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EVANSTON, Ill. -- The best way to build an online audience is to know whom you want to reach and developing a method to target them, panelists said at the 2003 ONA Conference's Strategies for Growing our Audience forum.

The panel featured Ben Estes, editor of ChicagoTribune.com; Teresa Hanafin, editor of Boston.com; Larry Kramer, chief executive officer and founder of CBSMarketWatch.com; and Rob Curley, general manager of World Online at the Lawrence Journal-World. The standing-room-only session was moderated by Kinsey Wilson, vice president and editor-in-chief of USAToday.com.

Estes called the ChicagoTribune.com's Web strategy the Tao of F.L.O.I.D., an acronym for fresh content, local content, often-updated content, images/interactivity and demographics/dayparting.

Speaking of local content, Estes said they seek items with a long shelf life such as crime statistics, traffic and school data. To add interactivity, Estes said they look for stories that people would talk about around a water cooler and then add message boards or polls. On the subject of dayparting, he said a goal is to subtly signal users that the content they get in the morning is different from content they get later in the day.

"The loyalty ratings prove that this strategy is working," Estes said.

Keeping content fresh throughout the day is also the strategy of Boston.com, which Editor Hanafin said is growing its audience through a strong emphasis on fast-breaking news.

But she cautioned against sacrificing content depth for speed. She said hear team waits for confirmation from two major news sources before publishing a breaking news story.

On the weekends, it's a different matter. Hanafin said users are not looking for hard news, so Boston.com has started running a weekend feature story with a large picture at the top of the site. Links below help users plan their weekend activities.

She also stressed the importance of understanding how users view your site. "Don't just know you're audience; it's critical that your audience knows you," Hanafin said. "You should recognize and capitalize on the fact that the Web is a far more intimate medium and you should think of it in those terms."

Kramer said sticking to its core competence kept CBSMarketWatch.com out of the Internet graveyard.

Kramer said his team knows its market well, and its audience is used to real-time financial coverage. "We are bringing that to the average user," he said.

The Web site does not use CBS content, but the network runs broadcast spots by CBSMarketwatch.com during its newscasts. The Web site has leveraged content across several media including a CBSMarketwatch.com syndicated TV program and syndicated radio broadcasts.

"It's all part of branding. After a year or two, we didn't need marketing," Kramer said.

Branding tactics have also been an audience-building strategy at the Lawrence Journal-World and its two related sites, Lawrence.com and KUSports.com, said Curley of World Online. Creating distinct online brands aimed at different audiences has been one of the core strategies.

"We needed a separate brand so we could take some chances," Curley said.

Lawrence.com, for example, uses language that would never appear in the Lawrence Journal-World, along with edgy graphics, to attract a 20- and 30-something crowd.

The site has downloadable tracks from local bands and sections with pages about these bands. The site has spawned a print product and online radio stations that group the site's MP3s by genre. Curley said users can build a playlist or download MP3s.

"We really wanted content that would allow our audience to live the way they wanted to live," Curley said.