Waterfront Media Snaps Up Netramind for In-House SEO

Waterfront Media Snaps Up Netramind for In-House SEO

by Tameka Kee, Tuesday, Jun 10, 2008 9:01 AM ET

Waterfront Media, parent company of Everyday Health, has picked up
Netramind, a search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine
marketing (SEM) firm. It's the online media company's second acquisition
in its quest to better monetize traffic to the 20 health-focused
properties within its Everyday Health network--the first being its
pickup of My-Calorie-Counter.com in 2007.

Although terms were not disclosed, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Netramind's
search technology and accompanying staff will be integrated into
Waterfront. The deal also creates Waterfront's first overseas hub, as
Netramind has a satellite office in Mumbai, India. Ani Kortikar, the
firm's co-founder and CEO, will join the Waterfront team as vice
president of search technology.

According to Ben Wolin, CEO and co-founder of Waterfront Media, the
rationale for building out the company's search practice through
acquisition (as opposed to simply hiring a search firm) was simple.
"We'd outsourced that function in the past, but couldn't pass up the
opportunity to bring in a team of more than 25 people to focus 100% on
our site," Wolin said. "To be able to build up the expertise and
competency internally instead of working in a client/agency relationship
was clearly a more valuable proposition."

Wolin said that in time, Waterfront would also apply the team's SEO
services to partner sites within the Everyday Health network, like the
official South Beach Diet site and Meredith's Diabetic Living magazine.
But the first order of business will be to start optimizing keyword and
content structures on the more than 300,000 pages of content on
Waterfront's flagship site, www.EverydayHealth.com.

With nearly 15 million monthly uniques, Everyday Health is the second
most heavily trafficked health Web site according to comScore, behind
only WebMD. But in an increasingly crowded market of properties like
Time Inc.'s newly relaunched Health.com and MSN Health, fighting for a
share of the health-conscious consumer's eyeballs (and the related ad
dollars) has become more challenging. Wolin said that having an in-house
SEO squad was just one more way for the Everyday Health network to
separate itself from the pack.