Southeast Missourian

The Southeast Missourian continued to grow its audience in 2010, expanding its brand and offering new products that connect advertisers with consumers.

The newspaper's primary website, semissourian.com, is showing impressive growth. In January, the site drew 17,128 unique visitors (IP addresses) per weekday and a record 102,748 pageviews for the weekday average. That's a 19 percent increase in pageviews over the same month in 2009, and 20 percent more unique visitors than the previous January.

Bob Miller, editor, said the increase is likely due to a few factors: a bigger effort in social networking to deliver content, a redesigned website and, most importantly some big stories that drew more people in.

"I think some of the major stories, the casino issue and the smoking ban for example, got new people involved with our website," Miller said. "And I think most readers appreciate the ongoing journalism that we do. Our readers share links with their friends, and so on. I think people are starting to understand also that we deliver more than just news on semissourian.com. There are forums, contests, honor rolls, profiles, feature stories, submitted photos, photo galleries and blogs. It all adds up."

The newspaper expanded its print offerings in 2010 as well. The special publications division launched a new glossy magazines, Flourish, a magazine for women. Another glossy magazine, Southeast Missouri Living, was launched in 2009. Both are high-end publications, the first quarterly glossy magazines published by the newspaper.

The Southeast Missourian understands its responsibility is bringing information to the community, and distributes the information in many forms.

"Just consider what we offer the business community from an information standpoint," Miller said. "Our business reporter profiles 52 business people in a year. She takes photo galleries at chamber events, Tweets on Black Friday where the crowds are. She writes a column on the coming and going businesses, types briefs about people getting promotions and new jobs. In Business Today, our special publications team publishes issue-related stories, highlights up-and-comers and prints lists of bankruptcies and tax liens. All of this information can be used to inform the business community and help them make sound decisions. And that's not even touching on how our advertising team can help businesses grow."

Another one of the brights spots is the newspaper's classifieds division, which recently launched a new online photo-driven classified system to help people buy and sell odds and ends. It can be found at semissourian.com/shopping.

But more importantly, recent increased classified participation indicates more local businesses are beginning to hire again, a sign that local businesses are emerging from the recession.

"I believe there are a lot of reasons why our economy in 2011 will show signs of improvement," said the newspaper's general manager, Mark Kneer. "One indicator is the increase in classified help-wanted ads. ... There are employers that are starting to fill open or vacated positions. Leading the way, manufacturers are unfreezing their hiring, and openings in health care jobs are very strong. Getting people back to work makes our entire economy stronger."

The Southeast Missourian is the flagship property of Rust Communications, which owns 19 dailies and 30 weeklies in eight states. Jon K. Rust, Southeast Missourian publisher, is co-president of Rust Communications with his brother Rex Rust. The advertising director of the Southeast Missourian is Donna Denson. She can be reached at 573-388-2751.