The new home page for the website for The Park Falls Herald and the Phillips Bee can be found at www.pricecountydaily.com

Not only are the newspaper staffs at The Park Falls (Wisc.) Herald and the Phillips (Wisc.) Bee launching redesigns of their print products, using new computer workstations and producing ad copy through the new MediaSpectrum software this week — they also launched a redesign of their website.

Earlier today, the shared website for The Park Falls Herald and the Phillips Bee launched on the Town News Blox format. The website can be found at www.pricecountydaily.com.

Both newspapers are located in Price County, Wisc., with Phillips serving as the county seat. The Herald and The Bee are published weekly, but as the website’s name might indicate, they will be updating and producing content daily for their readers to enjoy online.

The homepages of the websites for the Grove (Okla.) Sun and Delaware County Journal (www.grandlakenews.com), the Miami News-Record (miamiok.com) and the Cherokee County News-Advocate (www.sekvoice.com) went above and beyond with its tribute to the 70th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor today.

When visitors to those websites logged on to their homepages, they were greeted with a Pearl Harbor background image and audio from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous “Day of Infamy” speech on the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

The audio is being played on a widget on the home page. For more information on how this website was set up, email Shalee Franklin, the website director for this cluster of newspapers, at shalee.franklin@grovesun.com, or Matthew Hinman, online director for the Southwest region, at matthew.hinman@brownwoodbulletin.com.

The Cecil Whig at www.cecilwhig.com was the top performing website in terms of visits for ACM in November 2011

After a review of Google Analytics for the month of November 2011, here are the top 10 websites in the ACM family:

1) Cecil Whig (Elkton, Md.) — www.cecilwhig.com — 139,127 visits

2) Star Democrat (Easton, Md.) — www.stardem.com — 124,125 visits

3) Mesabi (Virginia, Minn.) — www.virginiamn.com — 72,705 visits

4) Stephenville (Texas) Empire Tribune — www.yourstephenvilletx.com — 71,404 visits

5) Athens (Ohio) Messenger — www.athensmessenger.com — 67,435 visits

6) Ashland (Wisc.) Daily Press — www.ashlandwi.com — 67,099 visits

7) Alice (Texas) Echo-News Journal — www.alicetx.com — 63,440 visits

8.) Brownwood (Texas) Bulletin — www.brownwoodtx.com — 61,182 visits

9) Circleville (Ohio) Herald — www.circlevilleherald.com — 55,967 visits

10) Newark (Del.) Post — www.newarkpostonline.com — 55,244 visits

Shalee Franklin, digital director for the NE Oklahoma and SE Kansas cluster of ACM newspapers, shared with me a new feature they added to the websites of the Miami (Okla.) News-Record, Grove (Okla.) Sun and Cherokee County (Kan.) News-Advocate recently.

The feature is called “What Christmas Means for Me” and runs on the home page of each website. The websites can be found at www.miamiok.com, www.grandlakenews.com, and www.sekvoice.com.

This is a feature we would love to see all ACM newspaper websites add as the holidays approach.

For more information, contact Shalee Franklin at shalee.franklin@grovesun.com.

The homepage of the Jackson County Times Journal

The homepage of the Sawyer County Record

Two more websites have been launched on the Town News Blox system within ACM.

This week, the websites of the Sawyer County (Hayward, Wisc.) Record and the Jackson County (Ohio) Times-Journal both went live.

You can find the Sawyer County website at www.haywardwi.com, and the Jackson County website at www.timesjournal.com.

The ACM digital team of Rodney Blaukat, director, and Allen Free, project manager, are spearheading the effort to move all of ACM’s newspaper websites to the Town News Blox format by January 2012.

Assisting with the Jackson County launch was Cheryl Powers, Ohio regional webmaster. Deb Baker, Superior regional webmaster, assisted with the Hayward launch.

The home page of the Grove (Okla.) Sun and Delaware County (Okla.) Journal at www.grandlakenews.com.

The online feature for Thanksgiving that can be found on the hompage of www.grandlakenews.com

The staff of the Grove Sun and Delaware County Journal have a great idea for promoting reader involvement during Thanksgiving week that deserves to be shared.

On the home page of the newspapers’ website — www.grandlakenews.com— is a box that features a reader’s comment under the heading “What I am thankful for…” This is, again, a great way to feature reader involvement on your website. Great job Grove Sun and Delaware County staff.

For more information on this feature, email Shalee Franklin, online director for website, at shalee.franklin@grovesun.com.

The home page of the Grove (Okla.) Sun, which can be found at www.grandlakesun.com. We love the Halloween-themed background.

After launching on the Town News Blox format in early August, the Grove (Okla.) Sun staff has improved its emphasis on digital content, and the results of their hard work are in the numbers.

As of today, the newspaper’s website at www.grandlakenews.com has seen 21,082 visits and 84,599 pageviews in the month of October 2011.

