IN late-2008 I created the business news and information website PeterboroughBusiness.co.uk.
I had recently left a big publishing company where I had worked for more than 20 years as a writer, editor and, briefly, publisher. PeterboroughBusiness.co.uk was one of the many projects I started to work on as a freelance.
When I launched PB I imagined that there would be enough financial support from the business community to provide a small revenue from the site. Seven years ago the site was getting 1200 page views a month and had a mailing list of 600 local businesses and growing.
But I was a bit naive and the local business community wasn't very sophisticated. My rates for banner ads (£70 a month or £600 a year) compared unfavourably with Google and Google was getting smarter at serving up localised results. I got lots of enquiries but not many takers and the banners you see are favours for friends or old contra-deals that have probably long run their course.
Now, I think the site is doing less than 300 page views a month and I'm only putting up a couple of stories a month.
What I didn't expect was how powerful the site would be at promoting my other services. I'm still a writer, editor, photographer and film-maker and lots of my work has come via Peterboroughbusiness.co.uk. I use it to promote these services and sometimes write about clients' projects on there.
Local businesses still value the site and I get many requests to post stories and press releases on the site. This is how I find out what's going on in the city and connect with people. If a marketing director sends me a story about staff and it has a particularly bad photo with it, if I have time I will offer to go and re-shoot the picture for free, tell them my modest day rate and leave a card. It has worked time and again.
So that's the story of Peterboroughbusiness.co.uk. An accountant wanted to buy the site and domain but we couldn't agree on a price. The local development agency has also expressed an interest but while it continues to generate leads for me at minimal effort, I'm inclined to hang on.
Peterborough Business Project Blog
This personal journal by the editor describes the creation and growth of an online news and information service for a city's business community
Wednesday, 12 August 2015
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