On the Feds-NewMedia e-mail discussion list (run by the NAA), a discussion about nation and world news has come up — should it be included, or how should it be played on a local newspaper.com site. Here’s my most recent post to the thread:
The web isn’t about getting people to your web site and keeping them there. It’s about providing the best user experience possible so they keep coming back. If you’re including world/nation on your site under some false notion that you’re providing a reason for people not to go elsewhere, you’re doing it for the wrong reason.
You better have some unique user experience, or unique content if you want world/nation to contribute anything meaningful to your traffic stats. Even then, I think it’s an open question as to weather a local newspaper.com can win against the likes of Yahoo News, Google News, CNN, NYT, WaPo or several other sites that have greater pull (and the new McClatchy/Yahoo! Deal even strengthens Yahoo!’s unique value proposition).
If you’re including nation/world on your site out of some sense of journalistic obligation, you’re also making a mistake. While a noble intention, your user doesn’t care about your intentions. He or she wants out of your site what he or she came there for, which 98 percent of the time (for local users, which is all you should care about at a local newspaper.com) is local news and information. Including nation/world can be downright detrimental to that goal and to your brand as a local source of news and information. If you’re going to include nation/world, be careful how you play it. Never lede with it, unless there’s another 9/11 or some such “effects everyone’s lives� story.
The average newspaper.com is reaching way too small of a local audience. Most local newspaper.com sites need to see their daily unique count increase four or five times over present reach. Nation/world isn’t going to get you there and could in fact hurt. What is going to get you there is being a great local news and information site (along with a few other things).
Yes, if you totally drop nation/world, you will get a very few complaints (like five or six, all from older readers). Just tell them to go to CNN or Yahoo! You won’t lose them because they still need you for local, if you’re doing local right. What you give up in a few page views (and most of those page views are of little or no economic value because they’re generated by out-of-market search engine results) will be made up for in local unique visitor growth.
Excellent, excellent post — and I like the mention of the new McClatchy/Yahoo! deal. I’m curious how (or if) that will impact McClatchy Interactive, which has a staff that shovels nation/world AP content onto McClatchy newspaper.com sites, with little originality or value. If I were one of their papers, I’d rather have the McClatchy bureau stuff.
On a related note, Mr. Owens, great blog. I stumbled across it 3-4 months ago and now read regularly.
Thank you, Chris. I appreciate your interest and your participation.
[…] Nation and world isn’t a unique value proposition for newspaper sites. Back on the print side, Howard Owens passes along some good advice on the value of national and international news to the local newspaper web site. Short version: it’s about the reader experience — bringing them back, not trying to keep them there — so do what serves them best. My take: Be the “paper,” not the portal. […]