Tell Us: What City, What Domain and Why?

[JamesDavid]

This thread has been started for PHPCityPortal Franchisees to tell us What City did you choose to promote, what domain did you use and why? I will go first.

Bradley & Bourbonnais IL using domain BradleyBourbonnais|dot|com. I choose the name because this two towns share a park district, youth sports leagues, a high school etc. The total population is over 30K with alot of commercial/business/industry.

I also live in Bourbonnias which makes it an ideal town to serve by putting up and promoting the portal.

JamesDavid

[shuswapbc]

We chose the town of salmon arm, which is has a trading population of around 40,000. Named it shuswapbc.ca as Shuswap Lake is the focal point for the area. A total tourist town with a large number of year round residents, very close knit business community. As i live in salmon arm, and very involved in community and businesses in the area, opening a city portal here was a no brainer!!!!!!!

Your more the welcome to look at the site http://www.shuswapbc.ca/ still working bugs out of the system and building a data base.

[JamesDavid]

shuswapbc,

I agree if someone is involved in the community having one of these sites in a no-brainer. It allows you to affordably give something to the community and once the site is rockin and well known it is the perfect outlet for one to use to reach said community.

Looking forward to seeing your banners!!

Also when you say building a database, what are you actually doing? j/w

Thanks
JamesDavid

Also I would put yoru site in your signature....

[rexpco]

I chose this area which I grew up in Tampa Bay Florida,

Tampa Bay encompasses several counties which have population of about 4-6 million people. Not small scale population wise but much competition.

Do it different and do it better distances you from competition. I wanted to start a medium where I could advertise my businesses and profit from others who want effective advertisement. Buy local, keep money local , and your local economy will be strong. Kinda like an advertising Co-Op where we can do mass mailings cheaper together....

I get asked everyday to refer customers to competent service people, Air Conditioning, Pest Control, Maid Services, Auto Repair, Lawn Services, Roofers etc will be my main focus to advertise on my site.

Rex Wilkins

[JamesDavid]

I chose this area which I grew up in Tampa Bay Florida,

Tampa Bay encompasses several counties which have population of about 4-6 million people. Not small scale population wise but much competition.

Do it different and do it better distances you from competition. I wanted to start a medium where I could advertise my businesses and profit from others who want effective advertisement. Buy local, keep money local , and your local economy will be strong. Kinda like an advertising Co-Op where we can do mass mailings cheaper together....

I get asked everyday to refer customers to competent service people, Air Conditioning, Pest Control, Maid Services, Auto Repair, Lawn Services, Roofers etc will be my main focus to advertise on my site.

Rex Wilkins

Rex,

What domain name will you be using for your site?

Thanks

[rexpco]

Rex,

What domain name will you be using for your site?

Thanks


At this point it's ServiceTampaBay.com (http://www.servicetampabay.com) , site isn't populated yet at this point but soon.

Thanks for the interest.

Rex Wilkins

[JamesDavid]

i cant wait start my own site

Zorg, Do you have a city/town in mind? We would love to hear about it.

[sceniccitytoday.com]

We are based in Chattanooga Tennessee. The city nickname is the Scenic City. I have resided in Chattanooga for 3 years and it was a logical starting point. I have several other domains reserved once I get this site operating and in the black

[kltoday]

I chose KLToday.ca for a small Northern Ontario community.

The site should be very popular once my advertising is in full swing as its a very close knit community with smaller towns around us within 20 minutes.

The domain name to me represents a Town "Authority" site almost sounding like the city news site.

I'm paying for ads in our towns brochures that are sent out to tourists buildings across N.America as Kirkland Lake,ON is a huge Hunting and Fishing territory as well as 4-Wheeling and Snowmobiling.

Can't see how the site doesn't grow quite large to be honest.

Either way it should be fun!

[arrowcom]

Metrodetroit, been here for years and got really lucky to buy the domain www.metrodetroit.com from the original owner who registered it in 1991.

Hey KL I lived in Englehart for two years 1970-71.

[arrowcom]

Starting a radio and roadsign campaign soon, giving away a new cadillac to the first 500,000 signups . Metrodetroit has 5 million peeps .

