FT redesigns Web site

Jeff Bercovici of Conde Nast Portfolio writes Monday about the redesigned Financial Times Web site, which launches this week.

Bercovici writes, “Two things they’re likely to notice first: The homepage’s background is now all pink, like the print edition’s paper, and the masthead says ‘Financial Times’ rather than ‘FT.’ James Montgomery, the site’s top editor, says those changes were inspired in part by the adoption, a little over a year ago, of a new access model that allows non-subscribers to view controlled amounts of content.

“‘That means we get more first-time visitors, who might come to the site through search or aggregation,’ he says. ‘They need to know where they are. We don’t want any confusion.’

“And a lot of new visitors are coming to FT.com these days. As of its last audit, in March, the site was attracting 7.1 million unique visitors per month, but a spokeswoman said traffic has doubled in the past two months as a result of the financial crisis. The site now has 800,000 registered users, up from 150,000 at start of 2009. The company feels confident enough in FT.com’s drawing power that it recently tweaked the access model, requiring users to register after viewing four articles (previously it was five) and to subscribe to see more than 20 per month (previously it was 30).”

Read more here.