Houston biz journal sees strong growth in online readers

Candace Beeke, the editor of the Houston Business Journal, writes about how the American City Business Journals paper has grown its online readership and hired a web producer.

Beeke writes, “Most recently, we recruited a new web producer, Olivia Pulsinelli, to join us from Chicago. She brings strong business journalism experience and a passion for telling great stories on the Web. And in a couple of weeks, we plan to introduce a new multimedia intern to our newsroom to help create more unique business stories online.

“This growth is in response to an overwhelming increase in demand from our online business audience. Only one year ago, HBJ ran in the middle of the pack for American City Business Journals’ 40 markets, with about 560,000 page views monthly. In the first quarter of 2012, however, we’ve seen an incredible surge, pushing us into the top 8 nationwide. In the first three months of 2012, houstonbusinessjournal.com produced 2,375,675 page views. That compares with 1,838,752 during the same period of 2011.

“But April is when things really got interesting. Last month, we generated 997,302 page views, up from 578,209 the year before.

“This is not a passive accomplishment for us. We weren’t sitting by, watching the clicks tally. The excitement was audible throughout the company during the final days of the month, and by audible, I mean it involved our publisher and an airhorn.”

Read more here.