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The staff at the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, NY, is partnering with the local historical site to feature photo galleries of old photos. These galleries are easy to do and popular with readers - one of the was among the top five photo galleries in all of GateHouse this week.
WHAT THEY DID: From Executive Editor Kris Worrell: "We know our readers care about history so we wanted to find a regular way to feature historic elements on our web site. We run a popular history column in the newspaper that often features one or two archive photos each week. The Look Back photo gallery was an offshoot of that, meant to give online readers more history content the rest of the week. Plus, this requires very little time on our part. We are using photos from our own archives as well as working with local historic societies to use their images. Each gallery focuses on a particular year or subject (downtown buildings, for example).
"Photo galleries such as these and our popular iSpy galleries, which feature pictures of people out at events, have helped us make our site more "sticky" and increased the average amount of time our readers spend at UticaOD.com."
THE TAKEAWAY: This is a low-effort project that can yeild high-value results. Nearly every community has a historical society - check with them and see what kind of vintage photos they have.
