'Financial Times' Website Gets a Facelift

It's been five years since the Financial Times has overhauled the look and layout of its website -- an eternity in internet time. This week, the Pearson-owned paper phases in its overdue redesign with a new homepage -- actually, five different homepages, customized by region -- that, it's hoped, will align the site more closely with its parent brand in the minds of users.

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).

The new design also incorporates a number of features meant to improve navigation by making it more obvious what stories editors, and other readers, consider most crucial. "Lots of people use the site for different reasons, but the users who are most important, the ones we want to look after, are the habitual, regular, loyal users, as opposed to people who come very infrequently, via search, perhaps," says Montgomery. "For that habitual daily user, what they want from the Financial Times is this idea of the executive briefing -- a quick rundown of the most important stories that are relevant to a globally-minded C-suite decision maker in government or business."

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