• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, October 9, 2024

Fast Company has absorbed the lesson that outside referrals like those from Facebook’s now-dead news tab and Google’s algorithm no longer produce the bulk of web traffic. Accordingly, the publication has redesigned its homepage for the first time since 2018. 

“Ten years ago, people were saying, ‘The home page is dead,’” says Cayleigh Parrish, product director at Fast Company. “Everyone was getting their news from socials and newsletters. Now there’s a push to bring people back to our sites.”

The prior Fast Company home page featured three banner stories and was designed to be aesthetically pleasing, but not necessarily for functionality.

However, research found that users want a more fleshed out home page, a more personalized experience, and an easier point of entry to trending stories.  

And, contrary to what you might believe, it also found that most visitors check the page from their desktop, not through their mobile devices. 

“Social media is still a major draw for us, but people are coming to read specific articles from their shares,” says Eric Perry, digital design director for Mansueto Ventures, Fast Company’s parent company. “When they want to see what we’re up to as a whole, or see what our brand is looking like, they make a point to go to their computer and look at the homepage.”

These trends are also reflected in the recent redesigns of TechCrunch, The Verge, Semafor and The New Yorker, Fast Company says.

The homepage will be tweaked going forward based on reader feedback. The goal? To make it feel “more newsy and alive,” Parrish says.