Advice for developing LeamingtonSpa.com

[tomh]

Hi,

I just bought LeamingtonSpa.com and would really value any advice from veterans about developing a geo-site based on the name.

FYI: Leamington Spa is a cute UK market town with a 45,000 population.

What I really need is a timeline and list of realistic goals to work through. I would like the site to be financially viable. And so am very interested in advice on buying the correct mailing, advertising and listing modules at the start.

But the main reason I am doing it is because I was born in Leamington Spa, and still have some family there and plan on popping back for the odd content-getting mission with my nieces and nephews.

I would like to build the site in Joomla! (since I have been learing Joomnla! for a couple of month now). But if anyone knows of a better system for geo-domains I am all ears.

thanks in advance

tom

[beyond.domaining]

Tom - you have lots of different options... you could poke around dnforum for a firm / person to develop a site for you, you could use an outsourcing marketplace such as odesk or elance, or you could do it yourself. if you decide to do it yourself, you could use a CMS such as Joomla or Drupal or WordPress. There is a little bit of a learning curve though if you plan on doing it yourself. We offer a step by step illustrated guidebook that shows how to launch sites on our own for people that want to do it themselves. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.

[4u-domains]

Great domain. You cannot go wrong with niche geo domains like this.

The first key is content, the second being marketing.

I had a decent town domain and my idea was like this:

Decide what you want to show on the site.

I rapidly realised that business was key so I needed a way for Businesses to showcase their business. I offered a free business directory listing service with premium paid featured business spots.

I added general content about the town, the kind of content a web visitor and place visitor would want to know about:

History
Location - How to get there
Shopping
restaurants
Leisure
Hotels and B&B
Schooling
Tourism and major attractions

All of these can be added as separate pages/categories ona Joomla site.
Add a load of relevant pictures.

To make money, you will need to start raising your prices as traffic builds up and you think you can get way with charging more for Ads.
Businesses that specifically serve the local community are very receptive to this sort of thing and happy to help out a new site. If you can get £25 to £50 a month for a decent home page Ad then its a good start. B&Bs seem to love this sort of thing as they just dont have the budget to use the usual marketing facilities to compete with the big boys.

Marketing wise, you will need to phone, drop by or mail ALL companies in the area, think about local sponsorship of events (kids soccer shirt sponsor, local fetes and other events). This gets the name around the community and people will soon start coming to you.

You should think about contacting the local Tourist Information Office and outline your plans. They will likely help you out with info and contacts and wont look at you as competition or just somebody out to make money, being a local person.