It’s been one year since we launched our magazine website,www.lebomag.com [1], and tens of thousands of you have checked it out. First and foremost every month, we load our magazine in Flipbook format—you can turn the pages and read it exactly as you do the copy that is delivered to homes. This is great option for ex-pats, out-of-town relatives, snowbirds and college students. We also load the majority of the printed stories into individual posts so you can read them—many times with expanded photographs, charts or recipes that simply didn’t fit in the paper version, to give you a more complete story. Additionally, the online version serves as an easy archive, so you can look up a story that ran last month or three years ago. (Bound editions are still available for your perusal at the Mt. Lebanon Public Library and the municipal building’s customer service center.)
Over the past year, we have learned what you liked best online: our category called “Lebo Latest,” where we keep you abreast of news we think you need to know immediately or items that missed the deadline for the print edition. Whether it was an update about last night’s commission meeting or staff meeting, or a feature on a get-together between alumni and current students at the high school, this category received the most hits from readers.
Lebomag.com’s combination of magazine stories and photography, breaking news, web-exclusive stories and expanded coverage, together with the print magazine that goes to every home and business in Mt. Lebanon, plus regional spots you (and people from other towns) visit, such as doctors’ offices, hair salons, coffee shops and gyms—helped us deliver the important news and information you expect from us.
The website joins our comprehensive family of outreach tools, including such social media as our Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts, as well as up-to-the-minute announcements on Lebo ALERT (our email, text and phone notification system) and our parent webpage, www.mtlebanon.org [2], in the hopes that you will never have to say “I didn’t know that about Mt. Lebanon.”
Just as we love our print advertisers, who help us bring you the magazine at no cost to taxpayers, we are grateful for our online advertisers, who help us defray the cost of labor to produce the website. This year, we thank Master Remodelers, St. Clair Hospital and our own recreation department for being anchors to all of our pages.
In the next year, you’ll see us grow even more, with expanded online news coverage, surveys and other features. If you have ideas for the website, we’d love to hear from you. Contact our online editor, Laura Pace Lilley, at: lpace@mtlebanon.org [3] or our editor in chief, Susan Morgans, at smorgans@mtlebanon.org [4]. If your business would like to advertise online, contact ad manager Diane Cyphers at dcyphers@mtlebanon.org [5].
By the numbers
(through early December):
• www.lebomag.com [1]
• Visits: 37,700
• Pages viewed: 144,407
• Pages read per visit: 4
• Time spent per visit: 4 minutes
• Top pages: Home page, LeboLatest, Events, Community News, Features, Archives, People News.
• Top stories: Mt. Lebanon Fire Department’s “Room to Respond” Initiative; Walnut Grill to Open.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mtlebanon magazine [6]
Twitter: twitter.com/mtlmagazine [7] (@mtlmagazine)
YouTube: www.youtube.com/mtlebanonpio [8].