Four
FREE Ways for a Web Designer to Establish a Local Presence
Four FREE Ways for a Web Designer to Establish a Local Presence
Everyone seems to be a web designer these days. From your uncle’s
neighbor’s nephew to Aunt Mildred, everyone claims webmaster
status. How can you, a real web designer, developer, and/or host
separate yourself from these part-time, low quality look-alikes?
Create a Business Directory
Many legitimate web design companies have started this way. Create
an online business directory. Splurge and purchase a catchy domain
name – maybe yourtown.com or something easy to remember and
easy to pass on.
On the website, provide a free business directory of local businesses.
Make a section on important and emergency contact information. Have
a section on other local phone numbers of interest, such as the
library and schools.
Feature a different business each month. If you are good, you can
call the business that you’d like to feature, tell them about
the site, and tell them that you’re going to feature them
for free. This may lead to a conversation about a website. If they
don’t have one, or its out of date, your foot is already in
the door.
Offer a Community Forum
Forums are quite popular nowadays. People love to express their
views on unlimited subjects. Harness this by providing a free place
for area residents to post thoughts on upcoming elections, construction,
and even comment on local restaurants. Put a small ad at the top
of the forum, mentioning humbly that the forum is sponsored by your
business and is provided as a free service to the community.
Consider purchasing software such as TownLink (yourtownlink.com).
Offer reduced advertising to area businesses to get the site off
the ground. Promote the site as another free service that your company
provides to the community.
Create a website that promotes local apartments and homes for sale.
This is actually pretty easy if you use software such as OpenRealty
(open-realty.org). Configure the software for your community, and
promote listings to real estate companies and apartment managers
in the area. Once again, offer this website as a free service to
residents who may be looking for a new home or outside residents
who are wondering about the area.
Make sure that no matter which of these services that you use that
you point back to your own company in a small, non-intrusive way.
Make it known that you are providing these things, and that you
are a local-owned company. Always purchase separate domains for
each – then put them all over town!
About the Author Will Hanke is a self-proclaimed
geek who owns and operates Lighthouse Technologies (www.techlh.com),
a web development and hosting company based in Arnold, Missouri.
For questions or comments, email him at will@techlh.com. And buy
yourself a good virus program so he doesn’t have to fight
your emails with anti-virus spray.
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