Geo site

[doodlebug]

I have a town.com with a population of approx 18k, it's a big town with loads of businesses, if I setup a directory using the domain with main categories and sub categories and offered businesses the chance to have their own page with upto 5 photos and 500 words to describe the business and and info such as telephone number,address,email address,opening times,a link to their own site and a promo code if they want ?

They provide me with the photos etc and I create a page for them and link it to the appropiate sub category then how much should I charge for 1 years advertising ?

I was thinking a £20 setup fee and then £20 per year is this ok or should it be more or less ?

Thanks 8)

 

[Edwin]

Much more, unless you don't value your time at all! That's probably going to be 3-4 hours work per business, including the initial sale (you're going to have to pitch to a lot of companies to get 1 sale), making the pages, billing, etc. So that would only work out at £6/hour!

 

[doodlebug]

I guess I could charge more for the set up fee just don't want to put them off, I think the annual fee is ok as it will just be a simple directory.

Edwin you're an expert with generics do you think that because I am using townname.com it will encourage businesses to advertise ? I just thinking that if I had like Andysdirectory.com it wouldn't be as appealing as townname.com, do you think I am right ?

Many thanks 8)

 

[woopwoop]

I have a similar project and have been thinking of charging £9.95 per year to get things going. I'll need the listings quickly to fill up the directory and the fresh content will do my sites well.

Doodlebug check out this link:
http://www.chefpatrick.com/developing-a-geo-domain-part-1/

There are 5 parts to the article (if you don't find a link in the article to the next part, change part-1 in the url to part-2 etc.). It's an article which has been republished, nothing crazy groundbreaking, but it touches on a few ideas for geo domains and briefly compares geo issues/opportunities with generics. I read this article this morning.

I have a developed a few directories and started with geos (with directories). At the moment all the listings are free (I monetize through adsense). Take a look at a few of my sites:

Acton Town (directory home)
Glasgow Florists (How a florist listing looks)

I know the issue of time to publish a listing was brought up - the way I've handled it is that anyone can create a listing and all I do is approve it and by checking a box the title, logo, contact info, google map, description and photos are published to an SEO-friendly link.

I believe that there is probably a paypal script/api to have premium listings to generate yearly income from subscriptions.

But more recently I've been thinking of using an off the shelf script (or completely redesigning my own script) so that businesses have a control panel to login and update their listing and subscription level.

Types of software I've looked through:
http://www.edirectory.com
http://www.directorypress.net/
http://phpcityportal.com/demo/
*there are a few others that I researched - just can't remember their names or find them in Google - they were around $100 (will keep looking)

Check out these UK geo sites http://www.geowaremedia.co.uk/ - I forget who they belong to on Acorn, but their geo sites look great

I have a whole bunch of London geos that I want to develop this summer so let me know how your project goes.

I realized that I went off on a tangent here from the question of subscription prices, but would be interested if anyone has any software recommendations too as well as how much you would set the subscription package levels.

 

[doodlebug]

Woop woop > Excellent post and links, that Geoware one looks really good but eg, the Cardiff one says free listings for businesses :?

I think they belong to Phillip them nice UK geos

Many thanks for your help

 

[wb]

Yep, great post woopwoop (feel a bit like a spammer just writing that, but credit is due...)

 

[thecat]

This is quality! I was looking at using phpld but the skins for it just seem so restricted.

 

[woopwoop]

Thanks for the kind words about my post above.

I have always been looking for a good script and it seems that the thing to search in Google is "city portal script"

I have to add two resources that I missed before:
PHP City Portal ($149)
Demo Site: http://www.phpcityportal.com/demo/
Looks pretty decent but needs theme edits to make it look awesome

Local Engine ($6999 is a one-time license+setup fee. $3,000 is the annual hosting fee.
Demo: http://www.mybangalore.com
A truly awesome well designed website, with great use of APIs and feeds (but expensive)

 

[thecat]

That city portal looks pretty good. However it all looks very achievable for peanuts with drupal/wordpress.

 

[woopwoop]

That city portal looks pretty good. However it all looks very achievable for peanuts with drupal/wordpress.

And finding out how, is my mission.

I have very limited experience of Drupal, lots of experience with Wordpress, but am not sure if it would be easier outsourcing work like this. The LocalEngine script may even be based on Drupal/WP?! Who knows because even if I bought it, I don't get to see the code (only hosted solution).

But if you view the demo of the site the design is really nice and the feeds work very well.

Maybe I'll list a job on rentacoder...

 

[Oceanic]

I started out with a geo site using Joomla, you can see it here www.chichesterharbour.co.uk I am currently rebuilding in Wordpress this is much easier to get on with and I think a bit better for SEO.

 

[woopwoop]

Database error with your site so it isn't loading

 

[doodlebug]

Database error with your site so it isn't loading

I checked yesterday and it loaded slow, your post explains this, for what I did see it looks like Oceanic has put some work in.

I will probably have to pay £1000 + if I want a site :sad:

 

[Blossom]

Why? You can use WordPress as-is, all you need is a contact form page for submissions, a decent professional theme, and plenty of categories and nested pages.

 

[grantw]

I will probably have to pay £1000 + if I want a site :sad:

www.phpmydirectory.com is a dedicated directory script that will do exactly what you need for $99 without the need to p*ss around trying to make a blogging script do the opposite of what it was originally built for Have used it many times in the past myself and it's a steal at that price.

Some (paid) template examples here:

http://www.pmddemo.com/

Grant

 

[doodlebug]

Thanks for your replies, I have only ever used is a site creator, soon I am going to advertise for a cheap WP site, one that's already up and running and then I will play around with it.

 

[bensd]

Thanks for your replies, I have only ever used is a site creator, soon I am going to advertise for a cheap WP site, one that's already up and running and then I will play around with it.

Why pay for something just to test it mate?

If you want to forward one of your domains to my hosting I will install wordpress and you can have a play around with it for free

 

[Oceanic]

Hmmm not sure why the site is running so slow, I have pinged the hosting company about it.

I spent about £600 on my site with a dev company in the states, I am now going to rebuild in Wordpress myself as it is a lot lighter than Joomla.

 

[websaway]

I have a town.com with a population of approx 18k, it's a big town with loads of businesses, if I setup a directory using the domain with main categories and sub categories and offered businesses the chance to have their own page with upto 5 photos and 500 words to describe the business and and info such as telephone number,address,email address,opening times,a link to their own site and a promo code if they want ?

They provide me with the photos etc and I create a page for them and link it to the appropiate sub category then how much should I charge for 1 years advertising ?

I was thinking a £20 setup fee and then £20 per year is this ok or should it be more or less ?

Thanks 8)

The problem you have got with pricing is that 18,000 is a small population so not hard to rank for say place/hairdressers.
Now, when you get a paying customer you go on to your next customer and so on only to find out that next year your customers are falling off the other end because someones gone along and persuaded them to register placehairdressers.org.uk or hairdressersplace .org uk set them up there own site for x pounds and now they are ranked above you, there situation may not last but you've got to go back and sell it all over again. I'm not being negative, I am being realistic.
You soon see just how small 18,000 is and how big your work becomes.

 

[doodlebug]

In terms of SEO then maybe so but I would promote the site myself therefore gaining each business potential extra business and new customers, not everyone searches for place/service or place/product.

I will see what 2012 brings me ?