Well, dear readers, if it’s January, you’d better believe it’s time for our annual State of the Site post!

Here’s a quick recap of some of the highlights here at the Shawnee Mission Post these past 12 months:

• The biggest news for the long-term stability and growth of the site is that the number of paid Shawnee Mission Post subscribers continues to tick up. In fact, this month we will hit a huge milestone: ??? 2,000 subscribers. ??? The fact that so many Shawnee Mission residents value our local coverage enough to subscribe continues to set us apart from other hyperlocal sites across the country. (If you’ve been on the fence about subscribing and want to give it a try, you can get your first month of full access for $.99).
• With the financial support our full-access subscribers provide, we’ve been able to expand both our coverage footprint and story volume. In 2018, we published a record 1,978 original stories about the Shawnee Mission area, branching out to provide consistent coverage of Lenexa and Shawnee in addition to our original focus area east of I-35.
• We’ve also been able to add full time staff. Leah Wankum, who had been working as a freelancer for much of 2018, became a full-time staff reporter for the company this month.
• And we continue to see traffic grow. The total number of users who visited the site in 2018 was up 7 percent from the previous year.

So, all in all, a pretty solid li’l 2018.

That said, we’re always looking to get better. And that means getting feedback from our readers — both subscribers and non-subscribers. To that end:

• Subscribers received an email this morning with a link to a brief survey with questions about what they like, what they’d like to see changed, and what kind of content they value most. We hope you’ll take (literally) a couple minutes to share your thoughts so we can better cater to what our subscribers want.
• We’ll be following that survey up with focus groups throughout the early months of the year to collect more detailed feedback on both our editorial content as well as site navigation and readability.
• For non-subscribers, we’d love to hear your input as well. Have thoughts on topics we should be covering more? Site issues you’d like to see tweaked? Unadulterated praise? Spiteful criticism? We want to hear it all. Email us at [email protected]

THANK YOU for reading and keeping local news strong in Shawnee Mission!