Six years on from WSJ.com's set-up, its owner continues with heavy investment, writes Dawn Hayes

Anyone logging onto CBS Marketwatch's website just before Christmas would have been greeted not with the site's normal financial news information, but a full-screen Budweiser advertisement. It remained on-screen for 10 seconds before viewers could get access to the website's traditional content.

The task of appealing to advertisers without putting readers off has become a source of deep insecurity in online media as advertisers become less inclined to take risks in an economic downturn. This conundrum is at least part of the reason why Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, has spent $28 million (€32.3 million) redesigning its business news website, WSJ.com.

Six years on from the website's inception, the Wall Street Journal continues to buck the trend in online publishing by increasing investment in the Web, while other media organisations scale back. Still, for all its success, the publication still has a way to go in attracting and keeping online advertisers and beefing up non-US readership.

"We decided that if WSJ.com was to be effective as a branding medium, clients needed more space and more prominence alongside news," says Mr Neil Budde, publisher of WSJ.com.

Given that advertising revenues dipped 50 per cent last year, it may be a wise move.

The revamp is part of an ongoing bid to make WSJ.com and its print counterpart, the Wall Street Journal, more palatable to an increasingly younger niche readership. The readership currently stands at 626,000 and 2.04 million, respectively, for the sister outfits.

WSJ.com's subscriber base exceeds the print circulation of its closest rival, the Financial Times, which had sales of 490,000 at last count.

That also makes it the seventh-biggest "newspaper" in the US. And its decision to charge subscriptions from the start has put it up there with porn and games sites in its ability to generate money. It broke even in 1999 but has continued to spend money on the product so it is not yet profitable.

Like everyone else, Dow Jones saw advertising revenues plummet last year but WSJ.com's subscriptions rose 17 per cent, confounding critics who said that charging for news content online would never work.

According to Mr Mario Garcia, president of Garcia Media Group, which acted as consultants to the redesign, WSJ.com has to tread carefully in changing its image or risk losing its credibility.

"The Wall Street Journal is an icon of American capitalism, it's very important to protect branding and image," says Mr Garcia, who has been involved in designing more than 400 newspapers worldwide. "With the online product, it's even more challenging. You have 25 seconds to create hierarchy of content, include a visual image and create navigation that sends you anywhere in the site."

Still, Mr Gordon Crovitz, senior vice-president of Dow Jones and president of its electronic publishing arm, views the Web as pivotal to the company's battle for an elite audience of global business executives.

"As online advertising becomes increasingly sophisticated, WSJ. com will benefit disproportionately," says Mr Crovitz. "In the ice age of the internet a couple of years ago, a large proportion of advertising went to mass portal sites, which just doesn't happen with any other media. Advertisers seek precise audiences.

"Online, they are much more comfortable with well-established brands and especially with subscription sites, because we know quite a lot about subscribers who are willing to pay for access."

WSJ.com claims the average household income of its readership is $124,899, which allows it to command advertising rates of up to $100 per 1,000 page views. Still, it has only scratched the surface of the potential audience, which it estimates to be more than 10 million executives worldwide. And competitors are snapping at its heels.

The redesign is aimed at increasing the number of subscriptions outside the US, which is less than 10 per cent of the total.

In the US, the Wall Street Journal may be considered the publication of record for business and financial coverage, but in Europe its format is largely viewed as turgid and unapproachable. Here, weighty translates into off-putting, august looks austere, and credibility means not enough pictures. Above all, the Journal, in both its print and online iterations, is viewed as American.

As the battle intensifies with the Financial Times, so the Wall Street Journal is slowly changing its image - and the online arena has become a key battleground.

"This is a growing business, it will be around for a long time," says Mr Budde.

The website has been reorganised to be easier to navigate. Overall, the redesign has attempted to organise the website into more logical sections using simpler words for headings. Subscribers can also now personalise the site to make it more relevant to individual and geographical priorities.

This is crucial for any website trying to appeal to an international market, whatever the audience, according to Ms Sue Jones, co- director of e-2, which redesigned the Royal Academy of Arts' website with an international audience in mind.

"The design has to appeal to a broader range of people and unlike advertising campaigns, which are usually country-specific, website design has to take a one-size-fits-all approach."

Mr Garcia believes this will change and, where websites imitate each other, they will increasingly incorporate local colour as technology develops. Certainly, Dow Jones can afford to invest in Web publishing - where competitors may fear to tread.

Mr Crovitz believes the organisation has some advantages over rivals. "We have 100 years of experience in operating electronically and in print, and no other English-language news organisation has both print and a wire service."

Dow Jones has a total editorial headcount of 1,700, including 770 newswire staff and 60 WSJ.com reporters and editors. Few media companies can boast those resources. Still, having just spent $225 million on expanding print capacity for the Wall Street Journal, the company clearly does not believe online news is going to replace print in the near future. - (Guardian Service)