Belfast Telegraph

This is the third year running that the Belfast Telegraph has scooped the best website award, with judges this year recognising its “genuinely impressive coverage, range and invention”. Reporting included coverage of the Katie Simpson murder case and the death of her killer Jonathan Creswell, live coverage of the General Election and the return to Stormont – which delivered almost 140,000 page views – and an immersive storytelling version of a two-part episode of the publication’s podcast The BelTel, which now averages 30,000 streams a week.

Judges commended the “co-ordinated strategy across channels and a focus on engagement, rather than traffic, to help put readers first”, and this approach translated into impressive metrics: a 12.5% rise in the number of subscribers, a 26% year-on-year increase in ‘subscriber attention minutes’ and a 13% year-on-year improvement in raw page views.

The stats are even more commendable as a registration wall – separate to the site’s paywall – was introduced in March, and this has contributed to a 57% rise in the number of subscribers to the daily newsletter.

Judges praised Belfast Telegraph’s “clear navigation and great use of multi-media content”.

The “classy” website “looks like it could belong to a national paper. There is clearly a strong digital strategy behind it, and content is positioned according to its value”.