Gazette launches redesigned website

The Daily Gazette unveiled a redesigned website on Thursday.

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Your community now has its own home on The Daily Gazette website.

A few minutes after 2 p.m. Thursday, The Gazette debuted its redesigned website. It features a cleaner home page that is easier to navigate, a better platform for photographs and videos, and specific pages for towns, cities and counties in the newspaper’s coverage area.

The new site includes a trio of rotating lead stories on the home page, more pictures, more categories, a wider screen, easy access to special sections and a detailed community calendar.

Daily Gazette Editor Judy Patrick highlighted the community pages, which are accessible through a drop-down menu on the front page.

“We’ve always had the stories on our website, but now people will be able to more easily find their community and see how many stories we have written about it,” she said.

Gazette General Manager Dan Beck said the community pages reflect the paper’s interest in continuing to be the hometown newspaper of the counties it serves. He said people in these areas already turn to The Gazette for their local coverage, but there has been an increasing demand for the information in a new format.

“It’s the evolution of our business,” Beck said.

Patrick and Beck were part of the team of Gazette designers, programmers and editors responsible for the overhaul. The group spent more than six months focusing on how to improve the website to create a more friendly environment for readers and make it more ad-friendly for prospective businesses.

“It was a collaborative process,” said Patrick, noting that recommendations were solicited from everyone in the organization and recommendations from readers were also considered.

The goal is for the newspaper’s content to have the best possible presentation online.

Beck said the overall benefit is a clearer design.

“Most importantly, we’re going to see changes that make it much easier to read [and] much easier to navigate,” he said.

The changes, including a mobile application that is now available for both Apple and Android devices, will be promoted in a variety of radio, print and online advertisements. Beck said the new website and mobile app provide a better experience for current subscribers and should attract new subscribers.

Patrick hopes readers will be patient during the process and encourages them to email her with any recommendations or reactions they have to the changes.

The process isn’t over, either, as Patrick wants the website to more fully incorporate social media sites.

“We’re still evolving,” Patrick said.

Send your comments on the website to [email protected] and check out the site at www.dailygazette.com.