My ideaLab goal for the month of November is going to deal with metrics, metrics, and more metrics in an attempt to use what I learn to increase our overall page views on TroyRecord.com going forward.

So far, we've been looking at web stats on Omniture a few times a month (usually at the beginning or end of a week) to see how we've been doing, but that's about to increase exponentially.

Over the next two weeks, and continuing going forward, I plan to work with staffers at our parent company, JRC, my fellow ideaLab members, our local digital team (more on that below), as well as do my own research and experiments to determine the best ways we can use the feedback we get from web analytics to increase our traffic.

I also want to try out using something like Google Trends for this - a tool I've heard much about but had not previously gotten around to trying in the past.

By analyzing our real-time numbers, as well as suggestions and comments we get through social media, or other crowdsourcing efforts like our Community Media Lab, I'm hoping that this can prove useful in building a stronger web presence for our newspaper, as well as all JRC properties.

I'll keep the posts coming as I progress with this goal and, as always, appreciate any feedback and suggestions that you'd like to leave in the comments below.

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Starting this week, we're also assemblying a local Digital First Team at The Record to increase the amount of discussion on our digital efforts and help share some of the load with the continuing digital projects that keep coming our way.

We've got a few employees signed up so far and hope to get a few more in the next few days!