Engagement Optimization for Science News Site

TITLE: Engagement Optimization for Science News Site — Increase Pages per Session and Time on Page (WordPress) ────────────────────────────────────────── Our site: https://biomesci.com We've included the URL up front because we want applicants to actually read the site before applying. See screening question 2. biome·sci is a microbiome science news site — we cover gut, skin, soil, and ocean microbiome research for clinicians, researchers, and curious general readers. Articles run 4-6 minutes. We currently do around [5,000-25,000] sessions a month and 14,800+ newsletter subscribers. The site is new and we're still figuring out what the reading experience should be. What we want to improve is engagement depth: people spend more time on the site, and read more than one article per visit. Right now too many visits are single-article and done. Email capture is already working reasonably well and is NOT the focus of this project. WHAT WE NEED DONE Diagnostic phase: - Analytics review — we run GA4 via Site Kit. We're not confident engagement events, scroll depth, or session-quality metrics are configured correctly, so expect to fix the measurement before trusting it - Identify where readers drop: which articles, which scroll depth, which templates, desktop vs mobile - Behavioral review of the article template — what a reader sees at the end of a piece, and whether there's anywhere obvious to go next - Homepage and category page review (our categories are Established / Emerging / Investigational / Deep Sequencing) — whether the structure helps readers find a second thing to read - Mobile reading experience specifically — we assume most of our traffic reads on a phone - Assessment of recirculation: related articles, in-article links, series or topic grouping, "next in this topic" patterns Implementation phase: - Design and implement recirculation modules that fit our editorial voice — we are not interested in clickbait "you may also like" widgets - Article template changes that improve readability and completion rate - Internal linking strategy across our archive, including any editorial guidelines our writers should follow going forward - Navigation and category structure improvements if warranted - Any speed or layout work that's directly holding engagement back DELIVERABLES 1. Diagnostic document with prioritized findings and the evidence behind each 2. Correctly configured GA4 engagement tracking, with a dashboard we can read without your help 3. Implemented changes on the live site (staging first, then push) 4. Before/after benchmarks on pages per session, average engagement time, and scroll depth 5. Editorial guidelines doc for our writers on internal linking and article structure WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR - Experience with content, publisher, or media sites — engagement optimization for a news site is a different problem from checkout optimization for e-commerce, and we want someone who knows the difference - Comfortable implementing in WordPress, not just recommending - Fluent in GA4 — specifically able to configure custom events and engagement metrics, not just read the default reports - Familiar with qualitative methods (session recording, heatmaps, user testing) since our traffic is too low for fast A/B testing - Respect for the reader. We will not pagination-split articles, add slideshows, or autoplay anything to inflate a metric NICE TO HAVE - Experience with science, health, or technical publications - Familiarity with newsletter-driven media businesses PROCESS 1. Written application (see screening questions below) TO APPLY Please answer the screening questions below. Applications that lead with a generic agency pitch and no answers will be passed over. We read every application that answers question 2 with something site-specific. Answers that could have been written without opening our site will not be reviewed. SCREENING QUESTIONS 1. Share 2-3 content or publisher sites where you improved engagement depth. What were pages per session and average engagement time before and after, and what specifically did you change? 2. Go to https://biomesci.com, open one article on your phone, and read it to the end. Name ONE specific thing that's costing us a second pageview — cite the actual element or template location, and tell us why you think it matters for this site in particular. 3. At our traffic level we can't run A/B tests that reach significance quickly. How do you work under that constraint? What do you rely on instead, and how do you know whether a change actually worked? 4. Time on page and pages per session can both be inflated by things that make a site worse for readers — pagination, slideshows, autoplay video, infinite scroll, aggressive interstitials. Where's your line? And how would you make sure the numbers we're chasing reflect real engagement rather than friction? 5. Which parts of this scope would you handle yourself, and would you bring in anyone else?