Comments on: (Your City Name) on the Cheap

By: Start a Newspaper? Really? » Ask Shane.org

Start a Newspaper? Really? » Ask Shane.org — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:57:29 +0000

[...] you’re building a local site, you have an inherent advantage: content that very few (if any) others are focusing on.� Forget [...]

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:45:44 +0000

@Lee: Thanks for bringing up that point. These sites are actually significantly about branding and, thus, the ability for someone to remember the domain and type it in. The more difficult your domain name, the more you limit your potential traffic.

If I was building a site I really cared about, I would never use hyphens or anything but a .com. In the long run, it’s just not worth it.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:54:38 +0000

You can always do hyphen and .net or .org as I’ve done with http://www.provo-utah.net. There are tons of domains avalable that use some sort of combination like the one you suggest and/or don’t use the .com. At the end of the day, these sites aren’t about type in traffic but are about doing all the appropriate SEO and SEM…

By: Shane

Shane — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:05:08 +0000

@Israel: Yes, I’ll email you separately on those questions.

@Jenn: Thanks for the kinds words! I really appreciate it.

@Jason: Great comments! Those add a lot to the discussion, so I appreciate you taking the time to share them.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:04:46 +0000

AtlantaOnTheCheap.com shows a lot of dedication… and when you’ve got THAT a seemingly simple blog does the trick — providing value to a targeted audience.

Jen, I see you’ve got a lot of social buttons there, have you thought about using something like Twitter and allowing people to get local updates on the go on their mobile?

By: Jenn

Jenn — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:12:29 +0000

Thanks, Shane, for the great mention. I found your site on Analytics when I saw that it was driving traffic to mine (Atlanta on the Cheap). I’ll definitely be subscibing to your site–a lot of good advice here.

By: Israel

Israel — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:07:33 +0000

I first thought it was too broad, but i’ve thought i’m going to focus on reveiws of hotels, restaurants, destinations, landmarks (maya ruins), etc which will attract the people looking to vacation in belize and not so much the local traffic. Tourism is one of the bigger markets for Belize. would u consider this a good strategy?

I appreciate the tips and i wish i could ask you a ton more of questions as you obviously have more experience than me but i fear this isn’t the right place (public page) and that you may not have the time to answer, but thanks anyways.

By: Shane

Shane — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:18:25 +0000

Yes, I love it. So many things you can do when it’s that generic, but it’s still very memorable and very brandable. I was going to say that it’s way too broad if this is one of your first sites, but at just 250,000 people I think you’re right

The problem I’ve seen many people make (none more than me) is to try to do too much too fast and/or to try to grow traffic and revenue too fast. Take your time, and keep the site focused. You’ll figure it out as you go along, and it won’t be long before you wake up and find yourself with quite a bit of both traffic and revenue.

By: Israel

Israel — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:00:44 +0000

Is this part of the $100 a day series?

Great Idea, i already have a good domain to start mine: http://www.belizeonline.com (My country is Belize) and am planning the development on it soon. I’m adding a social network too, while i’m not focusing on City Name, its country name, but the population here is so small (250,000), it could qualify for a city name in the U.S

anyways .. what do you tink? good name?

thanks for the idea.