About.com Making B2B Push

First on WebNewser: About.com is planning a major move into the business-to-business space, launching a number of industry-specific sites.

Right now the site is in the process of recruiting experienced writers with expertise in areas such as public transportation, the food and beverage industry, logging and ecommerce, among other topics. The goal is for the writers of these sites to be experts in their industries.

Once the sites are staffed up, About.com will promote the new B2B sites via a marketing campaign, likely towards the end of 2010. The current lineup of B2B sites can be viewed from a dedicated landing page, and new sites will be added when they go live.

Why expand into the B2B market?

Maya Avrasin, the B2B editor at About.com, says that it is all about appealing to niche-butfocused-audiences.

“We evaluated the landscape and found that it was really underserved online,” she tells WebNewser.

Many trade publications have gone under due to the financial collapse. While some industries have successful online business coverage, others may be underserved.

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