Value of inviting your local community in networking through a Town portal style website

I bought a town portal website in April last year, it was delivered as it appears now, my plan was and is to get the local Business community, which is large and diverse to advertise themselves and what they do, network and support the website, I do not want it to be a online business as such, but it need to be self supporting with some adsense or the like income. At the moment I do not find it as serviceable as I would like it to be. I will also place some ads on it to boost my businesses. the website is http://www.ekurhuleni-online.co.za, I would appreciate your input and views on the site specifically and the idea in general.
I have also started a "sister" social network site to which I would like to attract the local events, charities, fairs, arts and craft activities, people and general networking.

Tags: business, community, gauteng, networking, promote, support, za

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Permalink Reply by Mark Hultgren on February 24, 2009 at 10:04am: Hello Maria,
Nice looking site. First thing I saw (or actually didn't see) was the graphic for IBO. Had to hover over it to find out what it was.
As for ad revenues, have you looked into TextLinkAds?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Andrea of Internet-Creatives.com on February 25, 2009 at 9:44am: Hello there Maria,

Thank you so much for joining the 'Build a Better Business Website' group. I'm thrilled that you are a part of our team.

I took a good look through your website ekurhuleni-online.co.za, and these are my thoughts:

- Adding in advertising options is actually one of the easiest things to do with a website; there are myriad options out there, and you've already made a good start with your banner ads. Google AdSense is perhaps the next logical step.

- However, until the site is attractive and helpful enough to pull in a steady stream of visitors, you will be wasting your time dropping in those adverts. First and foremost you need a website that will bring in visitors!

- You chose quite a nice structure for the site, with a clean, clear layout and individual elements neatly boxed. This should make it easy for regular readers to return to their favourite sections of the site.

- I would suggest that you organise the content in such a way that it is easy to identify what is there and where to find it. At present it's very difficult to see what the site is offering me, as a visitor, to do, read or buy. More guidance is needed.

- I realise that this is a portal site so there are a number of different activities that I could be taking part in, but there is no introduction explaining any of this. I'd suggest that you create some explanatory text so that the reader knows exactly what you are offering and what they are receiving when they arrive. They will be asking themselves 'What In It For Me?' as they read through the first paragraph of text. Make sure that you answer that question as quickly as possible, or else they will click away within 7 seconds to check out the other 1,278,499 options Google gave them!

Take a look at this blog post I wrote for some more ideas in this area:

How to Create a "Stop 'Em In Their Tracks!" Home Page on Your Website

- Maybe you could consider pre-populating some of the 'Business Directory' and 'Ad Listing' fields with local companies. I realise you want them to pay to join, but this will be MUCH easier if you can say that you have an average of 500 visitors per month, say. At present I would imagine that your visitor numbers are very low, simply because there's nothing there for them to look at.

- Think of ways to entice both web visitors and advertisers to come and stay. Ask yourself, if I arrived at this site for the first time, why would I want to stay and network? And with whom would I be networking?

- Are you offering anything for free, that is genuinely helpful in meeting your visitors' daily needs (whether related to business or otherwise)? You have a lot of value-added material on your home page such as your 'Jokes' and 'Today's Picture' sections. But are those really helpful or significant to your clients? If they're not, then they shouldn't be there. Again, remember that when people arrive at your website their first question will always be 'What's In It For Me? How can I gain from spending time reading through these pages?' I realise I'm making you visitors sound quite selfish, but that's OK, because they are. We ALL are - it's human nature. I know that I do not spend longer than 10 seconds on any website that does not add value to my life or my knowledge bank. Even if I'm just in the mood for something frivolous like silly jokes, I want them to be the BEST silly jokes out there!

- You really need to consider ways to capture your visitors' email addresses. I would suggest offering them the option to join a newsletter. Take a look at these email newsletter companies for ideas. There are many others you can choose from; these happen to be my favourites and they both have free trials so you can try them out for a month or two beforehand.

iContact.com
ConstantContact.com

Finally, I think your business concept is great - that of building a local town portal and getting people together in cyberspace. With a little hard work on offering useful, valuable info for your readers, and building a spirit of community, this site could become a great success!

Good luck!

Andrea
CEO of Internet-Creatives.com - Websites for Entrepreneurs; ▶ Reply to This