CASE STUDY: Neighborhood News for Chicagoland

chicago tribune and chicago breaking news logos

Sites: ChicagoTribune.com and ChicagoBreakingNews.com
Market: Chicagoland Metro Area
Neighborhood News Pages: http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/neighborhoods.html

The Chicago Breaking News Center is a combined news force from Chicago Tribune, CLTV, WGN-TV and WGN-AM, but with the launch of Outside.in for Publishers (OIP) we’ve created Neighborhood News Pages that not only present Tribune sources, but we’ve also aggregated all the major local news sites to provide Chicagoans with the most comprehensive local news maps in the area. OIP has enabled us to bring our readers hyper-local content by presenting detailed Neighborhood News Pages for downtown districts such as Lincoln Park, to suburbs in the Chicagoland area like Arlington Heights, Evanston, Naperville, and Joliet—Yvette Quintanar, Product Manager, Tribune

Automated aggregation and audience targeting by town and neighborhood

Prior to OIP, Chicago Breaking News Center (CNBC) aggregated its own news feeds for Chicagoland.  With OIP, CNBC saw an opportunity to leverage Outside.in‘s network of aggregated hyperlocal content and OIP’s automated solutions to expand and specify their own news coverage.

Easy set-up and implementation

It took the Tribune less than two weeks to set up their account and launch OIP-created Neighborhood News Pages on ChicagoBreakingNews.com. By incorporating these pages into their primary nav, CBNC drives traffic to over 180 newly created hyperlocal story listing pages, which surface local stories from CBNC and from around the web, subdivided by region and neighborhood.

chicago breaking news nav bar

Neighborhood map components can also be found on key local pages of ChicagoTribune.com, which cross-link users to neighborhood news sections on ChicagoBreakingNews.com.  To further increase user engagement, the Tribune is currently testing hyperlinking neighborhood names within articles to their corresponding neighborhood news pages.

sidebar maps

Improved user engagement

The Tribune is experiencing strong user engagement on their Neighborhood News Pages. 20-30% of online visitors on a Neighborhood News Page click through to an article (from the map or headlines below the map). Neighborhood News Pages also increase the time users spend on-site by offering over 180 pages of quality hyperlocal inventory that can also be leveraged by the Tribune’s ad-sales team.

Outside.in and the Tribune continue to work together on ways to increase traffic to Neighborhood News Pages and optimize results, such as the recent cross-link integration between ChicagoTribune.com and ChicagoBreakingNews.com. With a comprehensive set of hyperlocal news updated in real-time, ChicagoTribune.com and CBNC are ensuring their sites become the key destination for local news in Chicago.

chicago breaking news neighborhood news page screenshot

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