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At Commons Case Study: Website Design and SEO for an Online Publication
How we built At Commons a fast, easy-to-browse publishing site with a clear category structure, SEO-ready pages, and a clear path for advertisers.
Project Snapshot
At Commons is an online publication covering lifestyle, business, careers, and self-development topics. Los Angeles SEO designed the website and set up the SEO foundation so new articles could be found, shared, and monetized from day one.
- Client: At Commons
- Industry: Online publishing and media
- Services: Website design, on-page SEO, content structure
- Platform: WordPress
- Website: atcommons.com
The Challenge
At Commons needed a website that could do two jobs at once: give readers an easy way to find articles across very different topics, and give businesses a reason to advertise or publish with them.
A publication lives or dies by how well its articles are organized and indexed, so the site had to be built for search engines just as much as for readers.
What the Site Needed
- A clear category structure so readers and Google can tell what each section covers
- Fast, mobile-friendly article pages that are easy to read on any device
- A dedicated path for advertisers and publishing partners
Our Approach
- Plan the structure first. We mapped the topics At Commons wanted to cover into clear categories before designing a single page.
- Design for reading. Article pages were built to be easy to scan on a phone, with clear headings and room for images.
- Build SEO into the templates. Titles, descriptions, URLs, and sharing tags are handled by the templates, so editors can focus on writing.
What We Built
We designed a clean publishing site on WordPress and built the SEO setup into every template, so each new article launches with the right structure without extra work from the editors.
Key Pieces of the Build
- Category hubs: Lifestyle, Business, Careers, and Self Development sections that group related articles.
- Article templates: readable layouts with headings, featured images, and related reading.
- Advertiser pages: a section explaining publishing and distribution options for businesses.
- Social sharing: preview images and descriptions so articles look right when shared.
The Results
What Launched
- A live publication with four main content categories
- A growing article library covering careers, trade schools, healthcare jobs, business, and legal topics
- Dedicated pages for advertisers and distribution partners
SEO Foundation in Place
Every page is set up with a unique title tag, meta description, canonical tag, and social sharing tags, on a secure HTTPS site. That gives each new article a clean start in Google instead of fighting technical problems later.
Built for Growth
For Readers
- Simple navigation by topic
- Mobile-friendly article layouts
- Related articles to keep readers on the site
For Search Engines
- Search-friendly URLs and a clear site structure
- Templates that apply SEO settings to every new post
- A setup ready for ongoing content marketing
Related Articles
Planning a publication or content-driven website? These guides cover the same ideas we used to build At Commons.
Planning a New Website or Publication?
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