Potential for Business!

Portal Potential …. For Business Facts you can’t Ignore Statistics FAQs

Please refer to our Services & Prices List (pdf) (Opens in a new window)

You too can join the switched on businesses with a presence on the Portal. It’s simple, it’s straightforward, it’s cost-effective:

• Over 21,000 visitors per month
• Top of search engine listings
• Growing local on-line market
• People want to shop locally

Your online presence has big advantages to complement your bricks and mortar business premises:

• It’s open 24/7
• There’s no limit to the number of customers visiting
• You can change your shop front as often as you like
• Your business will have local and global reach
• You can grow your online business at a fraction of the cost

We can offer special deals at this early stage of the Portal; choose from:

• Basic listing
• Standard web page
• Fully editable website
• E-commerce site

To have a great website, you don’t have to be a computer expert. Look around the Portal – Jake and Gwen Scott at Glebe House, Rod and Lorna Bunney at Fishermans Kitchen, Chris Lockett at Lockett Bros – they and others are getting the visitors to their businesses, without knowing much about bits and bytes!

Have a look at businesses already on the Portal to get a feel for what’s possible. Just go to the listings buttons on the Home page – Shopping, Services etc – and follow the links to their web pages, and microsites.

Interested? – you should be. This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with the Portal. The alternative is a threat – sooner or later your business will be affected by the Internet. Come with us now!!!

Just call or email the Portal Team. We’ll be delighted to answer your questions – entirely without obligation or any commitment. Click here!

Facts you can’t Ignore

• The equivalent of the entire population of the Golf Coast (from Aberlady to Whitekirk) visits the Portal each month!
• Every day that you do not have a page or microsite on the Portal you are missing 700 customers customers for your business.
• At least half the people who visit the Portal are in North America planning a visit to North Berwick, and looking for places to spend their money when they get here.
• The Golf Coast area has a high proportion of Internet shoppers - people with a high disposable income looking for businesses just like yours to buy from.
• The Portal represents the most cost-effective way for local businesses to achieve a high profile on the Internet.
• Advertising on the Portal reaches more people throughout each month than the entire circulation of the EL Courier!
• In marketing terms, the Portal achieves a much higher rate of ‘qualified’ interest than any other kind of promotion.
• The largest categories of free-spending visitors to the Golf Coast are family groups and golf-party vacationers - who have found the Golf Coast on the Web, and have researched their vacation in this area using the Portal.
• And contrary to what nature-lovers would have you believe, far and away the biggest income generator for the area is golf. How do you tap into this market? Through the Portal of course!
  
  ...YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO IGNORE THE FACTS!

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The following statistics underscore the fast growth and sound base of the Portal.

Important Note: We only count sessions. Each visit to the Portal that may extend to many or all of the Portal’s pages is counted as one session. Other Portals and websites often quote ‘hits’: visits to individual pages which of course often add up to huge numbers but are less meaningful than sessions.

Each visitor to our Portal spends an average of over 1 minute exploring our pages - a high indicator of ‘stickability’ and interest in our content

No. of Visits (Sessions) :

Search Engine ranking – Google
Key Words Home page ranking (February 2006):

Search Engine Optimisation

We have a continuous programme of optimisation – through content improvement, key word development, links with other sites, and development of special sections.

Our aim is to improve and develop our status in the Search engine rankings, and to reach higher levels for other key words that are relevant to businesses in the Golf Coast.

Broadband

The main indicator of potential users of the Portal in the local market is the level of Broadband connections.

Households connected to Broadband in East Lothian >28% (Scotland 19.8%)

Households connected to Broadband in the Golf Coast >35% (Estimate)

This of course has implications for Permission-Marketing using our Database.

Permission-Marketing

The policy of the Portal to require registration for access to certain sections of the Portal enables us to build a Permission-Marketing database.

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 Business FAQ's

What’s a Portal?

Simply a name for a large database driven website that is a host for websites and web pages, a gateway to other websites, and offers online services.

Why do I need a Web page or a Website?

