Hörzu

The Customer

As part of the Funke Media Group, Hörzu is a pioneer of TV program guides. The magazine, which has been published since 1946, now offers not only an overview of TV programs, but also general topics, background information and much more. On the hoerzu.de website, users can find their favorite programs as well as numerous informative articles from the knowledge, news and advice sections. However, the focus of the site is clearly on current topics from film, television and streaming. The relevance of the site is easily demonstrated by figures. In 2021, the site reached an average of almost 4.1 million users per month and recorded almost 1 billion page impressions over the entire year.

Requirement

Designing websites in responsive design is becoming increasingly important due to the large number of page impressions by mobile users and is now one of the most important success factors in the field of content marketing. The improved usability created by a responsive web design was the main goal of the relaunch. The website hoerzu.de was to be completely responsive and quickly accessible via a single domain. In order to increase the time spent on the site and the number of clicks, the content also had to be presented in a clear and user-friendly manner. In this context, the requirements also included optimizing and facilitating content maintenance, developing a new EPG and responsive ad slots, and working out a better caching structure to reduce loading time for the user.

Implementation

Due to the individual requirements regarding the mobile view, the various complex interfaces between the individual responsive elements as well as the maintenance of the constantly updating and growing amounts of data, it was decided to use Pimcore for the implementation. Since the site was previously running on the Drupal system, numerous important decisions and adjustments had to be made here regarding the redesign on Pimcore.

As requested by the client, a responsive design was developed for the site. A distinction between mobile domain (m.hoerzu) and desktop domain (hoerzu.de) is now no longer necessary.

Valantic DXA worked with the client on the programming and conception of the layout. The editorial team of hoerzu.de provided the content (images and texts), while valantic DXA took care of the development of the complex ad slots. These were adapted and optimized to meet the client's requirements. The technical conception as well as the creation of an SEO concept were done completely in-house.

In addition, the filter menu is a new feature that makes searching within the TV program easier and thus more user-friendly. The user can now find desired channels or individual programs more quickly. The new EPG was developed in cooperation with devrocks. They take care of the server structure and the database, in which all relevant information about the TV program is prepared for Pimcore. However, the data can also be maintained via Pimcore itself if required.

Through the installation of clean sitemaps and clearly stored metadata for over 100,000 pages, optimal indexability for search engines is guaranteed. This has enormous effects on the search engine optimization of the website. 

The extensive caching concept ensures a very low loading time even with a high load and at the same time constantly or spontaneously changing content (e.g. special broadcasts). 

In addition, the current design now also enables a white-label solution for other projects. Particularly noteworthy is the use and embedding of the EPG (Electronic Program Guide) on other pages. With this, valantic DXA sets an excellent basis for better usability.

For this project, Pimcore is continuously hosted in the cloud. This guarantees improved page performance and enables simplified scalability.

Conclusion

After a long project phase, in which a solution was found for every concern of the customer, the Hörzu portal presents itself to its users with a new design and new features. The responsive design completely meets the client's requirements and today's demands in content marketing. The relaunch meets the expectations regarding loading time and page performance. Hörzu thus lives up to its role as market leader in the field of TV magazines and now has a highly efficient, state-of-the-art website.