One of the biggest concerns that newspapers new to the web have is advertising rates. For so long they have been honing their print advertising rates, that they have become experts in the field. When it comes to the web, though, confusion ensues.

Being web savvy, most people understand that websites have statistic programs that show website owners all sorts of information about their site: number of visitors, where they come from, how they found the site, how long they were there, etc. etc.

Statistics are great. But like anything else, they should not be overdone when it comes to deciding your web advertising rates. The old saying, just because your can, doesn't mean you should comes to play here.

Yes, you can probably figure out which advertiser is getting the most hits from your website. You can probably find out how many clicks that advertiser is getting per day. But this should not be used when marketing your site to advertisers.

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Your newspaper has been brought into one of the fiercest turf battles out there. It is under attack from multiple angles. Your readership is falling; along with it, your advertisers are dropping like flies.

Is this the end of the newspaper industry as you know it? Will print editions succumb to the web? Is there nothing to be done about it?

Before you hammer in the last nail to that coffin, here are ways your newspaper can embrace the web. Use it, profit from it and expand your readership and advertising revenue further than you ever thought possible.

The problems that newspapers throughout the United States are facing are very real, but not lost battles unless you go about the issue from a "print only" point of view. If publishers and editors face the problem of declining readership, loss of ad revenue and turf wars on the Internet head on by embracing the new medium, they can accomplish bigger circulations and ad revenue than ever thought possible right within their own markets.

The website management systems we work with for newspaper web design have the flexibility and power for your newsroom, advertising department, circulation and inside sales departments to have a website that works together seamlessly: posting news, taking subscriptions, submitting classifieds and monitoring ads on the site. In addition, the site is designed to work for you and add to your business plan.

Newspapers and magazines we have worked with report the following:

• Increased traffic to their site (resulting in higher ad revenue within 6 months)
• Increased reader loyalty (more readers used the site more often)
• Higher classified ad sales (as the ease of buying online increased)
• Increased print subscriptions and online subscriptions
• Untapped Revenue: Continually higher ad revenue generated from web ads
• Untapped Revenue: Online subscriptions for premium web content

In short, our web designs and development have made newspapers money, opened up new ad markets and increased readership and loyalty.