Niche Portal

A Niche Child Food Allergy Site

  The Child Food Allergy blog is a place where parenting children with food allergies is the topic of discussion. The purpose of the blog is to create an intelligent conversation (using real life experiences) about the special parenting challenges that food allergies present.

The authors' first child was diagnosed with food allergies over 8 years ago when they discoved she had an infant food allergy, specifically peanut allergy. Since then they discovered their 3rd child also has severe food allergies. In their experience, there are plenty of medical resources (most importantly, your family allergist) on the subject of food allergies. However, when it came to parenting tips, the resources were far and few between.

They have found themselves being called on in church settings, pre-school, elementary school, and other community events to provide parenting tips on the topic of managing our child's food allergy. Whether you are dealing with a baby food allergy, food allergy testing, looking for food allergy recipes, or trying to find more on food allergy symptoms, the parent perspective can provide you the additional support you need - informational or emotional.

If you are looking for medical advice having to do with diagnosing a food allergy, please talk to your doctor. You may also want to visit the Food Allergy Network for other medical resources.

Click Fraud Advice

I just finished reading the Personal Weblog of Joe Holcomb, Senior VP of Marketing at BlowSearch and his entry regarding PPC Click Fraud. 

Way to go Joe! Thanks for opening the PPC kimono and giving us the inside scoop on what is happening and the (weak) reaction by the major PPC players.  Look, I can understand the logic of "cost of doing business" and to some extent, that's fine - Sort of like the "write offs" or "bad debt" on your financial statement.  However, that doesn't let the PPC engines off the hook, especially if we are approaching 25-30% fraud rates.  Technology is the answer and we'll develop code to help but, please, give the fraudsters credit - they will stay ahead of the technology.  Let's just give them a run for their money! 

We really appreciate industry insiders taking up the advertiser's cause (you and me).  These are hard earned dollars we are spending and we expect to be treated professionally by the reputable search engines.  According to Joe, here is what we can do:

Click fraud is a much larger issue industry wide than the engines are telling the public. If you are advertising in pay per click I would be severely concerned about the quality of traffic you receive from your campaign. If you are not tracking and screening the traffic you are being provided you are …. flat out ….. bottom line …… foolish.

Look, click fraud is not acceptable. As an advertiser you should be policing your listings, tracking your ROI, and making absolutely sure you can trust the providers you do business with. Implement a click fraud detection system from one of the many providers out there who specialize in click fraud detection. Is their technology capable of catching all click fraud? No, but even if they know a little more than you do it does not hurt to use one of their solutions. It might cost you a little extra but at least you’ll have a third party looking out for you. Some of these companies include:

www.trackingroi.com
www.clicklab.com
www.alchemistmedia.com

So, Joe has given us great advice.  Now is the time to protect ourselves.

Stay Tuned

I know it has been a few weeks since my last entry.  The reason for the silence is my efforts have been focused on a new internet marketing research project.  This project, code named hot niche, is going to focus on which web niches currently provide the biggest opportunity for web marketers.  The lack of data-based research on this subject is clear and I am out to change all of that.  There is a scientific approach that can be taken to identify these markets and I will be sharing that very soon.  Stay tuned!

In Deep Water

If you live in an area where the ice is about to break and your boat isn't quite ready for the water, I've got a site for you.  Now, this isn't exactly the best kept secret... iboats.com has received plenty of accolades for their vertical portal.  Inc. Magazine ranked iboats #48 on last fall's Inc. 500 List of America's Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies.  Posting an impressive 515% annual growth since 1999 (yes, 500%+ annually), the company has nailed their buoyant niche.

This site is impressive in terms of its relevancy.  If you are a land lubber, no need to get aboard, however, if you have your sea legs, you will enjoy visiting this vertical portal.  It includes a dealer directory, search function, classified ads, user forums and has a network of finance and insurance company affiliates to which it sends referrals. 

Unlike the venture capital charged "vortals" of the past, these guys used their own money to build a .com to 32 employees and an impressive $8.6 million in sales.   Now, my back of the napkin calculation says, at that level of sales with that little overhead, these guys are making some serious dough.  Sounds like a great strategic acquisition candidate for the right company.   Then the owners will be able to spend all their time on their boats... and why not?  To the niche vertical victors go the spoils!

