Question about local websites

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lukeevans

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I want to set up a website for a local city, (small city, more like a town)

And I would like to charge for the local business listings, IE pizza, barbershops, ect..

But what would be the best way to turn the local business' into paid listings? I plan on doing a local press release in the paper, as well as send letters to the business' and possibly do cold calls. I'm not sure what to charge either, $50? $100? $150? Also what other services should I offer?
 
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I think if your wanting to make a general business directory, yellow pages has ya beat there.

I would recommend going more niche and offering a massive amount of services/features.

I've been developing something very similar to this, what I'm making is a food delivery directory and making great looking seo'd-websites for my clients with an online ordering system as well.

Cold calling sucks. Use that as a last resort.

My recommendation for marketing your directory:
1. Put your money where your mouth is, seo your directory to the top of "(your city) restaurants" and send out letters to local businesses showing them that your ranked for that keyword with X amount of searches per month etc.
2. Always carry around business cards, in case you ever find yourself at a business that could turn into a client.
 
check out joomla and mosets tree and also SOBI component
 
use "cookie stuffing" methods to have massive traffic on your website, after that insert on your site a very good stats about your traffic.. should work to start your sell's
 
lokiceo said:
I think if your wanting to make a general business directory, yellow pages has ya beat there.

I would recommend going more niche and offering a massive amount of services/features.

I've been developing something very similar to this, what I'm making is a food delivery directory and making great looking seo'd-websites for my clients with an online ordering system as well.

Cold calling sucks. Use that as a last resort.

My recommendation for marketing your directory:
1. Put your money where your mouth is, seo your directory to the top of "(your city) restaurants" and send out letters to local businesses showing them that your ranked for that keyword with X amount of searches per month etc.
2. Always carry around business cards, in case you ever find yourself at a business that could turn into a client.
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Thanks for the info, but isn't yellow pages pretty expensive?
 
Thanks for the info, but isn't yellow pages pretty expensive?
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Yellowpages is typically pretty low cost for the return it gives with featured listings.

You really don't want to be focusing on beating them at pricing, as they are the dominant force in the directory market and their perceived value is much higher either way.

Again, go niche and focus on features that those businesses in your niche would want.
 
Thanks, what about one website and then individual pages ranking for a keyword?
 
If you are going to do this I would advise about going the route of having different pages for each business and also have lots of articles and reviews. With sites like this I find the old adage of content and backlinks will win the day.

These sites can be more work than you ever thought but can also return a lot if done carefully.
 
jimbobo2779 said:
If you are going to do this I would advise about going the route of having different pages for each business and also have lots of articles and reviews. With sites like this I find the old adage of content and backlinks will win the day.

These sites can be more work than you ever thought but can also return a lot if done carefully.
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Exactly.. I own a new local blog with just 16 articles and I can see around 20,000 pageviews per month with NO promotion or any effort.. just sticked few articles and tested it.. gladly things worked!

And now I will be planning to outsource articles.. create forum and do hell lot of promotions in a couple of weeks .. I am sure local niche works the best if done carefully!! My local blog is about education,shop reviews,cafe reviews and much more free useful content :)
 
Alright thanks

And on the articles, do you review the local business'? or Big time corps? Also siddd mind pming me the link to your blog?
 
don't even bother contacting the businesses unless you have traffic. the thing about local businesses especially in a small town is that they just don't advertise online. most of them don't even have websites.

that might be something you can do though. give them a package deal of a website plus a listing, but if you do just a listing that would be a hard sell.

you'll also make a lot more money if you sell a website package. maybe sell them a website as a subscription. most small businesses are cheap and don't like to pay upfront costs, so if you offer to provide and host a website for them for $20/month, then they would probably go for that, because they think of it as $20 and they think they can cancel whenever they want. in reality, people generally don't cancel stuff once it starts billing.

once you have users, you can start collecting email addresses and do email promotions for the businesses you work with. people always want coupons, so they won't mind being on your list. of course you charge the businesses for the service. this is something they're used to doing (paying coupon distributors), so they won't be resistant.
 
>Put your money where your mouth is, seo your directory to the top of "(your city) restaurants" and send out letters to local businesses showing them that your ranked for that keyword with X amount of searches per month etc.

I think this is the key. I have a few local sites- and mainly have been contacted by busineses who've searched the name of their own business and seen my site on top of Google. Get there, and you really have something to talk about with them.
 
<rant>

i know a guy here in town who is selling image/logo links to restaurant owners for $500 for 6 months... and these stupid people are paying... and why... he tells them to lookup his site on google... like the whole frigging domain which is restaurant related including the .com

of course it comes up no #1 you stupid restaurant owners thats his frigging domain name your seaarching for!!!! ggrrrrrrr - they dont bother how many people actually search for his domain... big fat zero... cos no one knows what the hell it is.... grrrrrrrr it annoys the shit out of me that does!!!

that just highlights how un-web savvy a lot of people are... thats the hardest part educating these people....

business owners still think they need just need a website, they dont even realize it needs to be optimized and positioned highly in the search engines...

</rant>

the guys convinced hes number one for the name of his domain... if you seperate the domain and remove the .com he doesnt make top 100 results...

whos the stupid one though - hes making money at this....

i could do the same but i really couldnt knowingly scam people like that...

to try and optimize for his key term is a waste of time as the market is saturated...
 
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>the guys convinced hes number one for the name of his domain... if you seperate the domain and remove the .com he doesnt make top 100 results...

LOL. Thats the fine line in IM; where do you draw the line. Ultimately, you have to look yourself in the mirror in the morning.
 
ukescuba said:
of course it comes up no #1 you stupid restaurant owners thats his frigging domain name your seaarching for!!!! ggrrrrrrr - they dont bother how many people actually search for his domain... big fat zero... cos no one knows what the hell it is.... grrrrrrrr it annoys the shit out of me that does!!!
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Jeezus!

Are you sure this is true? Well of course is must be else you wouldn't be pissed!

Well jeez, I find that quite unbelievable. I wouldn't sell people a service like that. Jeez. People can be really that ignorant of web marketing? Jeezus.
 
kaliyuga said:
Jeezus!

Are you sure this is true? Well of course is must be else you wouldn't be pissed!

Well jeez, I find that quite unbelievable. I wouldn't sell people a service like that. Jeez. People can be really that ignorant of web marketing? Jeezus.
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i swear on my moms life this is true - hence why it rattles me each and every time i think about it!

the hardest part of marketing SEO i find is that people still think they are SEO experts by stuffing the keyword meta tag full of keywords, or they think theier 10yo nephew can build a site that will get them there...

educating them and making them believe your not ripping them off is the biggest hurdle right now, even with proven results to show them... plus no ones got any frigging money or so they say.... what they dont realize right now is in this economy they HAVE to be at the top of the search engines... if they arent their competitors are... nuff said....
 
Saw a great post regarding local biz directory on WF. Search thread started by vladi. Cheers.
 
Thanks for the input on this thread

Can someone locate this e-book? "Hidden Cash Formula "
 
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