The homepage of the website greatly affects the communication ability and communication effect of the online media, which is determined by the communication attributes of the online media.
The homepage of online media is different from the layout of print media where "what you see is what you get", it has the characteristics of infinite link extension beyond two-dimensional space. What netizens "see" on the homepage, whether it is pictures, text, videos, FLASH, etc., is not all the information they see, but only the "labels" or "trial packages" of this information, which can be accessed by clicking on the link. See all information. This determines that the home page of an online media is like a bookshelf lined with books, rather than a wall covered with posters.
Functional positioning: Index navigation
The homepage is usually the "first impression" a website brings to visitors. For small websites, the simplest static page can be used for the homepage, combined with pictures to achieve a beautifying effect. It functions as an integrated display of website data and information, just like a computer motherboard carrying chip memory. For a functional website, such as Baidu or Kaixin.com, whether it provides online search or virtual social services, its simple and clear homepage serves as the service entrance, like the ticket gate of a theme park.
For online media that mainly provide massive information services, the primary need for netizens to log in to online media is to obtain information. What is the role of the homepage? This role is the functional positioning of online media, and it is also the study of the structure and form of the homepage of online media. , governing laws, and the logical starting point of evolutionary trends. At present, the more popular view in the industry is the "door theory".
"Portal theory" means that the homepage is the "portal" of the website, located on the main index page. It is a guide that allows visitors to understand the overview of the website and guides them to access key content. Visitors continue to visit other pages of the website through the summary or directory-style navigation links on the homepage to obtain further information or use functions.
However, the establishment of the "portal theory" depends on a preset premise: Internet users access the website through the homepage. As we all know, Internet site access follows the principle of absolute domain name correspondence, that is, netizens can directly access the webpage through any webpage domain name, whether it is a top-level domain name, a second-level domain name, or even the bottom-level domain name of a site article, and then through Use web navigation bar links and extended reading jump links to access other pages on your website. In other words, the homepage of a website is not theoretically the only way to access the website. At the same time, with the widespread use of search engines, the audience points to the underlying page of the article through search keywords, so the proportion of direct access continues to increase; this results in netizens no longer accessing the website through the homepage.
Then the functional positioning of the homepage as a website portal index navigation is in an awkward state of absence.
Is this the case? By analyzing some representative online media at home and abroad, the proportion of visits to each channel on ALEXA from January to February 2009 (as shown in the table) shows that news websites with news information as their core services include the Central People's Daily Online, Xinhuanet, and CCTV at the local level, Qianlong.com, Hongwang, and Qingdao News Network at the local level, and even foreign msn.com and ohmynews.com all account for more than 15% of their homepage visits, even as high as 88%, both ranking in the top two of the website channels; and portal websites that mainly focus on comprehensive Internet application services, including local news websites with diversified operations and regional portal concepts such as Oriental.com and Zhejiang Online, their home page visits accounted for 88% of the total. The proportions are all less than 10%, with the lowest being only 3.6%. It can be seen that the more the online media's positioning relies on news and information business, the higher the navigation value of its homepage; on the contrary, the more the online media's positioning tends to be a diversified portal, the lower the navigation value of its homepage. The homepage positioning is different from the website's own positioning. closely related. In addition, the home page of online media ranks first among all channel domain names on the entire website in terms of single page views, proving that the home page of online media is still favored by netizens and plays an important indexing and navigation function in the website.
Structural positioning: three pillars
Since the homepage of online media has an important access and navigation function for the website, how to optimize the content structure presentation of the homepage to the greatest extent and improve the navigation effect has become the key to the improvement of the communication ability of online media on the homepage.
The main structure of the homepage: navigation bar + content recommendation + advertising space. At present, the content structure of the homepage of online media is basically divided into three parts: "navigation bar, content recommendation, and advertising space." Broadly speaking, these three parts of content complement each other on the homepage, and they all play the role of index navigation and navigate channels respectively. / Columns, Information/ Services and Advertising. However, netizens use the three-part structure of the homepage with different frequencies.
Taking the first screen of Oriental.com's homepage as an example, more than half of netizens' clicks are concentrated on the channel navigation position in the navigation bar, followed by the information and service sections in content recommendations, and finally the advertising spaces. A large number of areas on the homepage are invalid click areas. In other words, the needs of netizens for the homepage are first of all the navigation needs of browsing channel sites, followed by content reading needs, and finally sporadic advertising browsing needs. It can be seen that first paying attention to and highlighting the construction of channels and functional navigation areas on the first screen of the homepage is of great significance for optimizing the homepage navigation effect.
