Comments on: Local Papers & Local Web Traffic

By: Ed Walker

Ed Walker — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:30:55 +0000

I think it’s really important websites are able to show where their visitors come from. If you can prove you have ‘X number of visitors who are from X town’ then you can build a good platform for advertising.

Having 50% of your visitors coming to your website from another city/country is not a strength, it’s a weakness as it shows your website is not attracting it’s core audience – local people!

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:40:47 +0000

Tom – I think that would be smart, but don’t know (and doubt) that such a targeting system is in place, at least with my local paper.

Steve, Cynthia – thx for sharing your thoughts, too.

By: Steve Sherron

Steve Sherron — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:45:46 +0000

This was a totally stupid move by the newspaper. If my local paper did this, I would jump all over it and make sure every local advertiser that I approached, saw it. This was a very astute observation you made Matt. This would slip past 99% of the local bloggers and readers.

By: cynthia bailey

cynthia bailey — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:13:44 +0000

Matt, Thanks for demonstrating yet another reason why it’s so important to keep one eye on our local physical communities while we are busy focusing our work in the international community of the web.

By: Tom Royce

Tom Royce — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:24:01 +0000

Quick question on managing the traffic.

Wouldn’t it make sense for the paper to use a referral engine for it’s advertising?

By that I mean, if the traffic is from a certain geographic area the local ads are seen. If the traffic is from outside of that area, national ads are shown?

Over time this would be more profitable and honest for all parties. The locals would know that the best effort of the paper would be to show only locals their ads, and the national people would have better targeted advertising so it is more effective.