local website idea ... lookin for advice

leadsupplier

leadsupplier

New member
Aug 11, 2009
1,449
11
0
whats up everybody, so my hometown is pretty underdeveloped when it comes to websites, so i figure there are a few ways for me to capitalize on this.

my main thing is creating a site that lists all the types of bar specials in the area. There is nothing like this online but there is a weekly paper that comes out on wednesday and literally is just a huge advertisement. each page is just ad space for bars and local businesses/resturaunts. its horrible to look at since everyone formats their ad differently and also you have to go buy it.

so basically i want to make a site that lists all these bars on one website, and just pay them an advertising fee

the part im stuck on is to decide how much to charge. since i dont have any bars on teh site yet, i can't advertise it, and not advertising it means i get no visitors, therefore i have no leverage when going to bars and asking them for their money

so i'm wondering what the best way to go about this is ... has anyone done anything like this before?

i was thinking either go to bars first and ask them for like $30 to get listed or i was thinking to list the bars on there for free, advertise the site, then ask them for money after i get some traffic stats down...

advice?
 


leadsupplier said:
whats up everybody, so my hometown is pretty underdeveloped when it comes to websites, so i figure there are a few ways for me to capitalize on this.

my main thing is creating a site that lists all the types of bar specials in the area. There is nothing like this online but there is a weekly paper that comes out on wednesday and literally is just a huge advertisement. each page is just ad space for bars and local businesses/resturaunts. its horrible to look at since everyone formats their ad differently and also you have to go buy it.

so basically i want to make a site that lists all these bars on one website, and just pay them an advertising fee

the part im stuck on is to decide how much to charge. since i dont have any bars on teh site yet, i can't advertise it, and not advertising it means i get no visitors, therefore i have no leverage when going to bars and asking them for their money

so i'm wondering what the best way to go about this is ... has anyone done anything like this before?

i was thinking either go to bars first and ask them for like $30 to get listed or i was thinking to list the bars on there for free, advertise the site, then ask them for money after i get some traffic stats down...

advice?
Click to expand...

Go around to the local businesses, and give them all a free 1-month listing on your site.

You've got to setup some way to track visitors, so you can come back in a month and show them results. A special coupon visitors can print out would be a good start.

One month later, that's when you ask for the $30/month to keep the listing up. And keep at least one competitor up by default, that way you can let businesses know "bones bar down the road has a premium listing".
 
i dont know if a tracking thing would be the best tho, b/c i dont know how bar owners would feel about having customers come in w/ coupons for a free drink or somthing.

i was thiknking more like my main selling point would be to tell bar owners that my site gets xxxxxx hits a month and if your not on it then ur not advertising as effextiveliy as you could + all ur competitors are on there
 
leadsupplier said:
i dont know if a tracking thing would be the best tho, b/c i dont know how bar owners would feel about having customers come in w/ coupons for a free drink or somthing.

i was thiknking more like my main selling point would be to tell bar owners that my site gets xxxxxx hits a month and if your not on it then ur not advertising as effextiveliy as you could + all ur competitors are on there
Click to expand...

it doesn't have to be a free drink, it could be a percentage off the bill, $5 off a food purchase, etc...there are so many options, and you can discuss those with the owner.

When the bar gets a coupon, they know it came from your site, and they are seeing business from it.

But if it were me, and no site in your town has restaurants and other retailers covered...that's what I would go for...leave the bars alone, and go for the other businesses.
There are only so many bars, so your site will be limited to what you can make.
 
JMan1234 said:
But if it were me, and no site in your town has restaurants and other retailers covered...that's what I would go for...leave the bars alone, and go for the other businesses.
There are only so many bars, so your site will be limited to what you can make.
Click to expand...

This. Sounds like you live in a pretty small town. So let's say there's 20 bars/pubs. You're really limiting yourself to the maximum income you can earn here.

I would be creating something like a town portal, where you can advertise shit like local plumbing, lawyers, restaurants, pubs/clubs and other stuff. Put up local weather widgets, some local news snippets and sports etc and you can easily develop a repeat audience.
 
@leadsupplier This sounds like a good idea, but what area is this in? You don't have to give the exact city if you don't want to. I had the exact same idea a couple of years ago and when I actually got serious about it, another site came out in our area and already had a huge PR and was already successful in many other popular cities. I decided not to compete.

