Content marketing strategy used to be based on the logic that a captivating homepage will entice visitors to continue consuming inner article page content. For many brands today, homepage traffic serves as a fraction of the overall source of traffic. Most of the traffic arriving at publisher and media sites is no longer arriving through the homepage. Channels such as search engines, social networks, and email referrals have become the primary source of traffic, thus allowing visitors to enter sites through a virtual “side door.”
The continued growth of side door traffic presents monetization and engagement challenges. Enticing a viewer who actively sought to engage with a brand is much easier than getting a side door user—who may have been interested in a single article or video—to continue to engage with content, let alone become a returning visitor or subscriber.
Side door traffic visitors are inherently less interested in engaging with the publisher’s site beyond their brief visit on the page on which they’ve landed. It is therefore imperative to provide such traffic with personalized experiences to keep them engaged and likely to continue to view additional pages.
