Sanchek
08-07-2008, 10:58 AM
I was reading this article earlier:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/readers/2008/08/colleagues-we-c.html
The article mentioned how their SEO (search engine optimization) and social media efforts were important in driving traffic to their site:
Latimes.com keeps getting better at SEO (search engine optimization), which means our stories are ranking higher in Google and other search engines. We are also performing better on sites like Digg.com. All that adds up to more exposure and more readership than ever before.
Their traffic for July? 127 million page views.
To contrast, CNN had about 30 million prime time viewers last month (according to Nielsen).
Now, there's a wide range of arguments about what level of engagement either audience has. Some people tend to bounce off web pages after just reading a few sentences. People also tend to leave the TV on without paying much attention to it. I'm not suggesting the numbers are apt for direct comparison, but they are interesting to consider.
For me, the takeaway is that this newspaper's website is pulling a proactively interested audience on about the same order of magnitude as CNN's viewership. It's an amazing paradigm shift that has been occurring over the last decade.
A decade ago, who would've thought that how well a computer was programmed would be a major factor in what news people read?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/readers/2008/08/colleagues-we-c.html
The article mentioned how their SEO (search engine optimization) and social media efforts were important in driving traffic to their site:
Latimes.com keeps getting better at SEO (search engine optimization), which means our stories are ranking higher in Google and other search engines. We are also performing better on sites like Digg.com. All that adds up to more exposure and more readership than ever before.
Their traffic for July? 127 million page views.
To contrast, CNN had about 30 million prime time viewers last month (according to Nielsen).
Now, there's a wide range of arguments about what level of engagement either audience has. Some people tend to bounce off web pages after just reading a few sentences. People also tend to leave the TV on without paying much attention to it. I'm not suggesting the numbers are apt for direct comparison, but they are interesting to consider.
For me, the takeaway is that this newspaper's website is pulling a proactively interested audience on about the same order of magnitude as CNN's viewership. It's an amazing paradigm shift that has been occurring over the last decade.
A decade ago, who would've thought that how well a computer was programmed would be a major factor in what news people read?