• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 5, 2015

Investopedia, an IAC/InterActiveCorp company, has hired its first chief revenue officer, as well as the head of products, to build on an initiative that began earlier this year with the appointment of CEO David Siegel.

Scott Miller, Investopedia CRO, will shepherd the company through its next phase of growth as it expands its focus from basic to high-net worth investors and financial advisors, Siegel told Search Marketing Daily. Miller brings experience driving revenue for brands like Newsweek and Bloomberg Businessweek. The company has also hired Greg Fraser, head of products, who led digital initiatives at Google, American Express and MasterCard, among others.

As part of the strategy to become the premium destination for financial and investing news and information, Miller and Fraser will lead the charge to build out content -- articles, videos, tutorials, and tools to educate. Siegel realizes the company will compete with sites like Investor's Business Daily, and Seeking Alpha, among others, but traffic has grown significantly, more than tripling content production in the past year. The strategy drove up traffic by more than 30% to 18 million monthly unique visitors. "We have seen more growth in content during the first six months in 2015 than we did in all of 2014," Siegel said. "By Q4 we'll double or triple what we saw in Q1."

Investopedia focuses on educating consumers on investing, trading, personal finance, wealth management and more. In the next two years the site will double the amount of content produced in the previous 15, Siegel said. The company will have access to around 200 content creators who will produce an estimated 20,000 pieces this year -- up from 50,000 pieces in aggregate between 1999 and 2014, he estimates. The new strategy means expanding from producing articles and videos on the most basic information to very advanced technical tips. He believes that more sophisticated content will attract advanced thinkers and investors. 

To determine the type of content that site visitors want to read and view, Investopedia uses search terms through an in-house tool that takes into account several factors. One analyzes search terms on the site, while another plugs in to general search terms on Google and Bing. It factors in search terms and existing content to fill in the gaps on what's missing. Let's say there are thousands of articles across the Web on places to retire in Central America, but people are searching for retirement properties in Europe. The team of writers will focus on building content on topics that bridges the gap between the tons of articles on places to retire in Central America and the retirement properties in Europe.