Food site growing with addition of produce columnist
Food site growing with addition of produce columnist
Sausalito, CA-based Barbara Adams has toiled away building her food web site BeyondWonderful.com since launching it in September 2004. Only recently has it started reaching critical mass, growing dramatically with a broader audience.
BeyondWonderful.com delivers information and perspective largely from the San Francisco Bay area on farms, markets, vineyards and beyond, all leading finally to the kitchen.
"[The web site] has been growing by leaps and bounds within the last two months," Ms. Adams said. "It's a small site that's doubling every three or four days. I credit that to the experts."
The experts to which Ms. Adams refers are the four columnists covering the separate areas of baking, cheese, produce and wine, as well as a guest chef columnist. The produce column is written by Dan Avakian, a 30-year veteran of the California fresh produce industry who has had much prior exposure, including co-hosting the former nationally syndicated radio show "Produce Pair." In May he took over ownership of the market where he got his start in the business: Dan's Fresh Produce is located in Alameda, CA.
Ms. Adams credited Mr. Avakian's columns for helping draw traffic to the web site.
Mr. Avakian joined the site in late spring, but a press release announcing his presence only was sent out Oct. 17. Since then, Mr. Avakian's columns have drawn more than 60,000 reads, Ms. Adams said.
The web site also has grown dramatically by Ms. Adams' efforts to optimize the site by using search engine-friendly vehicles that get the site picked up by search engine web crawlers.
The site has nearly reached the critical mass that will justify attracting advertisers, said Ms. Adams, who plans to add a web community component in early 2007.
BeyondWonderful.com delivers information and perspective largely from the San Francisco Bay area on farms, markets, vineyards and beyond, all leading finally to the kitchen.
"[The web site] has been growing by leaps and bounds within the last two months," Ms. Adams said. "It's a small site that's doubling every three or four days. I credit that to the experts."
The experts to which Ms. Adams refers are the four columnists covering the separate areas of baking, cheese, produce and wine, as well as a guest chef columnist. The produce column is written by Dan Avakian, a 30-year veteran of the California fresh produce industry who has had much prior exposure, including co-hosting the former nationally syndicated radio show "Produce Pair." In May he took over ownership of the market where he got his start in the business: Dan's Fresh Produce is located in Alameda, CA.
Ms. Adams credited Mr. Avakian's columns for helping draw traffic to the web site.
Mr. Avakian joined the site in late spring, but a press release announcing his presence only was sent out Oct. 17. Since then, Mr. Avakian's columns have drawn more than 60,000 reads, Ms. Adams said.
The web site also has grown dramatically by Ms. Adams' efforts to optimize the site by using search engine-friendly vehicles that get the site picked up by search engine web crawlers.
The site has nearly reached the critical mass that will justify attracting advertisers, said Ms. Adams, who plans to add a web community component in early 2007.
