A regional daily has seen an online traffic boost at its sister website following a fresh focus on events and what’s on content.

Bristol Post sister site Bristol Live was the only one of the top regional titles to record a year-on-year increase in audience between August 2022 and last month, according to fresh figures by market research firm Ipsos.

Bristol Live almost doubled its readership when comparing the two periods, while the nine other sites to make up regional titles – also all owned by its publisher Reach plc – experienced decline.

The traffic boost comes after a decision to refocus the site’s what’s on content to include the latest restaurant openings and other events across the city.

Post editor Pete Gavan, pictured, told HTFP: “I’m really pleased with what the team has achieved in recent months. We’ll keep working hard to serve the people of Bristol with everything from breaking news to helpful what’s on content to the big stories that impact people’s lives.”

As with July, the Manchester Evening News, Birmingham Mail, Liverpool Echo and Wales Online took up the top four spots.

The MEN also topped the page view charts with 48m views in August, down from 59m the previous year.

When it came to retaining reader’s interests for longer periods of time, the Ipsos figures showed Iliffe Media weekly the Bishop’s Stortford Independent took top billing.

Readers spent an average of nineteen-and-a-half minutes on the Independent’s website, although there were no comparable figures available for August 2022.

The Colchester Daily Gazette came second by that metric, with its Newsquest sister titles the Carlisle News & Star, Hereford Times and Watford Observer completing the top five.

The full list showing the total number of unique users is below. Scroll down for the table showing total number of page views per user and average minutes per user tables.

The titles are ranked by the most recent, August 2023 metrics, which can be found in the middle column.

Websites which are untagged are reported based on observed panel behaviour. These sites can experience volatility from month to month.

When a website is untagged, it means that it relies solely on data collected from the Ipsos Iris user-centric panel. Tagging enhances measurement, particularly for smaller sites, by improving the accuracy of the reported data.

For more information on tagging and measurement please visit https://iris.ipsos.com/ or email [email protected].

Table 1: Overall audience (unique users)

Table 2: Total number of page views per title

Table 3: Average minutes per user