourage long-form posts. Where the users are, the content will closely follow.
Social media and networks are important as ever, not only because of their sharing abilities but now also because of their publishing abilities. If you want your online presence to experience growth, you will need to create a balance of targeted, appropriate content across social media sites and your webpage — and if you decide to use a website, taking the time to make your site a truly special experience is crucial to preventing yourself from being outmoded by social media publishing.
Here are some of the best practices for adapting your homepage or content strategy in light of the “Death of the Homepage”:
- Consider whether you truly need a homepage. Is the content available on your site not suited for any existing, established social media network? In what ways do you benefit maintining a homepage? If you can’t think of any strong benefits, shift direction. If there are clear benefits, expound on and strengthen them.
- If a website is a necessary part of your strategy, it’s important to make your homepage fast, well-designed, and easily usable, with a strong presentation of whatever content you choose to feature, be it text, images, video, audio, or some other form. For inspiration, frequent websites like Typewolf, Site Inspire, or Media Queries. If possible, hire a professional designer or agency to create a custom design for you.
- Experiment with different types of content. Write content of different length. Try making a post entirely out of images. Explore the possibility of releasing a podcast rather than a standard text blog. Jump on the opportunity to adopt new methods of content distribution (Periscope, or the aforementioned Instant Articles, anyone?) - there are many people who’ve become successful simply because they started out early.