Keep us posted with what you decide to do and how it turns out.
 
why making it bars only?

make it THE place for your area, complete with directory of bars, restaurants, sushi or whatever.

Try banging on doors and offer some for free, get those online, then go around and offer for half price for a bit to fill it up some more.

(You might also be able to offer a sideline of you creating the banner ad too)

You'll probably have to throw a few free ones to get it rolling.

What were you thinking to use to develop this?
A premade software package or build yourself?

If no one is doing this in your area yet, its only a matter of time...

How will you make it more appealing that a directory only site?

Consider adding a forum to create a community?
Or offer a comment and rating system for visitors to rate/discuss?

If you can find some local people to write stuff on happenings in your town its going to make it more interesting for locals to return to the site, if they like the content.
(sometimes you can get them for free, or get a few articles on there to start and make an ad "write for us")

Or you make it a nightlife site, which is essentially bars n restaurants
Which might be a good way to go.
 
well in my area there are like 100+ bars .... the reason i was going w/ bars first was b/c i figured that would be popular to begin w/ and its easy for me to create a site for .. i already did just in HTML .. pretty much like this site Online Coupon Deals From Lionmenus - Offers End September 20th!!! ORDER NOW!!!!!!!!! but instead of food list bar specials. i figure if the bar site took off i could implement another site that incorporates restaruants .. there is a site in my hometown where u can order food online ... i could bring that to my area

and on a side note my cousin started a site in staten island that has local coupons for all types of businesses ... a great idea which i just heard about, however i have no idea how much hes making with it
 
Most bars and restaurants don't have a very big budget for advertising. I'd be going after the high priced services and products -- attorneys, roofing companies, plumbers, etc.

Just grab your local phone book and see who has the biggest color ads... they have the money and will more likely be able to write you the large checks.
 
pocketrockets said:
Most bars and restaurants don't have a very big budget for advertising. I'd be going after the high priced services and products -- attorneys, roofing companies, plumbers, etc.

Just grab your local phone book and see who has the biggest color ads... they have the money and will more likely be able to write you the large checks.
Click to expand...

is that true? i mean a bar has to make a lot of money every weekend, plus theyre already advertising on the radio and in paper. my end goal would be to get 50-100 per bar .. and have like 100 bars listed on there, w/ some featured listings

id also advertise the site, so it would be like a double form of advertising for the bars, like ill advertise on facebook, ppc, and maybe even a billboard if it was worth it
 
In our area we have what's called 'The Entertainer'. It's a FREE weekly newspaper that pretty much every bar/strip club in the Wisconsin lakeshore and fox valley advertise in. It's typically distributed in bars but also is available online.

Now it doesn't take a fucking genius to see the potential here. The bar market is pretty compeditive and pretty much every bar / strip club pays for a spot in the paper.

Also notice the cam / porn ads on the website.

Just saying.
 
After reading the 200k per year thread earlier this year I went ahead and started a local portal. The thing with local businesses you need to realize is that they are frugal and/or do not have a clue about the internet at all. I was told this many times but had to experience it for myself until I could be fully convinced.

My first client was a mechanic who was paying over $300/month to rent a site from yellowpages.com. The site was only 4 pages and on it's own domain with a link at the bottom of it's homepage going back to yellowpages.com and no links coming to it.
Yellowpages.com locked him into a contract for 3 fucking years, with one buried sentence in the disclaimer stating that if he wanted to break the contract he would need to pay $900. So he paid $10,800 over 3 years to be on page 14 of Google, I was like WTF.

The yellow pages are fucking evil. If any of you guys have the seo skills to rise above YP listings on Google get ready to make some serious bank. Especially if you can prove to the businesses that they are/will be earning a healthy return on their ad spend with you.

I have been steadily taking on clients after my experience with the mechanic and getting him started online. I make sure only to sell web marketing to businesses when I know the sites/pages I am ranking and buying traffic for are getting good traffic.
After seeing how the yellow pages fucks people I can't bring myself to just sell/rent ranked sites/pages just because they are on the 1st page without first measuring the ROI for the business.

As for the portal I setup, I have only been building individual sites so far, and when it comes time to get the portal going all the strong sites I built are going to be pointing to it.

If you decide to launch a whole portal starting out you should hire salespeople from craigslist strictly on commission for each business they sign-up. I just met a guy who does this and it's how I plan on filling up my portal when I launch it in 2010.


Good luck
 
  • Like
Reactions: Spliffic and pickledegg
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom