Geo’s Update

Finally coming out of hibernation I expect things for the geo sites to start picking up this and next month.

Last summer I secured a whole bunch of domains that were geo located around each other, some of which are listed on http://www.westofscotland.co.uk/about.html and include the likes of Ayr, Arran and Largs

So with a fairly decent set of towns the plan was and still is to create a physical local guide to Ayr which is the largest of the towns, time has dictated that it will be next year before I launch it however I have the cover designed and database worked on with 600 local businesses and around 100 accommodation entries, a licensed map, local places of interest info and calendar. So the physical guide will get worked on and completed late this year when everything else is quieter, it’s more work to put together than I thought it would be, the guide will be available from the local train station and bus station who agreed to display them as long as they are free, the plan is to sell the advertising space on it to fund it all and work closely with the website, I’ve seen it done to great effect elsewhere.

The sites on the town domains have been ageing a good bit since June ’09 and around 11 of them are in the top 10 in Google.co.uk which puts them more in the limelight and some more still to be put up.

Enquiries have started coming in again, the only thing I really need to work on is pricing as it appears I charged one person £100 per year and then the next one £60 per year, I like £60 per year for an accommodation listing as it offers a decent bit of cash to me that builds up and shouldn’t be hard to recoup for a B&B etc on a top ranking site. Since I have started I have secured about £2000 worth of yearly listings, on top of that one of the sites I bought was already an established geo site with around £5k a year in advertising. That’s all been done through the winter which is a harder sell, the next 2-3 months I’d like to see a lot more enquiries coming in and I don’t plan on doing the chasing this time, should be a good year for the geo set and really turn them into a small business.

About Scott Jones

Scott hails from the north east of Scotland and started earning online at the end of 2000 building websites for local businesses during which time he won an award from Lord Alan Sugar for Excellence in Enterprise. After having quite a bit of success with domaining Scott mainly runs educational evergreen websites which generate over 3 million visitors per month but is always on the lookout for a fresh thinking out of the box way to turn a buck. Follow on Twitter.

Comments

  1. Sounds like a lot of work is going into those sites, but I’m sure the end result will be worth it. I’m quite interested in the idea of printing a physical guide - real world promotion is something that I have an interest in, and I think its an often overlooked way to promote websites.

    Do you think you have much on going maintenance to do on these sites?

  2. Thanks for the update Scott. Always good to hear how the geos are going.

  3. Will be interesting to see how these pan out ovr the summer as from previous posts here, you have been putting the work in.
    A friend of mine started going on about getting a website for the area she lives in here in Tenerife and I went through the basics - URL structure based on keyword research, basic area info, hotels, apartment rentals, things to see and do, how to set up affiliate links or sell apartment rental ads etc and it was only when I was doing it for someone else I thought - well actually I should be doing these myself, I have the knowledge of these areas (I live her) and the basic know-how so why am I telling someone else how its done???
    I must try and get a local site up and running this year - nothing stopping me except my own excuses and it seems a whole lot easier than a lot of the projects I am working on as I know the content inside out.
    Perhaps this post will serve as a good wake up call and get me working on something I am familiar with again rather than banging away at subjects where I havent got a clue!

  4. Too many people try to make money online without putting in the effort. This just goes to show that a professional attitude and original thought is still alive and kicking in this industry

  5. Great idea! I agree that this is a little bit hard to do and it seems a lot of work, but:

    1. I think the hard work is required at the beginning only. So, now, it should become easier.
    2. Since your ranking with Google is getting better, this means more money and less work.

    So, overall, I think the idea is really sweet.

  6. Any updates on this please .. I have the same type of thing going on and would really love to hear how you got on in the last 5 months or so

    • I’d love to hear any developments from Scott or anyone else working on the same sort of projects.

      I’ve recently added an affiliate hotels feed to my site and had a few bookings so if you have a site with accommodation listings it’s worth considering.

  7. Well, so far those three websites for Ayr, Arran and Largs are looking really pheonomenal, I reall ylike the theme you’ve laid out as well as the banner designs on all those 3 sites! Should be sweet to look back at this one year later and to see how its progressed 😀

    Till then,

    Jean

  8. Hi Scott, really interesting post. I have several geo domains in development mostly .org.uk’s. Do you think .org.uk’s put a potential advertiser off or do you think their only consideration is the position of the site in SERPs? Also, do you outsource all content at the outset and ongoing and if yes what sort of cost is it to maintain each site with minimal involvement from yourself? Finally, do you host your cluster of geo sites with the same host? Alex

  9. I cluster them hosting wise yes, no problem with org.uk for advertisers especially if you can hold the top spot for the town. I outsource the content at the outset and leave it at that for now, I don;t make news sites as they are higher costing with low/hard returns, better a directory of B&B’s with some local info like Ullapool.co.uk

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