Hearst Shkulev Media: “We need to make content for people, not for search engines”

Artem Amelin, Project Manager at Hearst Shkulev Media, explained the difference between digital and print audiences, how to adapt content for different types of readers, and how to build analytics and editorial work for these tasks.

About content strategies in digital and print

Starhit and Psychologies have both print and online versions of publications. Content for different platforms produces one team?

Formally, there are print and digital editions, but the work is structured in such a way that specialization manifests itself at the stage of content adaptation for the ultimate distribution platform. Initially, all editors are in a single information field. The strategy is as follows: we share an offline and online audience and adapt the content for different consumption platforms. The journal content is processed according to the habits of the Internet users, and the materials prepared initially for the site can be published in the journal. There are materials that are published only on websites or in magazines only.
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The online version of Psychologies has long existed as a magazine site, and this is wrong.

Content consumption models in print and digital are very different. The intersection of the audiences of the magazine and the site within one brand is minimal and does not exceed 10%.

Now we have changed and strengthened the editorial team of the website psychologies.ru.

What is the difference between print and digital content? What is the purpose of different editions?

In the digital user environment, you need to cling to the first 5-7 seconds. The editor should be able to. The magazine suggests a more thoughtful reading, which means the likelihood that the reader will get to the second paragraph increases. This does not mean that print editors cannot write for the Internet, and Internet editors cannot write for a magazine, but specialization allows for faster adaptation of texts and does not require constant restructuring of templates.

On the Internet, we deliberately facilitate content, we move away from excessive scientific knowledge.

In the online version of Psychologies, we try not to give many points of view on the problem and try to be more utilitarian. But at the same time on the Internet now we give a greater amount of content than in the magazine.

About traffic generation

What are the main sources of traffic on your resources?

35 - 40% of traffic Psychologies - from social networks. Psychologies have more than 600 thousand followers on Facebook. Starhit has predominantly organic traffic.

In May, a sharp increase in direct traffic began. This is due to the fact that Yandex launched Zen in its browser.

There is no clear understanding of what algorithm it works with and how Zen is guided when selecting relevant, in his opinion content. According to my feelings, he still tracks the popularity of materials. If the article is actively received by readers, and at the same time from different sources, it increases the likelihood that your material will be shown to more users with similar interests.

Does targeting traffic affect content you produce?

In my opinion not quite correct statement of the question. You need to make content for people, not for search engines or social network algorithms. Although the behavior of the user writing the query in the search line and viewing the tape in the FB is different, and this must be taken into account.

In Psychologies, we divide the content into three conditional parts, and try to maintain a balance:

• Professional - content created with the participation of experts, professional psychologists, an expert look at the problem of concern to the reader. Such content more answers specific questions that people ask Yandex.
  
  
• User and pseudo-user - stories told by ordinary people and on behalf of ordinary people. Life experience of famous, but not related to the psychology of people who have experienced certain situations and in their examples give advice and help to cope with difficult situations. This content can either contain an answer to a specific question, or attract the attention of a person who is viewing his feed in social networks, in Zen, through teasers.
  
  
• HYIP - content that attracts attention, initiates a problem, answers a question that the user is unlikely to think about. A good example of such material is the text of Polina Sanaeva “I did not raise you for this”: why the parents did not teach us to be happy. This content is more focused on the audience of social networks.

The concept of working with content is as follows: the user asks a question and gets a simple and competent answer. This is the first layer - the user came to the site. Then there is the opportunity to go to the extended answer on the topic from an expert, a psychologist, to see different points of view. This is professional content, more serious, complex text. There is an opportunity to discuss your problem with a psychologist and people who have had a similar experience: this option is on the forum and in the questions on the site.

At Starhit, we try not to miss a single informational occasion, and also create them ourselves. Due to the large amount of materials and good site optimization, search robots Yandex and Google come to us every 5 minutes. And if an event occurs associated with Russian stars, we are very quickly indexed and get on the first page of the issue. We can say that we ourselves form user requests.

