Web Site Best Practices

Making the Internet Work for You
Do the Local Motion
By Deirdre Cavener

How do you find local businesses and services? In the 1900’s everyone’s answer would have been the yellow pages, but times are changing and the Internet is gaining market share every day. The increase in the price of gas, the decrease in our amount of free time, and the economy are all driving people to the Internet to search, find, visit, and purchase, making online advertising a must for all businesses.

87% of online users depend on the Internet to access local information.
-Digitrends

The Web is growing at lighting speed making it difficult to find what you are looking for. It is estimated that there are over 100,000,000 Web sites online today and the growth isn’t expected to slow down any time soon. Getting to local businesses can be like finding a needle in a haystack. How can a local business compete in this ever-evolving iWorld? Answer: a portal!

What is a portal?

A portal is a Web site featuring a suite of commonly used services and often used as a gateway or hub to local information. Local portals often include a search engine, business directory, local information, news, email, maps, shopping, and rss feeds. Portals are one-stop destinations for advertisers and marketers, alike, offering an endless array of advertising options similar to those available in print.

Types of Portals

• Broad Network Portals –They are very expensive and are facing increased competition from local portals.

• Enterprise Information Portals (EIPs) – corporate and intranet

• Vertical Portals (Vortals) – one market segment or niche, like a Wedding Guide

• Local (Community) Portals – The local portal business is exploding. Costs to list in these portals are much less than in the broad network portals and are geo-targeted to a specific region, county, city or town.

It is much easier for your business to be found on a local portal versus a search engine or online yellow page directory because of one key factor: local portals are built by locals, not computer programs or Web site templates! Try searching superpages.com for a Seminole, Florida dentist. The entire first page of search results shows only 1 dentist in Seminole, Florida making them useless.

When I built one of the first local portals in 2001 there were very few online portals, but I saw a huge future in local search and the frontier was vast. Today they are all the buzz. Their largest users are “locals” making them a must for local businesses! A local portal’s main function is to organize the chaos of Internet searching into identifiable and relevant segments that cater to the local community.

Unlock your Digital Doorway

Local portals spend countless hours securing top search engine placement and credibility and pass that on to their advertisers. They mean “BIG” business and they provide the key to allowing customers in your digital front door (Web Site).

Local portals drive traffic to local businesses!

Local portals are geo-targeted, affordable, profitable, flexible and last, but not least, they are the stickiest Web sites on the Internet according to comScore.

The Future

Many analysts predict that local portals are the future of the web and in turn will be the most profitable sites on the Internet. Get your business listed in every one you can find before the cost is driven up by an increase in demand. Local portals allow “locals” to accomplish their day-to-day activities easily, making them an integral part of their lives.

Local advertising spending was $0.5 billion dollars in 2004 and is expected to reach $4.9 billion by 2010. Local portal advertising is still in its infancy making it affordable to all businesses regardless of their size or their budget.

54% of people have replaced the Yellow Pages with the Internet.
– Kelsey Group

Despite the global nature of the Internet, people consider themselves members of their community and prefer to do business within a few miles of their home or business. Reaching out to your local market is extremely effective thanks to the advent of the local web portal. If you aren’t doing the “Local Motion” you are missing your groove … go local!

Big Fish in a Small Pond (local portals)
Little Fish in a Big pond (search engines & online yellow pages)

Deirdre Cavener, MCP is president and CEO of K.I.S.S. Marketing, Inc. and founder of PinellasLife.com. She has lived in the Tampa Bay area for 23 years and graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of South Florida in 1996 with a degree in Management Information Systems from the College of Business.

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