The Athletic’s Approach to Making Articles More Clickable

Publishers often focus on headlines and images when considering whether readers will click an article. Search Engine Journal highlights another approach associated with The Athletic: showing readers which stories are generating conversation among other readers. The idea treats audience discussion as a way to draw attention to content, rather than relying solely on the presentation of an individual headline or image.

The distinction matters because a potential reader can encounter more than the subject of a story when deciding what to open. An indication that other people are talking about an article provides additional context alongside its title and visual presentation. In this approach, the conversation around a story becomes part of how readers discover and assess it. The emphasis is on making existing audience interest visible.

Search Engine Journal describes this as a distribution opportunity that many publishers overlook. Framing the practice around distribution shifts the question from how to write a more attractive headline to how to surface articles within a publication. Headlines and images remain relevant, but they are not the only information a publisher can present when directing readers toward a story.

The source summary does not provide implementation details or quantify the effect of the approach. It therefore does not establish which signals The Athletic uses to identify conversation, where those signals appear or how much they contribute to clicks. Those details would be important for evaluating a particular implementation; the point available here is the broader connection between visible reader discussion and article discovery.

What this means for marketers

Marketers working with editorial content can consider whether their distribution surfaces give readers useful context about audience discussion, in addition to a headline and image. Any test should distinguish that idea from assumptions about a specific format or outcome. The practical question is whether showing relevant conversation helps an audience find content it wants to read, while presenting the information clearly and accurately.