Don’t adjust your computer screen – we’ve just changed some stuff. Here’s a rundown of the redesigned Marketingmag.com.au.

1. Navigation

What’s a Hub, you ask? Hubs house articles on the main topics we cover. Previously, the website was organised by content type – blogs, interviews, etc etc – but they mostly weren’t being used. Now, the site’s navigated when you go into a Hub, you’ll get all the opinion, interviews, features and case studies related to that topic. The only exception to this ‘organise by topic, not format’ rule is News which, as you can see in the navigation bar, is on its own. The ‘News’ tab has always been a key go-to point on the site (after the home page), so that stays. So if you want to see everything that gets published, stay on the home page. If you just want news, it’s there. But if you want to explore everything about a particular topic, the Hubs are going to be your new favourite thing. Oh, and if you’re wondering why it’s ‘Understanding People’ and not ‘Consumer Behaviour’, we urge you to read this article.

2. Speed

The new site has been built to be significantly faster. The old site was getting on, having been in service for more than a few years. It was part of the family, but it was getting more than a little sluggish. Hopefully you’ll notice the speed bump.

3. More information

An estimate of each article’s reading time is provided. Long-form articles are fantastic, and we’ll continue to publish great features in print and online, but if you have to be in a meeting in 20 minutes, this information up front can be very helpful when deciding between reading now or immediately emailing/bookmarking/saving for later. In addition to seeing how many social shares have happened for each piece of content, we’re now also showing you how many reads each article’s had, which we think is a first.

4. The Read Dot

If you look at the home page, you’ll see little red dots on each of the article listings. They represent which articles you haven’t read yet. Handy right? This functionality is based on cookie data, so clearing your browser’s cache, or using private browsing will reset it.

5. Disqus for commenting

Comments are a controversial issue. We’d prefer to have none than a thousand trolls. We’ve implemented Disqus, which requires a login. Logging in may be an extra hoop to jump through but if anonymity is important there are plenty of places on the internet for that.

6. Better tablet and mobile reading experience

It was about time, really. We’ve just passed the 25% tablet+phone traffic mark and, while that’s pretty low compared to the web average these days, the new site makes reading an article on a tablet or smartphone involve a lot less pinch-to-zoom hassle now. So that mobile traffic number should increase accordingly.

7. Join now / Sign in / Resources

At the moment, those navbar buttons all point to the same place. This is probably the most exciting part of the new Marketingmag.com.au, and it’s not even fully functional yet. It’ll be the home of our brand new membership, where you’ll be entitled to premium content like reports, tools and ebooks created specifically for professional marketers by Marketing, Australia’s only publication dedicated to the client-side. Before it launches, however (starting right now – here), you can sign up to become a Free Basic Member to get a content pack of some of our new, premium content, worth more than $100. Click here to join the club. There’s also a competition underway where you can win a year’s paid membership.

8. Forever beta / Always be testing

Cute catch-phrases but the crux of it is true: the development hasn’t stopped. For web development as with anything worth doing, there’s constant work happening behind the scenes to improve and optimise and, on that note, we welcome any and all feedback from users.

Have questions or feedback?

To get in touch with the Marketing team about site feedback or anything else, head over to the Contact Us page. There’s also answers to some frequently asked questions on our FAQ page.