[Netman262]

I am starting up CheyennePortal. com in Cheyenne, WY.

I'm a transplant from Lost Wages, NV. I lived in Las Vegas most my life and just got sick of the quality of life (or lack there of). Cheyenne provides a much better place to live. I moved here back in 1997 and love it.

Anyway, I have a strong marketing background (Internet as well as traditional) and am currently developing an awesome business model with this city portal.

I will share it with everyone here as soon as I get it all written out if anyone is interested.

Here is an example of what I mean:

One thing I've noticed is that EVERY city portal that I've seen so far is incomplete and many of them are stale with the same content that does not change.

Don't take my word for it. Do some homework (if you haven't already) and look at your competition. Google your hometown and look for anyone that has a city portal/business directory and see if its complete. More than likely it isn't.

One of the worst things you can do is to have an incomplete business directory or city portal for that matter.

Think about it, if a visitor goes to your site looking for an auto dealer...and let's say they are looking for a Ford dealer. But you, the city portal owner/operator, have only been able to secure the Chevy dealer to pay to be on the city portal business directory, that is a disservice to the user.

Will that user be back to your site any time soon? Probably not.

So you could spend all kinds of money and effort promoting your portal but your visitor retention falls flat.

I have a solution for this and will spell it out soon.

Let me know if you have any specific questions that need to be addressed as I am writing this out and I will try to include it in the final version.


Mike Tipton
CheyennePortal

[JamesDavid]

Mike,

I am really looking forward to the ideas you plan on sharing. I think we can all help each other in that respect.

Thanks for the post Mike. any timeline on when your secrets will be shared?

[JohnnyD]

I had a different portal system for several years, but it was too costly to maintain, so I found this from PHPCityPortal and so far am very happy. I wanted to give my site the look and feel of a local paper, but in an electronic format and much less expensive for my clients to advertise on.:) If you go to my site and click the About Us you'll see my goal.

[Larry]

Virtual Networking Services, www.virtualnetworkingservices.com, is a rural and remote community broadband architect and systems integrator. As such, we empower communities with their own local information, and resources through technology. We are located in Maple Valley, Washington, and were in need of a community portal solution for our integrated back office and wireless network solution. We are establishing www.MapleValleyOnline.net as an exemplary portal solution.

[jilo]

I'm just about done building My Ashford [dot]com - it's a portal for my hometown. I chose the name because it is easy to remember, and it used to be developed (dropped, and I re-registered it.)

I chose Ashford (http://www.myashford.com), and not another city because:

It has a good population (around 140k)
It has been voted 4th best place to live in UK
It is rapidly growing
I live here, so promotion is easier

I just have to populate the directory, and the other modules.

I would add that using the coupons part of the site is definitely worth it. Start off by using retailmenot.com and find coupons for any stores that have branches near you. That will drive traffic to the site, and get people sharing the link.

[debug56]

I live in North Mississippi not far from Tennessee. My county is the fastest growing in the state and has 5 towns. Desoto County, MS. I chose whatshappeningdesoto.com because I thought it was something people coule remember. I promote it as anything and everything happening in Desoto County.

Our population is around 210k. My site has been live for about a month and the hits are picking up. I do have a facebook fan page that has been growing and I plan on adding the app to the site soon. I do have one competitor in my market that launched a few months before me but there name is very hard to remember so they have put a lot of money in local radio ads. I figure I will win in the long run because I have no overhead or advertising dollars going out the door.

They started pushing ads from day one and I started pushing content and traffic with more overall features.

[Xhris]

Mine was simple really. I live in Danville, KY. I chose www.danville411.com seeing I will be offering information for that city and the surrounding areas.

[123]

I'm just about done building My Ashford [dot]com - it's a portal for my hometown. I chose the name because it is easy to remember, and it used to be developed (dropped, and I re-registered it.)

IMO, "My" is one of the better brand types for geo. You'll notice that pretty much no My(City).com's - representing cities of decent size- are out there for hand reg and the major cities have their My(CityName) taken deep into other TLDs.

I actually own My(Hometown).com, reg'd in 2004 as a drop originally registered in 1998. So far, I'm pleased with this script and can envision eventually using it for that domain.