How Local World reached record web traffic in February
Regional news network Local World has reported a 70 per cent growth in average monthly unique browsers for February, compared to the same month a year earlier.
Internal figures, sourced from Omniture, reveal average monthly browsers reached 16.14 million last month, up from 9.5 million in February 2013.
Founded in January 2013 to incorporate Iliffe News & Media and Northcliffe Media, Local World owns more than one hundred print titles and 76 title websites.
In the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), the company recorded an average of 11.7 million monthly unique browsers for July to December 2013 up 35.1 per cent on the first six months.
And 2013 results released today by Trinity Mirror, which has a 20 per cent stake in Local World, show Trinity made a profit of 5.1 million, suggesting Local World secured a 25.5 million adjusted post-tax profit in the 12 months since its launch.
Tim Rowell, executive product director, digital, at Local World, told Journalism.co.uk the "consistently strong growth" in traffic was due to a revised publishing strategy with a greater emphasis on social media and search engine optimisation (SEO).
"The thing that really struck me when I joined Local World in June 2013 was the sheer volume of content the network published each day," said Rowell, who was previously digital publisher and director of mobile product development at The Telegraph.
On a typical day, there are between 1,600 and 2,000 articles published across the sites, and "significantly more" on Thursdays when the weekly titles go to print.
"To put it in context, the Guardian and The Telegraph probably publish 500 to 600 stories per day, so we're already three or four times that," he explained.
Our content is directly relevant to the local audienceTim Rowell, Local World
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How Local World reached record web traffic in February