What to develop in 2013

[philiporchard]

Would be interested to know people's thoughts on what our next steps for monetising our network of geo sites - i.e Cardiff.co.uk?

We make currently make money from Google Adsense , so we could aim to increase page impressions by adding extra pages from:

1. Local News feeds
2. Community Forum
3. Mashup of local property pages
4. Mashup of local jobs

We could add aditional revenue streams by integrating:
5. Deals feeds from Groupon etc.
6. Hotel feeds

Alternatively we could charge a fee to:
7. Advertise a property for sale
8. Advertise a Job
9. Advertise a motor/bike for sale.

What would be your top 4?
Thanks for your time

Phil

 

[DomainManagement]

HI phil i hope you dont mind me putting my 2p worth in

the answer i wanted to give was not listed

i think it would be good to reverse engineer local search to find out what people

are actually looking for , as when people search they have a need looking to be

solved , and the intent is higher on local search and conversations higher

so look at what there after and give it to them

yes we could spend all day discussing stuff , but this is where the meat is

. then you can be a great local lead generation machine too , yes i know its basic , but the best stuff normally is

wishing all the best in 2012 , but like you said its 2013 the big one

 

[philiporchard]

Thanks for that - something to strive for...

Also, I seem to have lost a year somewhere!

 

[retired_member34]

My sister really surprised me the other day by stating that all areas in London where she lives have very active forums used by most of the parents. She's not an early adopter by any means, but she says it was almost essential for her to use them. There is also the monster sheffieldforum with over 250k uv per month!

The problem for me though is that they suffer empty restaurant syndrome even more than most sites, and so would take a large amount of work to seed and develop in the early stages, then a large amount of moderation later when busy. A lack of local knowledge is also a hindrance, it's not a problem that I have an answer for

 

[namealot]

For cardiff I get an error with i.e 8 and firefox for car searches bike etc
“Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManagerParserErrorException: The message received from the server could not be parsed. Common causes for this error are when the response is modified by calls to Response.Write(), response filters, HttpModules, or server trace is enabled.

Details: Error parsing near '"javascript:setTimeout('__doPostBack(\'c'.”

Your property searches and jobs return no results it might be something my end.

With geo’s my biggest problem is making enough revenue, Most locations already have established other sorts? (Traditional paper type that have there own sites etc) If offering the same as them it’s hard? …. you can take there most profitable areas and do them cheaper or offer something they don’t...

Toyed with different sorts, Property sales found it hard to convince them not to use the big established players… Rentals is easier in some areas they go quick, Thought of a option for lower rate to advertise they then go into a member ‘s area for say day, week etc then they go into general viewing…. Public pay for the chance to see them sooner gold, silver, bronze etc this can also run out with general for sale items, vouchers etc, Also “sell it now” type were they pay to list for 1 2 3 etc hours, Even a reverse auction type list day one selling price £10 day to £9 etc, Also the everything free and make the money from advertisers all though have there good and bad points… Although geo's should be a natural for the net to make £ they seam to be a bit of a bugger..

 

[boxfish]

Not a direct monetisation method but something that should really help with the website as a whole. Get some decent links.

Interview some local businesses/groups/charities - publish a feature and ask them to link from their website to help promote it.

Hire a student photographer to take some pictures of the local area - set up a gallery on the site saying images are free to use but they must credit you with a link.

EDIT: Sorry, I scanned http://cardiff.co.uk, not www.cardiff.co.uk - the www. version seems to have some links.

You could do to 301 one to the other.

 

[julian]

Good luck Phil but what if your adsense gets pulled - where would main rev be then?

 

[wb]

Add news regularly, although this would really need to be unique and fresh rather than someone else's feed otherwise there is no true advantage for visitors (apologies if this is what you meant).

News will build up loyalty with visitors and allow you to branch off into other areas, ultimately becoming less reliant on Google or other search engines in the long term. I'm sure there would be some local journalism students happy to contibute just to give themselves some exposure if nothing else?

If that all sounds like too much work though, just sell me my local city instead.

 

[philiporchard]

Not a direct monetisation method but something that should really help with the website as a whole. Get some decent links.

Interview some local businesses/groups/charities - publish a feature and ask them to link from their website to help promote it.

Hire a student photographer to take some pictures of the local area - set up a gallery on the site saying images are free to use but they must credit you with a link.

EDIT: Sorry, I scanned http://cardiff.co.uk, not www.cardiff.co.uk - the www. version seems to have some links.

You could do to 301 one to the other.

Thanks for all the comments.

Building links has been high on the list for development this past year.

Now, when a business adds their business to the directory, they are encourage to add a link back. We probably get half dozen businesses linking to one of our sites every week. i.e today http://www.thinkit.uk.com/ added a link from their homepage.

Next year is the year to really look at new avenues apart from the business directory.

Not sure how easy it would be to get high quality news content being written and added to the sites... Any ideas for being able to pull this off successfully?

Some more votes would be helpful!