By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Did you know Lewis County Sirens has a relatively new team member, working mostly behind the scenes?
Jan Ross, a longtime Chehalis resident, has taken on the task of selling advertising for the news site.
Ross, a local veteran of media advertising sales, would tell you she can’t think of any other place locally to reach so many pairs of eyes, so many times, for so little money.
Lewis County Sirens now has about 10,000 readers. It gets about 25,000 page views each week.
That’s huge. Lewis County Sirens is just one year old, but that’s more readers than the local daily newspaper has subscribers, I’m told.
It’s been easy to grow such a large reading audience.
Nearly everyone gets curious about where that fire engine was headed last night, or why so many police cars were parked outside that one house for so long.
And because readers can almost always find out first, and get answers to more of the questions they might have by visiting Lewis County Sirens.com, they keep coming back.
A confrontation between a deputy and a suspect in Napavine in the middle of a June night turns deadly: a news story is posted by 4:41 a.m. the same day.
An Onalaska property owner is on trial for fatally shooting a suspected burglar: Courtroom coverage daily offered details as the case proceeded.
Prosecutors make a plea deal with one of the suspects in the Salkum triple homicide: The sister of the 16-year-old victim speaks out and shares her thoughts on how a plea bargain might be a good thing.
So, you readers who have come to appreciate quality news reporting on local crime, police, fire, courts etc.: If you want to help ensure the continuation of Lewis County Sirens, there’s something you could do to help me out.
You could tell your friends about Jan Ross.
You could tell them, there is possibly no more cost-effective place locally to advertise their business, their event, their organization.
It’s somewhat uncomfortable as a news reporter, to talk about advertising.
So, I’ll just tell you what else Jan would say about advertising on Lewis County Sirens.
Each color ad shows on every single page on the site, not just the home page or an inside page.
Jan can design it at no extra charge, or they can submit a ready-to-go file.
If an advertiser has a website, readers can link to it with just a click on their ad.
Likewise, readers, if you like what you’ve been seeing here, and think an independent local news site is a valuable resource, there is something else you could do to help.
News reporting is the love of my life, but Lewis County Sirens is not yet self-supporting.
It’s super easy to contribute, if you want to do that, by clicking on the yellow “donate” button on the sidebar. It will take you to PayPal, a secure site to send money through.
That’s it for now. Oh, except you can tell your friends they can reach Jan by email at jan.ross@lewiscountysirens.com or phone at 360-880-6006.
Also, for more information, they can go to www.lewiscountysirens.com and click on “Want to advertise?”
Meanwhile, thanks for reading, and keep the news tips coming.
Your news reporter,
Sharyn L. Decker
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
Nice job sharyn, I have some thoughts on a classified ad section here and ways we can boost your circulation further, but I’m right in the middle of a poker tourny, I’ll pipe in later, probably tomorrow eve.
And yes I’m the Dayn from lewis county buzz 1 and 2….
Congradulations Sharyn! I check your site at least a couple of times per day. That was great coverage of the McKenzie murder trial. I also like the one where the thief left his dog at the scene of the crime:)