About leaving with Rambler and exchange traffic

Today, many are discussing Facebook’s policies, media’s dependence on their display and advertising algorithms. Do you feel that Fb wants to take content from you and give nothing in return?

Not yet. We, on the contrary, get good traffic from them. But making predictions is difficult. Take the Rambler. For a long time, many content resources sat on the Rambler, as if on a large needle.

On the traffic Rambler?

Yes, and if your Rambler today did not take the recommendation, it means you do not have traffic. The same thing happened on Starhit.

In 2013, 30–40% of the traffic came from Rambler. The first task I set for the team is to get off this needle.

When Rambler in 2015 changed the conditions for publishers, we abandoned them. Rambler stopped taking our recommendations, and this had practically no effect on the traffic structure. Although many resources traffic fell by 30 - 40%.

Now Rambler take Starhit materials in the news, but on their own initiative, and we forbade them to take the full texts. According to their conditions, they take the full text, and give you the traffic in the form of a footnote somewhere below. It does not suit us.

We give our content in full text to Microsoft. They take the text and unscrew the ads there. We get good money on this exchange. This is a model that meets the conditions and interests of all parties.

We have exchange partners. We tested them a lot in due time. Now there are two partners left on Starhit, one on Psychologies. We have very strict requirements for partners.

What are your requirements?

First is the quality of traffic. We look at the time on the site, we look at the depth that this traffic gives. Secondly, for us the teasers that partners put to us are important. Despite the fact that sometimes we write about the most unpleasant things about stars, we do not slip into jaundice. We cannot have teasers of the format of the magazine “Secrets of the Stars”, where they are trying to leave on scandals, exposing the stars in an extremely negative light. For us, stars are ordinary people with inherent problems. And when a teaser comes in the style of “Oh, devil: frankness below the belt from the Queen”, or even worse, about the orientation of the Russian showman - it harms our reputation. With such we do not work.

Are you watching how exchange traffic converts into clicks on ads?

For us, the main thing is that the user comes and stays. That is, if the exchange does not give a depth of at least two pages, we do not work with it. Like a newsman, we have 2-3 pages - a stable viewing depth. It is important for us that the user stayed, looked at the advertisement, clicked on the advertisement. But exchange is the same source of traffic for us, like everyone else. Therefore, in my opinion, it is not entirely correct to consider the conversion of advertising clicks for exchange traffic. You need to watch the conversion as a whole.

About traffic from social networks and Facebook algorithms

And how differently do people from different sources behave? For example, the traffic from VKontakte is always less, but it is deeper. That is, Fb gives one and a half pages, and Vkontakte - 4 pages.

I would say that traffic from social networks always gives less depth than organic or direct traffic. The user of social networks is much more difficult to lead deep into the site than a user from the same exchange. In the latter case, the person purposefully comes to read the site, and in social networks, the person looks at the tape and clings to the title.

In my opinion, Facebook with a smaller group size can generate more traffic than Vkontakte.

Because of network algorithms?

The materials in the Vkontakte feed fail by the user faster than in the Fb tape. Therefore, with an equal number of posts, the number of transitions from Vk will be less. Despite the fact that Facebook may not show any materials, the network will show them, so to speak, to a more loyal audience. If people are used to coming to Starhit from Facebook, they will be coming.

Facebook, Google is pulling content on itself. Google made a parser for news, and when you read the material from the mobile version, you do not go to the site. Is this a problem for you?

There are many different disputes about the fact that social networks are pulling the blanket over themselves, building their recommendation systems, internal reading rooms. I still think this is a two-way process. We produce high-quality content, and if this content placed on the social network does not give us traffic, which we will be able to monetize or get adequate money from the affiliate program, then we will stop giving it to this social network and will give it to another, with which we will work more profitable. Also others will do. In the end, everyone will lose. Although the trends are such that now everyone is moving to a personalized tape of content. If you hit this tape, then you will be read. If you do not hit, then you have no chance.

