2019 Azbee Awards of Excellence

Category

Online > New or Relaunched Website > Upper Midwest

Awarded to

Lois A. Bowers, Senior Editor; Mark Speakman, Art Director; John O'Connor, Editorial Director; Paula Fox, Vice President of Product Management and Ad Operations.

Entry details

McKnightsSeniorLiving.com

Issue date (if applicable): 
Publication name: McKnight's Senior Living
Publishing company: Haymarket Media
Website home page: McKnightsSeniorLiving.com

Please describe the publication's mission and readership:

The demands on the segments of the long-term care industry that provide housing and services for older adults who do not need the level of care offered by nursing homes are increasing as the population ages and people express a preference not to live in institutional-like settings. McKnight’s Senior Living provides original content to help owners, operators and other leaders serving older adults in independent, assisted living, memory care (dementia) and continuing care retirement communities stay abreast of important issues affecting the field and excel at delivering care and services in the competitive senior living market. The McKnight’s Senior Living website, free daily newsletter and social media efforts were launched in August 2015, building on the existing print brand formerly known as McKnight's Assisted Living, which has been published since 2003. A redesigned website on a new platform was launched in 2018.

Please describe the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

The McKnight’s Senior Living website originally was launched in August 2015 using parent company Haymarket Media’s proprietary content management system. In 2018, Haymarket began an initiative to move all of its websites to WordPress, to ease centralized web development support to the individual brand teams building and maintaining the sites. The redesigned website debuted Sept. 18, 2018.

The site features staff-written daily news and content related to national and state developments, technology and companies. The editorial director and senior editor blog weekly, and guest blogs from subject matter experts also are posted weekly. The site’s many interactive components include an In Focus feature, reader-submitted photo-centric content highlighting unique activities happening at readers’ communities. Visitors have the ability to comment on content on the site as well as easily share it via social media buttons. The site also features a live feed from the brand’s Twitter account, and site visitors can access the brand’s Twitter and Facebook pages by clicking on icons on the website. Readers can sign up for the free daily newsletter using a prominent online form.

Moving to the new platform has enabled McKnight’s Senior Living to illustrate each article with more prominent artwork and to offer navigational language on landing pages that previously was not possible. We focused the site on content that analytics told us was of most value to our audience, removing an FAQ section and glossary of terms. Also, the navigation and look for those viewing the site on mobile devices is greatly improved.

Links to entry URLs

Please note: These URLs are only required for entries in the Online division categories, entries in the Design division categories that are specific to websites, entries in the Website of the Year category, and entries in the Cross-Platform Package of the Year category.

Entry URL(s), if applicable:
www.mcknightsseniorliving.com

Links to Uploaded Entry Files

Please note: The links below are the same links as clicking on the Preview images at the top of this column. You may click the links below to view each submitted entry file.

View entry file #1 
View entry file #2 
View entry file #3 
View entry file #4
View entry file #5 
View entry file #6 
View entry file #7 
View entry file #8 
View entry file #9 
View entry file #10