The Grove Sun staff has put a strong focus on its photo gallery online, which is a proven driver of traffic.

That’s a solid growth over the website’s September 2011 numbers: 18,019 visits and 71,356 pageviews. In August 2011, the website saw 11,171 visits and 46,735 pageviews in a limited run of 20 days.

The success of the Grove Sun website can be contributed to several factors. One, the new look of the website with the Town News Blox format is much more reader friendly.

Second, the home page is a vast improvement as well, and the newspaper staff has done a good job offering a variety of content for the digital reader. I am most impressed with the video offerings, photo gallery from the newspaper itself, and the reader-submitted content featuring stories and photos.

The reader-submitted content section on www.grandlakenews.com

And finally, Peggy Kiefer’s contribution as a member of the Digital Reporter Project has helped put more content as news happens on the website. But, it’s not all Peggy. The entire staff has realized the importance of posting bulletins online as news happens.

Shalee Franklin serves as the online coordinator for the Grove Sun, and the newspaper is published by regional publisher Cheryl Franklin.

The website transformation is led by the ACM digital team of Rodney Blaukat and Allen Free.

The home page of The Avenue News, a free weekly publication on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay

The Avenue News, located in Essex, Md., in the Chesapeake region of American Consolidated Media, launched a “Digital First… Print Best” content strategy this week with good online results.

The Avenue News is a free weekly publication with a circulation of 25,000. It is based in Essex, Md., which sits on the western shores of the Chesapeake Bay right outside Baltimore.

The following is a message from Doug Rainey, who oversees digital operations for the upper shore publications of the Chesapeake region.

By reporting on breaking news stories online as they developed, the Avenue News increased web traffic this week.

Said Rainey, “Since Monday, web traffic has gone up dramatically at The Avenue in Essex, Md., as the focus turned toward increasing the number of visitors and keeping the site fresh. One factor might also be the paywall at the Baltimore Sun. Still, I am surprised at the sustained  gain and how it took place over a period of days and with a modest increase in new postings.While it is early in the process, we may be seeing signs that regular postings, rather than “the weekly dump” can quickly draw more traffic to weekly websites.”

A map of where Essex is located in Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay region.

Pleased to see The Avenue News move away from the “weekly dump” of content from the print product to the website, and taking a more aggressive daily update approach as news breaks and develops in the community.

According to Google Analytics, The Avenue News had 869 pageviews on Oct. 27, compared to only 274 pageviews the Thursday before.

Those numbers will continue to increase as readers become aware that the website is being updated daily instead of weekly.

The new-look home page of the Athens (Ohio) Messenger at www.athensmessenger.com

The Athens (Ohio) Messenger is the newest website to launch on the Town News Blox format.

The Messenger — found at www.athensmessenger.com — launched on the new format today.

It is similar to the look of the other website launches in recent weeks, featuring our new content submission buttons at the top of the home page and clean look for all sections of the website.

Page 4 of today's print edition of the Athens Messenger, featuring a column by publisher Monica Nieporte on the website change. Nieporte is also the regional manager for ACM-Ohio.

Monica Nieporte, regional manager of ACM-Ohio and publisher of the Athens Messenger, wrote a page 4 column promoting the new-look website to her readers. The newspaper also published a teaser on the top of page one in today’s print edition.

At the Athens Messenger, there are two digital reporters in Joe Higgins on the news side and Jason Arkley on the sports end. Both have used their digital work stations to produce web updates and video content.

Cheryl Powers, webmaster for the Messenger, played a crucial role in the rollout of the new-look website.

The ACM digital department of Rodney Blaukat and Allen Free are leading the Town News Blox rollouts.

The new home page of the Virginia, Minn., website — www.virginiamn.com

The Mesabi Daily News, headquartered in Virginia, Minn., has recently launched its website — www.virginiamn.com — on the new Town News Blox format.

The Mesabi Daily News is the largest newspaper in the Iron Range region of ACM newspapers in Minnesota. It operates in the Iron Range along with sister publications the Hibbing Daily Tribune, the Grand Rapids Herald-Review, the Chisholm Tribune Press and the Walker Pilot Independent.

The Mesabi Daily News has a daily circulation of more than 8,000 and a Sunday circulation of more than 10,000.

The Mesabi Daily News’ website, www.virginiamn.com, had 30,507 visitors, 88,959 visits and more than 270,000 pageviews in the month of September 2011.

The new website features sections for your standard newspaper coverage, as well as ways for readers to submit content easily through buttons on the home page.

If I could make one recommendation, I would like to see a photo gallery section for photos taken by the newspaper staff for both news and sports on the home page. This feature is not on the home page currently.

But, I do like the “You Snap It” photo section for reader-submitted photos.

For more, check out the new website look at www.virginiamn.com.