Most website owners focus on attracting traffic to their own websites, but the most powerful brand on the web, Google, does nothing but point to other people; hopefully to those you will find worthwhile checking out. Most bloggers, meanwhile, publish vast amounts of increasingly useful information for free. And increasingly, organisations are finding ways to profit from listening to those bloggers and pointing to them.  Stores, Brands Tap Into Power of Frugal Bloggers

When Melissa Garcia was frustrated by Old Navy's scanty coupon offerings, she didn't just complain to the store. She vented on a message board tied to her blog consumerqueen.com, which is read by at least 30,000 people each month and now, increasingly, by corporate America.

Within weeks, chatter in the so-called mommy blogosphere led Gap Inc.'s Old Navy to begin issuing coupons several times a week, instead of just once a week.

[...] But it's not just fellow moms who are following every post: Retailers and consumer product makers are listening, too -- and responding.

The blogger mums are pointing at others, and those people are point back instead of trying to 'harvest' traffic or eyeballs or users. The web is sustained by the gift of liniking to other people, pointing away from yourself to good or interesting things that others are doing. And it pays off.

"We see (moms who blog) as a vital force for our brand strategy," said Gap spokeswoman Louise Callagy. "They are the voice of our customers, and we are working harder to develop and maintain their trust and respond to their feedback."

After picking up chatter on blogs that was advocating layaway purchase plans be restored at its namesake department stores, Sears Holdings Corp. brought them back over the holidays after a two-decade hiatus. And Sears' Kmart chain now accepts online coupons and has launched a Web site called Kmart.com /coupons that makes it easier to find specific deals, in response to chatter on mother-oriented blogs.

[...] "Moms are turning to their new set of online friends and families to make all kinds of purchasing decisions," said Kelley Murray Skoloda, a partner at Ketchum's Global Brand Marketing practice and the author of "Too Busy to Shop." "Women are trusting of women bloggers. They do them a real service without commercial interest."

It is that lack of commercial interest that gives credibility, a reputation that must be carefully guarded and almost literally cannot be cashed in on.

That's why last summer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. created an online community -elevenmoms.com -- on its company Web site that spotlights key women bloggers and pulls together the links to their blogs, including those that focus on frugality like dealseekingmom.com, couponcravings.com, beingfrugal.com and consumerqueen.com.

If even the most commercial organisations like WalMart spend resoruces not trying to capture users but to send them to someone else, there is a case for makign sure that your website points to the best resources you can find, wherever they are.

Website may be less like magazines or TV stations than signposts that get their value from telling us how to get to other places and how far away they are.

How's it going on your site? Comments please.

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