Welcome to the new MLSsoccer.com.
We’ve developed and tested the new site for the last year, and we are excited to finally reveal it to you.
When we sat down to think about what the new MLSsoccer.com should be, we first had to look at the digital world we all experience today. Wow, has it changed since the last time we revamped MLSsoccer.com back in early 2013.
The biggest change, obviously, is what’s happening with that little mini computer in your pocket: your smartphone. “Think mobile,” the marketing strategists say. We didn’t need them to tell us that. It was already slapping us in the face: More than 50% of visits to MLS digital content happens on a mobile device. So we started the entire design process by looking at our phones and how we and others use them, then worked our way back to the desktop version. Everything is meant to look awesome and perform like a #10 on your phone and on your desktop or laptop.
One thing you’ll probably notice on the desktop version is that many of the drop-down menus have been replaced or done away with. This may require you to relearn how you get to your favorite column by Matt “the Armchair Analyst” Doyle or a cool video series like Off Topic with Rachel Bonnetta, but it will make navigation much easier on your phone or tablet.
But, then again, more and more of you do not begin your visit to MLSsoccer.com on the homepage. Most of you, in fact, arrive on a different page – maybe the MLS schedule or a Sebastian Giovinco highlight video or an animation of a Fabian Castillo dribble.
And often you are discovering that story via social media.
Ah, social – the buzzword of our time. With good reason. We are all social creatures, after all, and social media has allowed us to share our lives with our best friends and with like-minded strangers around the world at the same time. The MLS Social Team is one of the best and most creative in sports, and the new MLSsoccer.com homepage highlights some of what they are doing with an integrated a feed of tweets. This gives you a realtime snapshot of the MLS social chatter. We will continue develop that feed over the next few months.
The new MLSsoccer.com was re-built from the ground up to give our content teams more flexibility than ever before. We can change content layouts on the homepage quickly and easily to feature what’s happening right now. We can feature more of the cool video content we’re creating more easily, and you will notice that they will automatically start when you land on a video page. No more extra clicking.
There is some technical stuff that has changed behind the scenes and some streamlined publishing capabilities, but that’s not all that exciting. At least not to me.
What is exciting, as I mentioned, is putting the new MLSsoccer.com out into the world and see how it does. Because we will continue to work on it, adjust it, improve it, "optimize" it. And we want your help in that. What do you like? What do you not like? What further changes and improvements would you suggest? Use the comments below. We are open to any and all suggestions because ultimately you, the fans, are what this is all about.
Thanks,
Greg Lalas, Vice President, Content, MLS Digital
