The Minnesota Star Tribune announced today, April 5, a redesign of its website.

"Today we are introducing a new look for the Star Tribune website, which millions of Minnesotans rely on for their daily breaking news", the site claims.

"Key sections such as Business, Politics, Entertainment and Opinion have been retooled. We've also made Business and Politics easier to find by adding them to the menu bar at the top of every page", a Q&A page says.

Apparently, the site is easier and faster to navigate, and it features more video and photography content.

According to a press release, CEO Mike J. Klingensmith explained the site was also re-architected to enable expanded advertising opportunities. "In addition to a better homepage experience, the new site offers more of what progressive advertisers are looking for: more rich media ad units, behavioural targeting, geo-targeting and search marketing", he said.

As the press release specified, more than 7 million monthly unique visitors generate over 100 million monthly page views at StarTribune.com.

In 2010, traffic to the Star Tribune website grew by 15 percent as more of readers turned to the Web for breaking news and information, said Klingensmith.

Sources: Star Tribune (1), (2), (3)