Getting Sucked In

I was told to take a look at Harmony Central's website as a good example of a quality niche site.  I wasn't disappointed; here is a site dedicated to musicians and offering much more than just a store front. 

News, search, user reviews, banner ads and some direct links to storefront sites (likely an affiliate arrangement) for specific instruments.  I asked a good friend (and a great guitar player) for his opinion and he said, "Yeah, I got sucked in... as I scrolled down the home page." 

Sucked in?  Brilliant.  I bet that's exactly what the owners were looking for.  Isn't THAT what is missing from Google and the other big boy generic search sites?  If you know of other vertical sites done right that get you "sucked in" let me know - I'll check them out and write about them here.

Market Value of Vertical Portals

I just read the The Deal.com article on the sale of About.com for $410 million dollars.  Yes, $410 million in 2005 for a portal.

My take is that the internet business model is finally maturing and the markets are realizing that targeted traffic that creates real cash flow has tremendous value (about 20 times EBITA to be specific).  Vertical portals are not only here to stay, they will become more important in the years to come – just ask the NY Times and Time Warner.

"These aren't startups with ideas. These are profitable companies with an operational track record," Richard Fetyko (a research analyst) said. "Building a Web site is not that difficult these days, but to attract the audience and to build a recurring audience on a monthly basis takes a lot of time and marketing, and these companies have already gone through that stage."

Did I just read about the value of eyeballs?  Eyeballs?  Wasn’t that all the discussion rage back in 1999? I guess what comes around goes around.

There is value here, “…smaller niche sites will begin to receive more attention from both traditional and online companies….”  Niche sites like iVillage and CNET are mentioned as possible targets for future acquisitions.  Now, I fully understand that these are top 50 sites and I believe that the value wave will have a ripple affect all the way through the web sphere.  Much smaller sites that have 100,000 unique visitors each month will also be attractive acquisition candidates.  Again, targeted eyeballs have value. And in a niche where users are hard to find, the value goes way up and the market is willing to pay for that.

The Virtues of Directories

I've had several discussions lately around the topic of directory relevance.  In the fight for relevance in the search engines it seems there is some some debate as to the best method.  Yes, directories can be very rich in content, and when updated regularly, can get pretty good rankings.  However, it seems Google is targeting directories as less relevant than other sites.  Aarron Wall's "Above the Fold" newsletter mentioned this a couple weeks back...

Many directories have recently been removed from Google's cache. It is uncertain whether or not Google is targeting directories, but even if they are targeted by Google they still are having an exceptionally noticable effect on relevancy in Yahoo! and MSN.

Will Yahoo, MSN and the likes follow suit?  Don't know.  What I do know is that this has a significant impact on any directory whose business model is based on using the organic page rankings to drive traffic.  Sure, a site like Business.com won't be as affected as the small sites - but to be sure, they wouldn't be too happy about the new rules of Google.

Now, even DMOZ has its challenges.  The problem with a DMOZ isn't the directory filled with hundreds of thousands of categories as much as it is who is editing the categories.  What makes the results here any more relevant then a sponsored listing like AdSense or Overture?  My thought... I'm not sure DMOZ is any more relevant.

Frustration Leads to Learning

So, I've typed another search term into Google only to be underwhelmed by the relevance and overwhelmed by the quantity.  So many results, so little time.  Now, please, don't get me wrong, I like Google in a general "I'm not really sure what form my desired result will take" sort of way.  It's just that when I know what I'm looking for, I'd much prefer a more targeted result.  Thus, vertical search.

I started looking for some good vertical search sites/ directories and have found several that seem to do it well in their respective industries, for example, Business.com and (on a much smaller/niche scale) BridalClicks.  Hey, if I was to get married again, I'd definitely search on BridalClicks.  Of course, I'd have to get divorced first, which my wife wouldn't let me do and... well, you get the point.  Relevant, local results for users who know what they are looking for.

Now, what about the business model side of these sites?  Mostly a PPC and banner approach.  Some pretty good numbers are possible and that's what intrigues me.  Give more relevant results to the users, better conversion rates to advertiser and provide an income to the site owners.  Seems like capitalism is alive and well in the search community.