A case study of the publisher's redesign and growth

We continue to be huge fans of RebelMouse and envision a very long-term relationship with the platform. The service has been impeccable.

Douglas Fischer
Executive Director

Introduction

www.rebelmouse.com

EHN is no stranger to the web. They proudly state on their “About” page that they’ve been publishing “continuously since Aug. 2, 2003.” That’s more than 20 years of experience covering topics like climate change and public health! But in 2024, it was time for a new look, and we closely collaborated with them for a redesign to supercharge their site.

This process opened our eyes to the myriad ways to keep a website functioning at full capacity and remaining user-friendly. These public-facing and under-the-hood changes have bolstered our viewership, retention and search engine success, which helps fulfill our goal of driving impact with our reporting.

Brian Bienkowski
Senior Editor

Solution

The EHN team wanted a cleaner and less cluttered site that highlights the original journalistic work of their smaller yet dedicated newsroom.

Check out the following key highlights of the redesign:

Revamped Logo

The EHN team provided a new logo, spotlighting the abbreviation “EHN” for better brand recognition.

EHN new and old logoswww.rebelmouse.com

EHN in Spanish

A prominent link takes readers straight to the Spanish version of the site. This simple addition benefits the user experience and SEO. Spanish-speaking audiences can effectively navigate through the site and stay longer. Search crawlers can efficiently crawl pages in different languages.

Related Content

The redesign includes a content recirculation unit embedded within the main content, making it easier for readers to discover relevant content without needing to scroll to the bottom of the page. This module boosts both the user experience and time spent on the site.

Icon Set

Our lead designer, Dasha, redesigned key icons for labels — Original Content, Top News, Opinion, Top Science, and Sponsored — making it easy for readers to spot content types at a glance! This upgrade from the previous text-only labels effectively showcases EHN’s original journalism.

www.rebelmouse.com

High-Performing Core Web Vitals

Another key achievement in this redesign was getting their Core Web Vitals results optimized to exceed industry benchmarks.

Core Web Vitals measure essential aspects of a web page’s performance, such as loading speed, visual stability, and interactivity. Improving these not only ensures a smoother and more engaging user experience but also helps improve search engine rankings.

Revamped Taxonomy

Taxonomy, which refers to how content is classified, organized, and presented, is an important aspect of any thoughtful redesign. It’s especially crucial for content-rich sites like EHN. The revamped taxonomy led to a logical structure that guides readers through the site, making it easier to find key information.

Readers can now access all original reporting and key topics under the "Newsroom" tag. They can also easily explore the "Special Projects" list, where EHN’s most impactful stories are highlighted.

A clear and intuitive taxonomy enhances user engagement, as shown by EHN’s over 50% increase in engagement rate, and supports SEO. When content is systematically categorized, it becomes easier for search engines to crawl and index a website. This improved indexing can lead to better search rankings.

The Results

We launched the redesign with them on April 3, 2024, prioritizing a first-class user experience, a beautiful new look, top-notch page speed with high-performing Core Web Vitals, and a revamped taxonomy. The results have been outstanding:

Redesign Leads to Growth and Engagementwww.rebelmouse.com

Just as impressive as the user growth, signifying an uptick in SEO traffic thanks to technical SEO and page performance improvements, the higher user engagement has been noticeable. In addition to a huge increase in engagement rate, engaged time per user is up 28% over the 60 days since launch (compared to the previous 60-day period), and it’s up 45% over the 90 days since launch (compared to the previous 90-day period). Readers are not just clicking around more than before, they’re spending more time on the site, too.