Since its relaunch April 1,
Cosmopolitan.co.uk's web traffic has surged. According to
Journalism.co.uk, the
Cosmo site has increased the number of unique users visiting the site by 136 per cent in May compared to a traffic audit from October 2007 -- the most recent information available from the
Audit Bureau of Circulation Electronic.
According to the
Nedstat data used by Journalism.co.uk, the
Hearst Digital site registered 415,165 unique visitors in May up from 176,385 users recorded by ABCE in October. Page views over this period also doubled from 2,388,532 in October to 5,131,472 in May.
Hearst originally set targets of five million page views and 500,000 unique monthly visitors by the end of 2008, said Hearst Digital managing director
Alex Ballantyne.
"We're pretty much on track to achieve those numbers this month or next month when at the start of the year we said we'd try and achieve that by December. We're well ahead of the curve with Cosmo, it has been a fantastic response from the market," said Ballantyne.
Ballantyne credited the site's success to "a new SEO-friendly platform built specifically for the launch, improved knowledge of the importance of tagging for search amongst editors and substantial cross promotion through magazine and across its network of sites had contributed to the traffic gains," reported Journalism.co.uk.
The site's relaunch has added a host of new features, most significantly the online video service
CosmoTV. The video channel features a mix of clips from "red carpet" events and shows in addition to in-house video, including "how to's" on hair and make-up.
Duncan Edwards, the CEO of
NetMags, that creates most of the video content, said they originally considered getting content froma third party, like Videolug, but decided to create original clips instead.
According to the
Guaradian.co.uk, the
Cosmopolitan relaunch tests the water for Hearst Digital, which will snow et about ramping up
Allaboutyou.com, the portal for content from magazine titles
House Beautiful,
Coast,
Prima,
Good Housekeeping,
Country Living and
She.
Sources:
Journalism.co.uk,
Guardian.co.uk