Who should I target for links.com - Young and penniless or older but less reachable

[richrf]

Hi everyone,

I noticed that Seniors.com sold recently at auction for a pretty nice price. This got me thinking that the older audience may be more lucrative long term, but my problem is this. Almost all of my search engine and organic traffic are young people (it has always been this way), looking for some kind of TV, video, game links or something similar. I would probably have to go back to zero and start rebuilding traffic from scratch, if I targeted an older audience. However, I think that the older audience has much better financial demographics and would ultimately lead to a higher valuation for links.com.

Has anyone here tried to target older demographics with any success? (e.g. finance, insurance, health, etc.). I just get the sense that this demographic doesn't spend too much time on the Internet, but maybe it is changing. I would appreciate any comments. Thanks.

Rich

 

[Marck]

To call your current site unremarkable would be an understatement.

 

[richrf]

To call your current site unremarkable would be an understatement.

Yes, I agree. I started working on the site about six months ago. Primarily I have been working on gaining experience and knowledge about Internet traffic and this blog has been a good vehicle for gaining this knowledge. I have definitely learned a lot. I have managed to triple the unique traffic and pierce the top 100,000 of Alexa (organically and naturally) as I continue to mine the way the Internet operates.

My approach is to attempt to learn incrementally (walk before I run) and not to invest too much money too quickly since most ideas will not do anything to increase traffic and I do not want to waste investment money. I think that it is far more difficult to make money than it is to spend money, so I am moving ahead conservatively, but with a goal to continue to increase traffic - which I have done.

Now I have to make some decision about the demographics I should be attempting to attract. Clearly traffic will go down if I try to attract an older demographic, but this direction may, in the long run, actually add value to the site. Which is why I am asking this question.

Thanks for your comment.

Regards,
Rich

 

[Marck]

I don't think you should be worried about losing traffic in the short term. With such a generic name, have you thought about the lowest common denominator? TV-style funny videos, etc?

Aside from Search.com, you're sitting on possibly the most premium internet-content domain imaginable. I want to add that I think it's worth more than Seniors.com

* You should be targeting *every* demographic with this name

Are you interested in partnering with a developer?

 

[richrf]

I don't think you should be worried about losing traffic in the short term. With such a generic name, have you thought about the lowest common denominator? TV-style funny videos, etc?

Aside from Search.com, you're sitting on possibly the most premium internet-content domain imaginable. I want to add that I think it's worth more than Seniors.com

* You should be targeting *every* demographic with this name

Are you interested in partnering with a developer?

Hi there Marck,

I agree that I shouldn't worry too much about losing traffic. It is quickly recovered if I do, so I do experiment with different types of content. Right now I was able to quadruple my traffic over the last couple of months due to certain types of viewer activity. But I am just at the beginning stages of understanding Internet traffic so I will definitely look into the concept of narrowing down the content type to something like TV-style funny videos. It would be interesting, as an experiment, to see what happens.

I would also agree that broadcasting (a la TV networks or Disney), is ultimately the best way to monetize a site, if the core demographics are good. However, creating a broadcasting concept (e.g. Google) that is widely appealing, new, and competitive is tough. I think it takes some time to come up with a good concept.

Narrow-casting, (e.g. the cable channels), is a bit easier to achieve, though the rewards are not as great as broadcasters. Which is why I am thinking about which way may be better to go.

I have been working with a developer with a ad-share model, that strictly defines the nature of our partnership. I have worked with partnerships in the past, underneath a single corporate umbrella, and that was a disaster. So, I definitely am willing to work with developers, however, the partnership has to be one where boundaries are very well defined and it is easy to part company if the partnership does not go well. Sometimes it is easy to define such a partnership, other times not. It depends what each partner is looking for. An example would be when Google partners with Firefox.

Rich