The Associated Press published an interesting article covering John Klim’s (Credit Suisse Analyst) forecast on the future of newspapers.

Klim sees a brighter future than others who have commented on the industry. He particularly sees upswings for Gannett and the New York Times – well I could have told you that. Both Gannett and the New York Times have tried to be forward thinking with their overall publishing strategy. They have either acquired key players in the marketplace, created consortiums, or have taken the plunge to invest in technology seen as an avant-garde play by other publishers, but the norm when looking at how consumers interact with the Web.

Klim further goes on to say that newspapers will experience a decline in the upcoming years, but he is optimistic because classifieds (the area with the greatest decline) will regain its strength as the market improves and that more newspapers will start to monetize and grow their Web properties accordingly.

I guess John Klim could be right, but there are a lot of “what if’s” in there that are dependent on newspaper publishers and their readiness to throw out the old mentality and start with the new.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: Newspapers

The National Post released its new site design and the results are impressive. They have gone from the smaller text with gnawing prominent yellow, to larger images and lots of them, cleanly placed on the home page. The screen width in this newer sleeker post site has also grown, making the content images aesthetically pleasing. The site still, unfortunately, makes you scroll to infinity to get to the content placed at the bottom of the screen (all newspapers seem to be repeating this mistake). This just means that the Post could utilize links on their home page a little better.

What makes this re-vamp monumental for the National Post is that they have dropped the subscriber barriers. All of their content will be served, for free, online. The post will also look to include blogs for a more personal editorial take on news and current events.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: NationalPost, Web site re-vamp

HGTV recently launched a new site called FrontDoor that is built on the concept of real estate services and fueled by property listings.

FrontDoor will be going head to head with Realtor.com and Zillow and Realtor.com, according to HitWise, was the most trafficked real estate site in the US, week ending December 8^th. So, competition will be tough for FrontDoor.

The HGTV real estate site launched with 1.2 million listings – not bad. Those listings however, are the result of current relationships Scribs HGTV has with aggregators of real estate listings and are not the result of organic growth.

FrontDoor is hoping that it will appeal to home seekers through their intuitive home-buying guides that are developed for the individual. They go as far as to create home buying tips for women, tips for those buying real estate with friends, foreclosure counseling and much more. They have tried to outwardly cover the services the other sites have not.

Given the turbulent times the American real estate market is going through, it is risky to launch another properties site, but if FrontDoor can leverage their services as their niche, it just may work.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: FrontDoor, HGTV, Property Listings, Real Estate

I think it has been said and everyone now gets it that traditional sources of news have got to e-enable themselves in order to stand a chance at competing. Newspapers get that - The issue newspapers are faced with now is what to do once with the site once it has been built? In essence – ‘How do we drive traffic to our site?’ It should first be said that there aren’t too many publishers asking this question, as many of them rely on organic search terms to get by – and of course - focusing organically does not foster growth. However, there are few who understand e-sales and the value of creating a massive marketplace online for the benefits of buyers, sellers and information gatherers.

I performed random searches for things that newspapers generally target as their big verticals. The results confirmed that newspapers have not been doing all that they can to optimize their sites and as a result, are missing the opportunity to expand their marketplace.

• Apartments for Rent in NY – Kijiji appeared five times in the first two pages, but no New York Times.
• Used Cars LA – Kijiji again had dominant listings, but no LA Times or even Auto Trader
• Used Cars Toronto – A newspaper site (Wheels – Toronto Star) appeared on the second page of my search results.

The test could go on and on, but the point is the ‘build it and they will come’ mentality has the potential to cripple even the most web savvy publisher, very quickly.

From what we can see today, search engines are looking at ways to better the search experience through personalization. To a publisher or site owner, this means there should be less reliance on someone Googling your business name as opposed to your products. In order for search results to work for you, you need to start thinking like the customer and include Meta Tags that are relevant in likeness to the terms a customer would use, while performing a search. You should also be thinking about your site architecture and decide on the pages or content you want measured, read and trafficked - You should optimize those pages as well.

If this seems daunting, there are services that can help you. You can reference the service of a search-marketing agency and they will not only consult on SEO (search engine optimization), but also SEM (search engine marketing). If you think you can handle it yourself, use a robust reporting source like Hitwise to keep current on how people in your marketplace are searching for the items or services you offer, as well as see how your competitors are stacking up in regards to search.

The findings from a study performed by Penn State’s Dr. Jim Jansen and Amanda Spink, earlier this year, summarizes it best:

• Half of all users entered only one search query.
• 54 percent viewed just one page of search results per visit to the search engine.
• Searchers typically visit only the top three search results.
• About 55 percent of users checked out one result only.
• Only 19 percent went on to the second page.
• Fewer than 10 percent bothered with the third page of results.
• More than 80 percent stopped after looking at three results

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: Newspapers, search engine optimization