Checking out the competition!

It was an exciting couple of days after I'd first thought about the concept of entertain the kids.

But I was dreading the fact that I might find that someone else had already done it, and although I was a pretty intensive internet user, I just hadn't come across it yet.

So I decided that I needed to spend a few days just trawling the internet to see what else was out there.

I found that parenting websites tended to come under one of the following groups:

1. Home-made webpages. Usually set up by a US parent (Brits don't seem to have as many personal websites yet as the Americans do), containing their thoughts and ideas. Tended not to have any search functions, and very limited content, just one or two pages with a dozen or so ideas specific to a particular type of child. So if you are looking for something for a one year old boy, you might just find things that suit a 7 year old girl.

2. Portals/webrings - personally these sites drive me mad! They are just links and links to other sites for advice, health, shopping, reviews, and more portals! I just end up going round and round in circles and hardly ever come across any original content, and before I know it, I've spend an hour getting nowhere fast. Loads of pop-up ads and banners too, and you end up clicking on them aswell - usually by mistake!

3. Women's sites - these tend to be all things to all women! Really good sites with loads and loads of content, but often quite difficult to navigate, and you know what you want is there somewhere, but hard to find and often quite slow. Lots of advertising too.

But the fantastic news was that I'd not found anything that was as specific as I was thinking. This allowed me to refine my idea to the following USPs:

- quick to load
- no obtrusive banner ads or pop-ups
- excellent search facilities for age groups, location & type of activity
- keep focused. No advice, shopping or health pages.
- lots and lots of original ideas, so that if you search for a certain criteria, you'll get at least 10 different ideas returned

So that gave me the confidence to take it a bit further forward.

Now I just had to think about the costs and income a bit more.

If I wasn't having advertising on the site, how would it make money? And just how much does it cost to build a really good website and how much would the marketing cost to promote it?

The Strategic Business Plan starts to be written.....

Kirsty