Yahoo7 has announced it as relaunched its online lifestyle and entertainment vertical, Be, in what will be the first of seven sites to relaunch over the next quarter, under a major rebuild of the publishing and media company’s entire network of consumer sites.

In a move to improve usability for consumers, viewability for advertisers, and grow at scale, the redesign will roll out across Yahoo7’s News, Sport, Weather, TV Guide, Be, PLUS7 and Prime sites.

The Be redesign includes more sophisticated native integration coupled with new native video spots and panoramic native display within galleries, allowing marketers to take advantage of an engaged audience with effective and targeted content.

Yahoo7 has also targeted the industry-wide challenge of viewability, introducing sticky ads across all article pages which stay with the user while they scroll, and more content adjacent display spots.

An overall decrease in the number of display ads on the site will provide a more focused environment for users to view and engage with advertiser spots and content.

Be also features an improved visual experience for users, with significant enhancements to the site’s images and gallery features, video optimisation, a new portrait orientation for style-related content and recommended galleries to drive additional content consumption.

The newly-designed Be site also includes an improved video ‘feature wall’, displaying curated content from the editorial team.

Designed with user journey in mind, the new site also includes faster loading speeds, the introduction of a ‘discovery bar’ which recirculates users around the network, improved social integration and a consolidated navigation experience which will be implemented across the network.

To initiate the year-long project, Yahoo7 engaged web engineers, product leads, UX specialists and management in a large cross-functional project team.

The resulting design strategy was informed by an extensive research project, including user focus groups and a review of global best practice and future trends in viewability.

Yahoo7 chief revenue officer Paul Sigaloff said: “Our investment in redesigning the Yahoo7 network is a long term strategy which will ensure our sites are optimised for viewability, and enable our product and editorial teams to create enhanced experiences for our 9.5 million users which, in turn, provides greater outcomes for our advertising partners.

“This is about strengthening the foundations of our business for the long-term future”.

Mark Robinson, director of product at Yahoo7, added: “When considering the user journey, we needed to address the fact that social and mobile have entirely changed the way our audiences discover and engage with content.

“With that insight in mind, we’ve employed new tactics to streamline the user experience and surface more content in each page, with the aim of retaining our audiences for longer.”