Sports-related inbound links bring rush of readers

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Are you marketing your newspaper’s sports content to the people and Web sites that can bring in a rush of readers?

If not, you should be.

Today, our most-read story of the day got almost 10x the number of page hits that our top story of the day usually gets. The reason?

A reporter who owned his beat and was persistent in getting the story first … and then he sent a link to Huskerpedia.

The clearinghouse for Huskers news is a popular stop for football fans, and it drives a massive amount of traffic to the pages it links to.

Also, Max Olson, the reporter, kept at it all day and sent another two updates along as soon as he got more interviews done.

A round of applause to Max for his perseverance in getting the story.

Today’s takeaways:

• Get your reporters and editors to post links to their stories on message boards, social media, etc. A success story like this is a good motivator for everyone to keep that habit up, too.
• Nothing can replace the hard work that goes into getting the story. Max has been keeping tabs on a slew of recruits for a while. And though the Journal Star had a blog post up early this morning, Max beat them to the punch of getting a more detailed story up.
• Writing your story is not enough any more. You should be creating the traffic channels to get readers to your content, too.

Max did it again. This time, the recruit is a player from right here in Lincoln who happens to be the son of a former Husker safety. Pageviews are soaring once again after he sent the link to Huskerpedia.

It’s not a fluke. With diligent reporting and one little link, writers can make have a huge impact.