Secondly, configuring the "content recommendation" on the homepage from the perspective of user experience will greatly enhance the effective navigation attractiveness of the content. When netizens browse a website, they only care about whether the content itself meets their reading interests, and do not care which department of the website produced the content. The "content recommendation" on the homepage serves as a "window" for the essence of the entire website's content. It is especially necessary to avoid artificial division of content blocks from the perspective of the website, causing the "blocking effect" of departmental traces on the content.
Style positioning: user first
Successful online media homepage style positioning not only leads the reading habits of Chinese netizens, but also conforms to people's visual movement patterns, thus becoming netizens' visual "default" for the reasonable layout of their web pages. This "template" composed of visual default and humanized design gives netizens a smooth visual experience, conforms to the laws of news psychology, and also cultivates netizens' loyalty to visit and browse. The style positioning of online media homepages is based on user experience and is reflected in the arrangement of web design elements, especially in the dissemination of images and information of visual elements such as graphics, text, and colors, and how to follow rules to catch the "eyeballs."
The homepage design style requires that the navigation bar, content recommendations, and advertising spaces be separated and integrated according to the reading habits of most people using elements such as colors, lines, and pictures while ensuring a sense of integrity. The homepage design adopts the established standard colors of the website, focusing on coordinating the primary and secondary relationships of each area, with the ultimate goal of creating a human-computer interaction interface with high usability and visual comfort. In specific practical operations, the following seven rules and principles can be summarized: First, the principle of refusing to be fancy; second, the principle of short paragraphs; third, the principle of font balance; fourth, the principle of widescreen multi-screen; fifth, the principle of color harmony; sixth, the principle of navigation planning; seventh It is the principle of convenient login.
Trend Positioning: Two Forecasts
If the functional positioning, structural positioning, and style positioning of the homepage are all based on the research of homepage practice and user experience, then the trend positioning of the homepage is more like a prediction based on the current contradictions and regular extensions that can be checked.
Recent trend positioning: News home page = home page. Taking the homepage of Oriental.com as an example, there are currently nearly 300 links to news and interactive content articles on the homepage of the website, and it is quite homogeneous with the homepage of the news channel (including news and interactive content). Editors have to repeatedly maintain and update two pages with large content while ensuring timeliness. Not only does it involve a lot of manpower, but it is also difficult to balance timeliness from time to time.
The reason why online media have news channel homepages is, on the one hand, based on matching departmental organizational structures, and on the other hand, it is also to highlight the integrated navigation display of news. However, as online media continue to pay more attention to homepages, the integrated navigation functions of a large number of news channel homepages have been transplanted to website homepages. Integration based only on the concept of news is gradually not suitable for the content pattern of the diversified development of online media. The existence of the home page of the news channel gradually became embarrassing and useless.
Therefore, the development trend of the homepage is predicted to be that the news channel homepage and the website homepage are combined into one, which strengthens the information capacity of the website homepage and simplifies the information navigation level of each channel. Adjusting the department-level layout from the website homepage - the news channel homepage - the content channel homepage to the website envelope layout of the website homepage - the channel homepage also simplifies the click level for netizens, reduces duplication of production costs, and improves content effectiveness.
Long-term trend positioning: "Me Media". "We Media" takes the information needs of netizens as its core ontology. According to their needs, netizens can search on the Internet through shared programs and instantly generate a unique open site. The site is dynamically updated according to the information needs of netizens, and its database is the Internet. The Data Web takes data fit and application interoperability to the next level, making data as accessible and linked as the web. The browsing form of "My Media" is an information site that is instantly integrated based on the needs of netizens and data rules. The presentation terminal can be an Internet terminal PC web page, or any terminal carrier page linked to the Internet.
This kind of prediction sounds like fantasy and fantasy. But its prototype is actually happening now, on the Internet that is within reach of each of us. In the fall of 2005, Google launched iGoogle, a service for users to build their own personalized search homepages. Baidu, NetEase, etc. also launched their own personalized search homepage services. Using the personalized homepage service, netizens can create their own personalized homepage based on personalized customization. They no longer have to open the corresponding search pages in sequence and sift through the dense news information step by step.
William Zhang, chief scientist of Baidu and search engine expert, said that there are three realms of search engine development, namely search technology based on natural language processing, community search and personalized search. It is believed that "My Media" based on personalized search, with its various personalized homepages, will become a long-term trend of online media homepages.