[Editor's note: This is the first in a series of Community Guides on this blog. The purpose is to introduce concepts and tools that should be in every web publisher's arsenal. The guides are meant to serve as an exhaustive introduction to the topic. For those familiar with the concept discussed in this guide, we recommend looking at the links at the bottom of this page that will link to coverage that is more in-depth and nuanced.]

In recent years, every online news site has experimented with some variation of the topic page. The New York Times website is often credited as the birth place of topic pages, and regardless of who created these pages first, the Times also have some of the best.

A Simple Definition

A topic page is a dynamically generated web page that gives readers detailed context on the given topic. A topic can be any person, place, event, organization or any other ‘thing.’ In fact, topics can also be concepts or themes that do not easily fit into any of the above categorizations.

Examples:

1. People: the most common example used when talking about topic pages is the “Barack Obama” topic page. Other examples include sports stars (Tiger Woods), celebrities (Brad Pitt) or politicians (Hilary Clinton).
2. Companies and Organizations: Fortune 500 companies (Microsoft) to startups (Facebook) or even international organizations (UNICEF or NATO).
3. Events: these can be current events in the news (Copenhagen Climate Conference) or yearly events (Davos Summit).
4. Concepts & Themes: More abstract topics such as Climate Change or Child Poverty or Obama’s Health Care Plan.

The Key Element: Context

Let’s go back to the definition and focus on the most important part: context. The goal of the topic page is to give the reader a broad overview of the topic as well as detailed articles and analysis. The combination of the two gives readers context. Often, readers arrive at a topic page after reading an article related to the topic. They want to know more, so the topic page must answer a few key questions:

Key Questions That a Topic Page Should Answer:

1. Why is this topic important to me?
2. What do I need to know about this topic and does it have any significant history?
3. What articles will give me more detailed information and analysis?
4. Are there images or videos that will help me understand the topic further?
5. What are other topics related to this one that may interest me?

A good topic page may answer a couple of these questions, while a great topic page answers all of them. In order to answer them, let’s take a look at some of the standard elements of a topic page:

Standard Elements of a Topic Page

1. A bio or summary – answers questions 1.
2. A timeline of events or detailed summary – answers question 2.
3. A list of important articles from this source – answers question 3.
4. A list of important articles from trusted sources around the web – answers question 3 by providing further context.
5. Multimedia such as video, images, audio, podcasts, maps etc – answers question 4.
6. A list of related topics – answers question 5.

Not all publishers have all the material required to create a high quality topic page. In this case, they must provide links to other sources (or embed and display material from 3rd parties where possible). As Jeff Jarvis famously coined: “cover what you do best, link to the rest.” In fact, many publishers choose to do this even if they have enough in-house material: by providing 3rd party content, you provide further context to your readers and can build trust with your audience.

Dynamic Generation

Going back to the definition, let’s take a look at the first part: dynamically generated. Creating these pages one by one requires a significant amount of effort, and may not necessarily yield the best results. The best topic pages are generated automatically, with a heavy dose of editorial curation on top.

Given that a topic page is generated dynamically, it is easy to scale (to hundreds or thousands of topics). The page is essentially a template filled with content. The template is built with editors and designers upfront. Once built, the same template is used to display all the topic pages, with the content being automatically filled in when the web page is rendered in the browser. The ‘filling in’ of the data is usually triggered by the URL of the topic page. For example the page www.site.com/topic/barack-obama tells the web application to pull data for the topic “Barack Obama” and fill in the standard template. www.site.com/topic/unicef tells the web app to do the same but for the topic “UNICEF.”

So why are publishers scrambling to create topic pages? There are quite a few benefits, and some of them lead to direct monetization opportunities and a measurable ROI.

Benefits of Topic Pages

1. Increases organic (SEO) traffic
2. Provides more breadth and depth of content to your users (i.e. context)
3. Creates more engagement and pageviews
4. Resurfaces existing/old content
5. Increased ad inventory
6. Sponsorship opportunities

Topic Page Software Providers

There are a number of  technology companies that help web publishers build dynamic topic pages. In most cases, it’s straightforward to build and deploy these pages, and can often we done without much (or any) technical staff. Here are a couple of startups working with innovative publishers to help them with topic pages:

1. NewsCred > http://platform.newscred.com
2. Daylife > http://www.daylife.com

Risks and Pitfalls of Topic Pages

The biggest risk of topic pages: you build it, but no one comes. And those that do come find no value, so in the end your left with a few extra pageviews where you’re struggling to sell remnant ad inventory and no benefit to your readers. Every publisher can take a number of steps to avoid this scenario, and it all comes down to thinking about your users first. Before SEO or ad inventory, publishers should stop and ask: “does this topic page add measurable value and help my readers?” If not, chances are that SEO and ad revenues will also suffer.

In subsequent blog posts, we’ll explore concrete ways to help you avoid this situation and ensure your topic pages stand out from the crowd.