Yahoo! (YHOO) is already the leader in financial website visitors and has a massive lead in page views with 606 million in December, more than double the next site, MSN Money (MSFT) at 274 million. But, Yahoo! wants to try to widen the lead.
The big web portal announced that it would open a personal finance website for retirement planning, household budgeting and other functions outside the realm of investing. The current Yahoo! Finance is used primarily for following investment markets and stocks.
The new site will pull content from on line sites like CNNMoney and Consumer reports and already has advertising commits from big marketers.
The significance of the move is two-fold. Other large portals would like to take away some of Yahoo! Finance’s share. But, more important for Yahoo!, which is being attacked by Wall St. for slowing growth, financial advertisers pay large premiums to reach investors and those with savings. These "eyeballs" have more value than the typical Yahoo! customer looking for driving directions. If Yahoo! can up its finance audience, better ad revenue from a critical category should follow.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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