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The latest monthly memo from online managing editor Jimmy Orr says that the L.A. Times website is now the second most-read newspaper site in the country. Like last month, he credits aggressive freshening of the site, editing to the search engines and good stories — plus social media — for "explosive growth," led by the paper's blogs.
Our growth strategies are paying off:From search, Google traffic continues to soar – up 65.4% year over year – because we are doing much more real-time reporting and aggressively labeling our content. After all, if we’re going to write it, why not make it easy for people to find? Thank you, Amy Hubbard and the entire copy desk team, for the fantastic SEO work.
From the social media world, Facebook traffic is exploding – up 450% year over year. Thank you, Martin Beck, Lindsay Barnett and Lauren Kozak, and of course the reporters and editors who are also helping their stories get read through engaging with readers via Facebook.
After four consecutive years of declining page views per visit, we've turned it around and are up 7% so far this year. As we’ve discussed, we’re doing this by committing to the "No Story Left Behind" doctrine (building every story out). It’s really impressive that we’ve moved this number without a redesign.
We’ve increased the number of loyal readers too. Home page traffic has increased by a solid 17% year over year. This is one of the hardest metrics to move. But the home page team, under the guidance of Megan Garvey, is doing it. "No furniture" is the motto. And it's working.
The top-viewed blogs by page views:
Framework 15,077,572
L.A. Now 11,764,901
Hero Complex 10,044,062
Top of the Ticket 2,875,880
Ministry of Gossip 2,767,677
Politics Now 2,710,894