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Record month for The Local

The Local has recorded its most successful month ever with almost 1.5 million visitors in April across its sites in Sweden, Germany and Switzerland.

Published: 7 May 2009 14:00 CEST

April was also a record month for The Local in Sweden, with more than 723,000 unique visitors viewing over 4.2 million pages.

The figures were boosted by the massive international attention given to the conviction of the men behind The Pirate Bay, the Sweden-based bit torrent tracker.

“We were the first news site to get the verdict out in English,” said Paul O’Mahony, editor of thelocal.se.

“The Pirate Bay trial has also led a lot of international journalists to the site, and we’ve done interviews with radio stations around the world about the file-sharing issue,” he added.

While international traffic accounted for a large portion of April’s positive figures, the number of readers from within Sweden was up 30 percent on April 2008.

Also contributing to April’s figures were The Local’s sites in Germany and Switzerland. In addition to thelocal.de, The Local operates a German chat forum, Toytown Germany, and the Swiss site English Forum.

April saw both thelocal.de and thelocal.se introduce comments under articles.

“We want The Local to be a two-way conversation. We’re always looking for more ways to increase interactivity, and comments under articles are just a first step,” said James Savage, The Local’s managing editor.

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What The Local’s new design means for you

After several years with the same design we decided last year that it was high time to give the site a makeover. For one thing we wanted it to look nicer, but most importantly the new design is aimed at making it quicker and easier for you to find what you need without hassle.

You will notice, for example, that the site has a new menu bar that will direct you to the most popular categories. The example below is taken from our France edition but you will find variations on the same menu items on all our country sites.

You won’t be surprised to learn that we are hoping to retire the Covid-19 category as soon as possible.

On the desktop version of the site, if you hover your mouse over a category title you will find some of the most important related topics.

If you click on one of the main categories in the menu bar you will find links to what are currently the most popular related topics.

On the homepage, each article’s main topic will be displayed above the headline so you can quickly click or tap your way to more articles on that subject.

You will also find more topics at the bottom of every page that will take you to related articles.

One significant change is the introduction of a feature that will automatically load up a new article for you once you have got to bottom of the page.

Similarly, articles (like this one) that are not affected by the paywall will show an unlocked padlock.

If you want to search for a particular topic the search tool is prominently displayed at the top left of the desktop and mobile sites. On desktop it’s just under the dropdown menu you can use to switch editions.

As a members of The Local you will be able to quickly access your account details and update your newsletter preferences using the buttons in the top right.

If you are not yet a member you can cast your eyes to the top of the site to see offers that are such good value you will wonder what you’re waiting for. Now really is as good a time as any to join.

READ ALSO: How The Local’s members are helping us get better

We have also worked hard on significantly speeding up the site, which we hope will make your visits to The Local more enjoyable.

You are sure to notice plenty of other changes as you get familiar with the new design. But one thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to producing independent journalism that leans heavily on dialogue with our readers.

With this in mind, we would love to hear from you if you have any feedback on the new design or suggestions for improvements. You can drop us a line at [email protected] or, if you are a member, you will as always be able to let us know what you think in the comments below the article.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you like the new look!

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