Offline/Online Method with GREAT potential!!!...NEED ADVICE

alright this is a offfline idea I recently thought of, and wanted to get BHW advice on the method before i take action.

Create a website using your local hometown name and the word "biz" as webdomain. Such as "NewOrleansbiz.com" . On this website you will list local businesses that are located in the city you chose for the webdomain. I plan to outsource the webstie creation....

Businesses can be categorized from Restaurants/Construction/AC/Heating Services/ Music Lessons/ Gym/Fitness Centers, however you want. In each listing you can describe the business and provide a little information about each business ex: menus for restaurants etc....

Within the website for each business you can locate a section for normal people to rate each business with a star system or leave comments. The better the business the better the rating the more people with recognize the business as a good place to spend their money

You can generate traffic and reviews for the website through SEO or utilizing Social Media facebook etc...... you can offer giveaways for people who visit the site and give reviews about the business etc.....


One you get your traffic up and people are coming to the site you can offer local advertising on the home page of the site. Utilizing Google Analytics to show the business owner how many people have been looking at your site!!!

Business owners spend hundreds of thousands for dollars to advertise on a billboard in which they have no clue if someone even looks at!!!!

With Google Analytics you can show them the traffic to your site and prove that paying for a banner on your site it worth it!!!


You can also charge each business a membership fee of $99 per month to ensure that their specific profile on the site has special features, such a promotions, specials, more info about the business, a link to their webstie, phone numbe etc....

My local town has over 10,000 businesses!!!! if you get a fraction of that (maybe 200-300) at $99 per month thats around $20,000 per month income.


YOU SELL BY CREATING TRAFFIC TO YOU SITE AND PROVING THAT THIS SITE IS WAYYYY BETTER THAN A BILLBOARD OR THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER

LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THINK AND GIVE ADVICE IF YOU THINK THIS WOULD WORK.

I don't think it works, wanna hear other ideas

Why dont you think?

think it could work, if you could generate the right traffic, and sell this to a buisness owner. I mean for businesses that spend thouands of dollars on a billboard and have no idea who looks at it. Put if you show them people who are going to the site it will sell itself!!!

It may take a while, but everyone in that local town will go to your website to look at a buisness before spend money there!!!!

Sounds like you put a lot of thinking into this. It works, there's a website in my city that does the exact same thing and has a decent volume of traffic. It works like any thing else if you dedicate the time to make it work.

solawatches said:

I don't think it works, wanna hear other ideas

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Wow, did you even read the post, or are you just here to take a dump on solid ideas? This is the idea they had; if you can't see its potential, either explain exactly why and suggest a tweak to help it, or find another thread.

This is a classic idea -- nothing new -- BUT it's refreshingly *simple* in that it's pretty cut and dry and will never be oversaturated, unless you go around telling everyone in your city how to do it, of course.

If you've got the chops to keep traffic coming in and can stay on-top of sending out monthly or bi-monthly reports to each biz, definitely go for it.

can you tell me the website so i can compare my idea to this, or PM the site i would really appreciate it!!!!

These things are called local business directories. Search "<City> business directory" on Google/Bing/Yahoo and you will find thousands of them.

Someone wrote up a detailed 'method' style post a few years ago about how to create and promote one. You might have to do some digging, it was a long long time ago.

There are WP plugins that automate the creation of one of these things now. Install WP, add the plugin, then just fill in the site with your local business info.

This plugin is a popular one.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/business-directory-plugin/
http://businessdirectoryplugin.com/features/

Many years ago I used to work for a guy who thought it was a good idea to create one of these. He put it together with some paid CMS, way before wordpress had a wide array of plugins like it does now. Populated it with local businesses. Did cold calls to get local biz owners to buy a sponsored listing. He ended up selling the site for a nice sum.

thanks for the help!!! do you think i should start and target a niche like resturants or Dentist or Lawyers first? or just try to take on the entire town?

It's up to you personally. There's no reason you can't do both. Dominate a city, and dominate local niche(s).

If you're good at SEO, go for niche. Dentist, lawyer, etc. Below is picture of good niches to try this with. It's a list of businesses whose average invoice is over $1000..



Selling these biz owners sponsored positions would mean a lot of money per lead for you...compared to lets say dog walkers or restaurants.
Just do your research -- be sure there is enough local search volume to justify making a site for it, and be sure there are several people in the niche you could send a proposal to. For instance don't make a site for "honolulu equestrian centers" if there's no demand for it

I would find a great local biz directory and copy it in a different, unique style.

in my country few big giants are already doing it, they have hired some big celebrity as their brand ambassador and advertising with tv advertisement.

for example justdial.com