• More and more people are using the Web for their day to day shopping and services.
• In North Berwick we have an exceptionally high proportion of big spenders – most of them on the Web using Broadband!
• Our high-spending visitors are just looking for somewhere to spend – most of them on the Web before they get here!

What are my Options for getting my business on the Web?

• Simplest is a listing – you are probably already listed by the Portal from public information sources, like Yellow Pages! Details are minimal and probably out of date. But it costs you nothing!
• Next up the pecking order you can go for a web page on the Portal. This will get you a page to yourself for words and a picture. It’s free if you’re a member of the Business Association, otherwise £75 pa.
• Then you’re starting to get serious, with a website. You can have your own five-page website on the Portal. We supply the template and simple instructions, you populate it (fill it up) and maintain it yourself. This is the most cost-effective way to achieve a ‘proper’ web presence, at £25 per month only.
• Of course you can opt to commission a web developer to create a customised website especially for you. Undoubtedly this should get you exactly what you want, but of course it will cost – in your time and effort as well as cash. Our Preferred Service Providers would be pleased to advise you.

What advantage will my business get from being on the Web?

• You’re open 24/7 (24 hours 7 days – all the time!) so people can visit your business at their convenience
• There’s no limit to the number of customers visiting at any one time
• You can change your shop window as often as you like – for example to promote sales or special offers.
• Your business will have local and global exposure
• It’s very cost-effective – compare with an ad in the local press, one issue, one colour, only 15,000 total circulation, and not taken by a large proportion of your target market.

What are the benefits of a Web page or a Website on the Portal?

• Profile - you benefit from the Portal’s very high profile on the Internet – web visitors and surfers can find you easily when you are part of the Portal
• Cost – you can choose from a listing right up to a five-page website with all bells and whistles.
• Immediacy – you can be up and running in a couple of days – or less!
• Control – you are in the driving seat at all times.

What if I already have a website?

• You can piggy-back on the Portal with a webmarketing link.
• This immediately gets you into the all-important top rankings of the Search Engines.
• Your potential visitor rate increases exponentially!

How can I feature my business on the Portal?

• A sponsored link on the Home page to take the visitor straight to your own website
• News feeds from the Home page about your business
• Sponsored banner headlines or a thought cloud or other in-your-face stuff
• Voucher programme, combined with fliers and posters
• Anything else you can think of!

Can I use my own domain name?

• If you have a domain name or wish to obtain one to promote your business, you can use it for your own website on the Portal.
• For example, see Fishermans-Kitchen.com and Lockettbros.co.uk, who trade successfully on the web, using their own domain names, and are hosted by the Portal.

I’m not tourist–related, so who is going to see me on the web?

• Let’s ask the question – who knows about you? How does an individual or a business in this area - or anywhere - looking for the kind of products and services that you provide, find you? Scotland is full of small businesses bursting to do things but unable to make themselves visible and match up with people looking for them!
• By listing on the Portal you take the first step to making yourself known to your marketplace. Step by step with your web progress, you can measure the success of your growing internet presence and only spend what you believe to be the right amount to raise your profile through the Portal.
• Scotland in general and East Lothian in particular has a large and growing population of well-heeled incomers who don’t know the local scene. So what do they do? They deal with high profile companies simply because they don’t know about you! And they are unusually internet-savvy – they consult Google at every turn!

As a business-person, why should I worry about the impact of the Internet on my business?

Three good reason that we can think of right now:

1. As more and more people find the web a convenient and cost-effective way to do business, as well as the nearest thing to a perfect market, these people will become conditioned to this new business paradigm, and you’ll find that it is increasingly only the lower end of the market that can be bothered with your old business model.
2. Although you may be sitting pretty right now – e.g. tradesmen of all kinds in this neck of the woods – you will inevitably find that others will use the information revolution to find your patch and apply new technology-smart business practices that will sooner rather than later drive your old ways out of business.
3. The tourism business, on which a lot of our relative prosperity is based, is becoming more demanding and more knowledgeable. Vacationers use the internet to find their holiday destination and to map out how they will spend their time and money. In this competitive and highly technology-oriented global industry, the competitiveness or otherwise of our collective offerings in the Golf Coast will predicate the quality of our earnings and prosperity.
   
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