Sagging economy helps financial news shops

Press coverage and Web traffic on the rise for financial news experts

Remember the adage about the world beating a path to your door if you build a better mousetrap? Financial news firms are finding it to be true: The weak economy has consumers, and business owners and managers scrambling for reliable information and tips.

How much is traffic up? A spokesperson for MSN Money told Ragan.com that traffic in September of this year was up more than 30 percent from the prior year, with daily visitors, editorial page views and blog hits setting an all-time high. Time spent on each page within the site was up 20 percent—about double what it was at this time last year.

Meanwhile, BankRate.com reported that its page views rose by 12 million, or 9 percent, during the second quarter, with 148 million individual hits. That continued in the third quarter.

“Given the craziness and uncertainty in the market, we’ve seen terrific levels of traffic at BankRate and the other sites that we own,” BankRate CEO Tom Evans told analysts on a conference call last week. “Traffic for September in particular has been strong.”

Credibility counts