Getting group to click on articles is becoming increasingly difficult. We’ve been lazily conditioned by big tech’s greed, and it shows no sign of slowing.
To combat this, we have to build and own audiences and get improved at marketing. Publishers need to activity harder to create their satisfied appealing, particularly on the surfaces they control.
The Athletic does item extremely uncomplicated on its homepage that additional publishers should consider: It shows readers how many comments selected articles have generated.
It tells you which satisfied its readers really attention about.
Now part of the world’s most prosperous publisher, The Athletic has gone from power to power in latest times. In Q2 of 2025, revenue was up one-third to $54 million alongside an adjusted functioning gain of $5.8 million. Hell, equal ad income nearly doubled to $14.1 million.
Safe to say The New York Times, and by expansion The Athletic, are publishing’s most profitable case study. They are value listening to.
Why Does This Matter?
It tells you, beloved apathetic reader, which articles are generating discussion. It’s an extremely simple, clever use of social proof.
1. It Encourages Clicks
People are naturally drawn to things another group are curious in. And all publishing company is trying to create a community. These comment counts indication which articles are generating conversation among its audience. Arguably another like-minded people.
If one part has 500 comments and another has fair one, all things being equal, I’m far additional apt to click on the former. It has piqued my curiosity. Clickability goes beyond fair images and headlines.
It tells me there’s a conversation value joining. Or, at the extremely least, item engaging adequate to get group talking.
This is particularly precious if you have a ample homepage and straightforward audience. As traffic continues to drop, you’ve got to create additional use of what you have.
2. Engagement Signals Don’t Stop There
Comments are fair one measure of engagement. We can be far additional rigorous.
Experiment alongside shares, likes, and another signals to acknowledge satisfied that resonates alongside your audience. Tell your audience, alongside certainty, which articles are value reading.
Not all part volition create hundreds of comments, equal the additional famous ones. Some power be extensively shared, others power advance unusually elevated levels of involvement related to your traffic.
The crucial item is identifying what your spectators values and making that visible. That you prioritize your best-performing content.
3. Use Engagement To Inform Content Prominence
Most publishers use composite involvement scores to advance the correct behaviors. Almost everyone is de-prioritizing traffic and promoting quality involvement – meeting duration, clicks, scroll depth, comments – since they accept this is the key to construction a really busy audience.
You could use statistical modeling, possibly supported by AI, to acknowledge articles that are over-performing against expected involvement levels (a Bayesian akin approach), afterward exterior them additional prominently throughout homepages, division fronts and topic pages.
Rather than relying exclusively on editorial judgement, you’re combining it alongside genuine spectators behavior.
The outcome have to be a improved person cognition and additional opportunities to create clicks.
How Can I Test This?
Keep it really, really uncomplicated and set apparent key achievement indicators.
- Start alongside comments: Display comment counts on selected homepage articles and test whether they enhance click-through rate.
- Expand your signals: Experiment alongside likes, shares or another involvement indicators. Not all involvement is equal, so established what encourages really precious reiterate behavior.
- Identify over-performers: Compare part involvement against applicable benchmarks, fairly than promoting any has the most traffic.
- Improve prominence: Test whether featuring over-performing articles additional prominently increases involvement throughout your owned surfaces.
CTR is not a ideal measure of success. Often, the most clickable satisfied can veer into rage-bait or clickbait. Which is exactly the benevolent of satisfied you desire to avoid.
As referral traffic becomes harder to generate, publishers need to create additional of the audiences they already have. This is a simple, nearly certainly productive way of doing that.
More Resources:
- Condé Nast CEO: Plan As If Search Traffic Will Be Zero
- The Click Economy Is Over: How AI Search Is Forcing Publishers To Rethink Revenue
- Google Pushes “Bounce Clicks” Explanation For AI Overview Traffic Loss
Read Leadership In SEO.
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