Small Niche Sites Better For Advertisers

Anyone who has sat down with me in the last six months knows creating a St Louis Blog Ad network of sites is foremost on my mind. I truly believe that local search is going to be a big deal, and thus the growth of local blogs with small, committed audiences is going to be a big market for someone (might as well be me, eh?).

That progress has been impeded by traditional web advertising, where the number of eyeballs still dominates the discussion. Sites with less than a thousand unique visitors a day just aren't making much money, and with global search engine traffic, it is difficult to assess how many local readers a particular site has.

As advertisers get more savvy, they are starting to get that 100 committed eyeballs is better than 10,000 random web searches. As PPC campaigns fail for all but the most sophisticated online advertising companies (think Sony, Osh Kosh, high-end home improvement), advertisers will turn to the smaller, local business blogs for advertising. At least that's what I'm banking on.

Well, the first leak in the dam has sprung. eMarketer reports today that smaller, niche sites with less than a million monthly uniques do a better job holding the attention of readers than sites with higher traffic.

Interest in the products and brands advertised on smaller sites is greater than on larger sites: According to the study, 42% of sites with less than one million unique visitors a month advertise products of interest to their viewers, vs. 39% of sites with more than one million visitors.

This is just a small percentage, and it still applies in amounts much larger than all but a handful of blogs receive (local blogs are still in the 100-1000 range), but the recognition is what is important. What would a handful of local blogs do for advertising traffic to car dealers, retail stores, restaurants, hair salons, and employment? If you're looking to advertise locally, do you pick a site that has your home city in the name, or do you shoot for the entire web?

What makes more sense? Niche sites are a long way off from grabbing market share, but with real estate communities making the charge, and more business bloggers focusing on their local market, I see a profitable niche, for local niches.

By the way, y'all know I write StlRecruiting.com, where I help chronicle local business blogs for St Louis, right?