The further, the more difficult it will be to squeeze into the user's tape and press the seals with its clever articles.

How to build editorial work

Under your leadership, the team online version of Starhit and other resources. How is editors work now?

We have a single editorial team that deals with four projects. These are two weekly editions: Antenna-Telesem and Starhit. Plus two resources: Woman's Day and Starhit. The team is under the same management, and all are in the same information flow.

It is clear that there are people - 4 editors who make content only for Starhit. Nonetheless, we have single meetings, a single information field. If a journalist from the information department, and the information department works on all four projects, goes to a star, he can return with an interview with three different products. For example, with the news for Starhit, a great interview for Antenna, a photo story for Woman's Day.

Thus we optimize the work. Due to the scale it is easier for us to achieve the stars. And we have editor-in-chief Andrei Malakhov, it also helps us.

About analytics for realtime

What analytics tools do you use in the editorial?

We actively use Chartbeat as a platform for editorial analysis. We see how many people view materials, what articles they leave for, what recommendation and advertising blocks work better.

Does Chartbeat replace Google Analytics?

Chartbeat we use for realtime. GA has other calculation algorithms.

Chartbeat pings the site at short intervals and gives a more accurate picture, because it specializes in real-time analytics.

We can see the user's path online. This is very convenient for editing and allows you to understand how the user behaves on a particular article, from where he came to the material, how long and to what paragraph he reads, where he goes next.

And what conclusions can an editor make?

For example, is it worth adding related articles to the material and where to add them. Which links are clicked and which links are ignored. Whether the material holds to the end or the user drew the title, and then he could not read the lead. On Psychologies, we removed the pagination on longrids after seeing that half of the users do not see the buttons on the following pages. In the new design we will already look, to return them or not, and in what form.

About working on Psychologies

You started working on the Psychologies site in April 2016. What was done with the project during this time?

These six months, we deal more with technical issues. We make the site easier and more understandable, both for the user and for the search engines.

First of all, we focused on creating a new mobile version of the site. The current is heavy, outdated and very uncomfortable. We call it a semi-mobile semi-version. We already have 50% of users come from mobile, and this percentage continues to grow. Having such a mobile version of the project, in which most of the audience comes from mobile devices, is disastrous.

We will move gradually. Already rolled out the article template. The next stage will be tests, by popularity.

The user comes for content - he should get it in a convenient, understandable, simple form.

We will deal with the content templates, and then we will gradually make the main one and fill the section templates.

About attracting advertisers

There is a lot of talk about new advertising formats: the media should come up with something right now, otherwise they will go bankrupt. Is the situation really so critical, or is it some kind of natural process that you shouldn't be afraid of?

I would not say that now some critical situation. Yes, programmatic in our advertising revenues occupies a growing share. At the same time, we do not refuse and are not going to abandon our own sales teams. We have a very strong department of special projects in the publishing house.

Competition in the market requires all big “dances with a tambourine” around the advertiser. We need to offer new creative solutions. Therefore, we have a sales team that negotiates with the brand, and then the special projects department works, which begins to look for specific solutions.

Despite the fact that we have a large share of the Internet, we are engaged in print and are not going to abandon the magazine publications. We try to offer cross-media, cross-platform projects when an advertiser receives a magazine, a website, a newsletter, and a social network. That is, we are looking for solutions for the advertiser, for a specific brand, in order to make the advertising campaign as effective as possible.

What is the coolest you have done over the past year?

2016 year at StarHit we closed at 7 million users per month. And Psychologies at 2 million. Let's go to absolute traffic records. The profit of these projects is also higher than our budget expectations.

I took Starhit in 2013 with a traffic volume of 600-700 thousand unique visitors per month. If you focus on the rating Liveinternet, Starhit in the category "culture and art" was somewhere in the 10th place. At the beginning of my work on the project, the traffic of “7 days” was an unattainable dream for us. Now we are the most popular news resource about show business in Russia.