Scientific American’s SciAm.com was among a trio of science-related information titles that fared especially well in the past year. Its success in growing audience to 1.8 million in March is a good example of throwing the levers that the Internet makes available. According to Mike Kelly, online marketing manager, the site did an SEO audit in April and put its optimization strategy in place by the summer, leading to an 86% rise in search referrals and a record number of referrals in February and March of this year. The site clearly has been effective in converting the search hits into brand loyalists, as typed and bookmarked referrals rose 52% in the past year. Likewise social news referrals jumped 40% and external site referrals rose 138%. Kelly says that SciAm launched a social media strategy in late 2008 that optimized the sharing tools and increased visibility on Facebook and Twitter. (via Digital Boxscores Preview: Science, Celebs Lead ’09 Growth :: MinOnline

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