Welcome to my second newstracker blog, a blog that puts Boston.com’s website under the microscope.
For my first post, I discussed how much of the homepage was dominated by Boston Red Sox news. Today is no different. Take a look:
Fairly significant headlines such as a bomb threat at the Clinton household and a tornado in (fairly) nearby Rhode Island are lost within the Red Sox mania. But then again, it’s hardly surprising. The World Series is underway and the city is doing its best to make sure you can’t forget about it, largely thanks of a “GO SOX” light display on the Prudential Centre.
I am impressed, however, with their choice of headline. It would have been easy for them to leave a match report on the front of their page, that’s certainly what many major Boston publications have done. They know their audience, and therefore they know that many sports fans will have first visited a sports website check the match report and then will come to Boston.com for additional reading. By leading with “9 thoughts about the Red Sox’ clutch victory in Game 1,” they’ve provided exactly that.
This week, I have also been studying the impact of social media on the website. I think this is something that Boston.com needs to work on. You have to scroll right to the bottom of the homepage to find links to Boston.com’s respective social media accounts. I was hoping that there would be a little more social engagement once you clicked on the articles, but they were also light on the social media front.
As you can see here, there are no links to Boston.com’s social media pages. If you scroll to the bottom of the article, this little tab pops up:
The problem with this is that many readers exit the article as soon as they reach the end and therefore will not even see this tab. If Boston.com wants to maximize its social media following, they need to provide clearer links to their social pages.
Harryjonesblog 