Three Time's A Charm for MarieClaire.com

The evolution of a web site through three redesigns in three years.

By Chandra Johnson-Greene
Monday, March 2, 2009

Hearst Magazines’ Marie Claire kicked the year off with a Web site redesign that debuted on January 15—its third since splitting from iVillage in 2007. The redesign, the magazine hoped, would drive traffic even higher than its record month in December ’08 and make the site more attractive to advertisers.

So what were the goals of the MarieClaire.com staff throughout the site’s three reincarnations, and what did they learn? According to senior Web editor Ashley T. Parrish, MarieClaire.com users want clear design, a deep well of content and easy navigation. “Through each of our redesigns, we’ve really listened to what our readers were looking for,” she says. “We now just want to keep those numbers elevated and moving in an upward direction.”

In 2007, when the site first launched, the focus was basically showcasing the magazine content and creating a loyal audience, Parrish told AD. “When users came to the site they would see a few stories rotating in a player, but for the most part, they had to click on a particular channel to find articles,” she says. “The site looked somewhat flat and the content wasn’t updated daily, but we were still strong. Our traffic actually went up after we split from iVillage.”

Then in 2008, the focus turned to “high-performing, exclusive content” and ramping up video coverage. “We added some health and fitness videos, as well as political videos,” Parrish says. “But the main goal was to make it easy for our users to find them. Our videos were buried on our 2007 site, and users were being asked to drill down and look for them. So our game plan in 2008 was to make them more visible.”

New Site Makes Content ‘One Click Away’

In 2009, the rotating player is still there, but now there’s also a ticker running on the top, which lets users know that the site is being updated 2-4 times a day. A recent articles grid that changes daily has also been added, and it appears on every page of the site.

“We’re thinking that perhaps not everyone is coming to the home page, but through a side door, so whatever page a user lands on, they are going to see a daily giveaway and some blog entries,” Parrish says. “And even if they never make it to the home page, they will see what the daily headlines are. We are really trying to show the world that we have Web exclusive content and that we’ve got our finger on the pulse.”

Videos now appear right on MarieClaire.com’s home page, within specific channels, and directly on blog posts. Articles are even built around videos with similar topics. “We want our users to read the article and be able to access a video right under that article,” Parrish says. “We want everything to be just one click away.”

Speaking of “one click away,” that’s has been the staff’s theme for 2009. MarieClaire.com now has eight channels instead of three, which makes it easier for users to find what they’re looking for. “We’re basically took all of our second-level navigation and moved it up to the first,” she says. “So instead of the user having to do four clicks to get to a certain article, they now only have to do one.”

MarieClaire.com saw one of its best traffic months in December 2008, according to Parrish, with 17.4 million page views (up from 3.3 million during the same period in 2007) and 3.8 million unique monthly visitors. The trend continued in January 2009—the average time spent increased by one minute, page views increased by an average of two pages per visit and average video visits increased by 70,000 between the periods of January 1-14 and January 15-31.

“We saw a shift immediately,” Parrish says. “And this change is exciting because the increase occurred in the first 15 days of being live. Being able to engage users has been a sign that we’re tapping into what readers want.”

And while it’s too early to track a subscription trend after the most recent redesign, the subscription team has seen an increase of 10 percent in newsletter sign-ups since the redesign.

MarieClaire.com Through the Years

Pre-2007 (as a part of iVillage.com)