You have seen the ads on TV--the ones that invite people to call a 1800 number to start their online business. Those ads exist for a reason...someone online is making money from your hometown
folks! That's right, someone else is creating a sense of curiosity and urgency in your community and then profiting from your friends and neighbors and their desire to make money online!
Did you know that these advertising campaigns can actually work for you? That's right, you can use the other guy's advertising to your advantage. You can do the same thing they are doing, but on a smaller--much more affordable scale--and do it with an altruistic touch that makes a win-win situation for your hometown! With a turnkey Community Service website and a few classified ads in your local newspaper, shopper magazine, church bulletin or even local radio and television you can easily make a free offer of your own that will build on and enhance your customer base...no matter what your business may be.
There are many different Community Service websites that you can promote locally to maximize your exposure and your profits, and many of them are based on turkey biz in box sites like I sell
and install at LadyWeb.Biz. But I'm not the only one out there--not by a long shot. There are thousands of turnkey websites out there that can suit your purposes, and hundreds of different
companies that provide them at all different price and service levels. So take the suggestions I am about to offer you, and shop around for something that will best fit within your budget and your
vision.
Certain types of turnkey websites offer great potential as a Community Service website that you can promote and grow locally. They especially lend themselves to a complementary addition to an existing online and/or brick and mortar business. Think about it for one second. If you are already promoting and advertising offline, a Community Service website can offer a great addition with just a Domain address and one line of text added to your current advertising. In fact, properly utilized, a Community Service website can become a great promotional tool for you at an absolutely minimal cost.
Start one of these sites, and you can use it to build a "localized" mailing list that will turn into a goldmine of free advertising opportunities for you. Once you have your local hometown folks online
and visiting your Community Service website on a regular basis, it does not really cost you anything extra to send out a weekly or occasional email advertising your products and special events. Not only that, but you can easily provide them with gifts that you have branded with your logo and clickable links back to your websites. Plus, every time they visit your Community Service website you can also present them with banner ads and links back to your other websites. Finally, if you follow my advice, you could easily end up with hundreds or even thousands of local websites all happily linking back to you and naturally building your search engine ranking.
Does all of this sound too good to be true? Well it's not. It is actually very easy to accomplish, because whomever you buy your turnkey website from will probably install it for you as part of the purchase price. In most cases, they will also be able to install it on a domain name and hosting account that you already have, or help you get a reasonably priced domain name and hosting if necessary. Plus, most of the sites are fully, or almost fully, automated and will in almost all cases, cost you less than $100.00 to get up and running and less than $10.00 a month to operate.*
IMPORTANT NOTE: If the turnkey seller "requires" that you either host with them, or purchase your domain name from them, think twice before you purchase from them. Shop around some more
before you make your final decision. You do not want to invest your time and effort into a website that you do not completely control or cannot easily migrate elsewhere if the relationship turns sour!
Here are some suggested Community Service website ideas, and ideas on how to use them to promote your online and/or your brick and mortar business. For most of these services you could
charge, but personally I strongly, strongly recommend that you give them away free as traffic builders for your online and/or your brick and mortar business.
If these services are offered as a free Community Service, more people will visit both the website you are offering as a Community Service, and the website for your business. It will also increase your local name recognition and...give you a local mailing list of potential customers that you can send "free" email announcements to for your local sales and events.
In exchange for this free Community Service, the only thing that I recommend that you require is that they join "and remain" on your mailing list, and that they link back to you from their own website if they have one. It really is the best kind of win-win situation for online and brick and mortar business owners both large and small.
So here's the list:
Business Directory - Invite Local Business People--Including Your Competitors--to Advertise Their Business! Especially require a link back to your site for this one.
Auto Classifieds - Invite Local People To Advertise Their Cars For Sale Online!
Book Portal – Invite Local People To Review Their Favorite Books!
Classified Ads - Invite Local People To Advertise All Of Their Items--For Free, Of Course!
Classmates Finder - Invite Local School Graduates To Reconnect With Former Classmates!
Personal Ads and/or Dating Matchmaker - Invite Local People To Connect To Find New Friends Or Maybe Room Mates, or Travel Buddies!
Events Locater - Invite Local People & Organizations To List Their Upcoming Events!
Local Forum - Invite Local People To Discuss Local & National Events!
Garage Sale Finder - Invite Local People & Organizations To List Their Garage & Rummage Sales!
Job Search - Invite Local Businesses To List Their Openings!
Pixel Ads - Everything Old Is New Again! Recreate The Pixel Ads Craze In Your Town.
Photo Rater - Invite Your Local Photographers & Beauty Queens To Compete For A Prize Or Just The Honor Of The Win!
Realtor Website - Invite Local People To List Their For Sale Or Rent By Owner Home!
Search Engine - Put Your Town On The Map Instead Of Letting Them Get Lost In The WWW! Start Your Own Local Search Engine!
Shopping Cart - Set Up A Shopping Cart For Local Merchants & Craftspeople To Show Off & Sell Their Wares!
Website Gateway - Set Up Your Own Website Gateway To Advertise All Of Your Local Web Sites Like A Community Shopping Mall!
Anyway, you get the idea. Think about these suggestions, look around for more ideas, and then decide on a turnkey website that will complement your already existing online and/or brick
and mortar business. Shop around and see what is out there. You could literally be up and running with your very own Community Service website for less than $100.00 start up and less than
$10.00 a month upkeep. What other promotional idea can you think of that offers so much potential return for such a tiny investment?
* High traffic personal ads or other sites could cost more if you use a lot of bandwidth. However in this case the increased popularity should be well worth the increased cost of the additional monthly traffic.
Your Own Community Service Websites - The Golden Key To Success! - To learn more about this author, visit Teresa Bohannon's Website.
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Teresa Bohannon
(Visit Teresa's Website)
Teresa Thomas Bohannon is a web designer,
hosting & domain provider & internet
marketing consultant. Teresa founded Spun Silk Web Design
in December of 1995 as one of the first
free standing female owned web design
firms in the country. Teresa is also the
founder the LadyWeb Family of
Informational & Educational Websites,
created to help women and men who dreamed
of starting their own businesses to find
their way inexpensively through the
available maze of website options, domain
and hosting providers, and software
solutions. Teresa's latest venture is
the MyLadyWeb
Self-Installing AdSense & Affiliate
Websites, a simplified turnkey option for
beginning online entrepreneurs.
Teresa is a published author of short
stories and holds an MA in history. She
also works full time as the Human Resource
Administrator for a non-profit political
subdivision of the State of Tennessee.
Teresa's personal cause, is revitalizing
literacy by renewing the dying tradition
of spending quality time reading "with"
children.
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