Hi. I'm very interested in this - thank you for sharing.
I like the clean, simple black/grey on white look. I expected the strident "Support local business" slab to link to something (either listings or an advertising contact form) rather than be dead space. Maybe add a simple favicon and encourage bookmarking ? I really like the scrolling album of (open source ?) photos, although I would possibly reduce its dominant size.
In general I have tended to make up for lack of my own content by linking to official sources like local councils and National Rail, and local/national tourist boards and English Heritage / National Trust (or local equivalents), plus greater use of the BBC. Is there a reason why you have taken the approach of building up manually through local relationships even when it means significant gaps in coverage to start with ?
I don't know enough about Cowbridge as a town to comment too much, but I wondered whether content should be influenced by larger nearby local towns or employers. Is it a commuter town for Bridgend or Cardiff or the nearby RAF station ? Do people tend to drive to Bridgend or Cardiff to catch trains for work or weekend days out ? In other words, would your visitors appreciate more content about nearby large towns/cities ?
The property link surprised me. I have tended to go for simple rightmove/findaproperty/nestoria/tepilio links that immediately display actual properties. The local agent links cement the local relationships but add another hop to find what the visitor wants. Does that work well ?
The events list looks good during the Summer with the Eisteddfod etc, but I would be nervous out of season that the only thing happening/displaying is weekly salsa lessons.
For the weather, a (welcome (in Kent)) bright yellow sun symbol seemed incongruous when the narrative merely said "Fair".
The t*lkc*v*r link seemed disproportionate considering the broader lack of overt advertising, but I now understand your reason for including it
I would only include /plumbers once you have one, while single entries for /electricians and /accountants look somewhat biased even if they are genuinely unconnected to you.
Clubs & Bars has zero entries - maybe wait until it is non-zero ?
Cars & Transport was unfulfilling because it didn't include travel news although it technically did what it said on the tin.
Strangely, Things To Do takes an eternity to respond.
The subcategories (eg Car Parking and Garaging) do not show the intermediate menu to which they belong : moving from there to Car Valet requires going back to Cars & Transport first.
Six items as the default on a listing feels too few.
Does the police station really operate on a mobile phone ?
What is the sort order on a category ? How come a bUilding Society called Yorkshire (the 25th letter of the alphabet) come ahead of banks like a bAnk called Barclays ?
Your linked-to web design business seems to be confused about its identity : treacle.ltd.uk or treaclewebdesign.co.uk ?
How frequently does the search refresh ? I'm genuinely confused about how this is implemented. Should it mention being powered by the big G or should the index be refreshed more frequently ? Why does searching for the most common surname beginning with S only show Sam but not W H (which is listed elsewhere in the Newsa* category) ?
I haven't quite got my head around your advertising model, but it looks good (subject to other comments).
Best wishes - as I said, this approach is VERY interesting to me
Regards,
David
