01 Feb, 2010
Common elements on magazine websites
Web Development » Design » Common elements on magazine websites
This post covers some of the most common elements you see on many magazine websites.
Hero module
A hero module on a magazine website usually consists of featured articles from various categories across the site. Javascript tabs / carousel functionality is often used to rotate the items within this module.
Latest articles
Latest articles section consists of a list of recent articles, each of which have a thumbnail image of the article and a short teaser with a link to the individual article page. There are usually between 5 to 10 articles within this section on the homepage.
Categories
Links to categories becomes the primary navigation on magazine websites and essentially replaces the pages navigation you see on most corporate websites. For example, for a Lifestyle magazine website, the primary navigation may consist of categories such as Entertainment, Travel, Fashion, Food and Living where as for a corporate website, the primary navigation links to main pages such as Home, Products, Services, About Us and Contact Us.
List of articles
A list of articles is simply a bunch of links to various articles on the websites. Not only is this good for Search Engine Optimisation purposes, it is also a good reason to give users an easy access to archived articles.
Photo gallery
Most magazine websites have many photo galleries and this module is used to give users a one-click access to latest/seasonal photo gallery on the website. For example, a lifestyle magazine may have a photo gallery called “Grammys Fashion” that they want to promote on the homepage.
Featured video
With fast Internet connections available these days, videos have become a huge part of online media. According to Comscore study, 75 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video in July last year. It is no wonder videos have become a staple of content distribution methods.
Social networking
Integration with social networking sites and tools is a must for any website these days as it is one of the most effective ways to generate traffic and increase participation. It is not uncommon for most online brands to have its own YouTube Channel, Twitter presence and Facebook page to facilitate interaction with users everywhere.
Search
Having a search engine for a magazine website is a key requirement because over time, a magazine website will have hundreds and thousands of articles and the only way for users to quickly access an article is through a search engine.
Ads (Medium rectangle, Leaderboard, Half page, etc)
Be it a small block ad, a medium rectangle ad, a leaderboard ad or a half page ad, ads are one of the most profitable ways to generate revenue from a website. After all, someone has to pay for all the hosting, design, development, content and have the magazine up and running online.
RSS feed
RSS feeds enable users to retrieve the latest content from your website using a push technology which mean whenever a new article is added to the website, they will be informed of it via their RSS reader without them having to visit the website. It is especially important for magazine websites and blogs because new content is being added all the time and RSS feeds provide an easy way for users to view updates and keep up to date with latest news and articles.
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