Bizjournals.com redesign aimed at showcasing the best of local papers

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

The overhaul of bizjournals.com, a home page of content produced by American City Business Journals, is designed to drive more traffic to the pages of the company’s 40 business newspapers, said an ACBJ executive on Friday.

The old design did not “do a good job of showcasing the best content we have,” said Jason Silverstein, the senior vice president of product development at Charlotte-based ACBJ. “We wanted an opportunity to revisit and have an editorial focus highlighting some of our best stuff.”

The redesign is the site’s first since 2009 and the first done totally in-house, said Silverstein, who previously was vice president of interactive media at the Charlotte Observer and also spent seven years at Yahoo.

However, it has not been decided that the new design, which uses larger photos and bolder headlines, will be used by the company’s local papers.

“My philosophy from a product and a technology standpoint is that we like to do some things artistic and some things scientific,” said Silverstein in a telephone interview. “If this page design does what it’s supposed to do, which is to get more page views, perhaps it will.”

An editorial and production staff called the national content team picks the stories for the home page each day, working with the local papers to determine the best content from the company’s 600 business journalists.

“At bizjournals.com, we weren’t using the domain the best way that we could,” said Silverstein. “I spent seven years at Yahoo, and one of the most important things was being on the Yahoo home page. That’s what we’re trying to emulate. It’s not about bizjournals.com per se, it’s about giving visibility to what the markets are doing.”