Regional publisher Johnston Press has completed the rollout of new websites across its local and regional titles.
Portsmouth daily The News was the first JP newspaper to get the new website templates and design earlier this year and now the last of the group’s 196 local sites has been swtiched over.
Scottish weekly the Midlothian Advertiser was last to get the new-look, bringing the six-month project to an end.
The group says it has seen audiences continue to grow as the rollout has continued, with the JP digital network setting new record figures of 13m unique users and 100m page views in August.
Alex Gubbay, director of digital platforms, said: “It’s been a mammoth project but the result is a much better local website platform, which is already proving more effective for our users and advertisers.
“The changes don’t stop here either. We’re planning many more enhancements in the coming months, especially on mobile and video.
“But it’s great to now have this more solid foundation in place right across the group, so we can develop further in a more agile manner from here on.”
The rollout project saw The Scotsman’s website was relaunched at the end of July, along with a new companion site for The Edinburgh Evening News.
August’s figures showed a 30pc year-on-year like-for-like increase in visitors and page views, with 87pc of respondents to user surveys indicating the new site was an improvement on the old one.
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Looks very plain to me and a little slow to load, all regional newspaper websites seem to blur into one after a while (and take in the same kinds of tracking codes for adverts etc), but I guess there is a lot to get crammed onto homepages. I bet a lot of people bookmark the channels instead or view the sites on their mobiles.
It would be nice to see someone try something a little different, but for me it seems increasingly that designs and coding are being driven more by the need to accommodate advertising and that editorial content and user experience come a distant second place.
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