What would you do with this Geo?

[Ipdster]

It is a *********.com

It is the common name of a small district of a large US city. This district has about 10-12 trendy nightclubs, a few stores, and is still under development.

I picked the name up off of a drop. I found 2 existing sites related to this area. Both sites' domain names are play on words to my domain (eg. ****-***.com; ********area.com). These two sites have event news and links to the clubs and stores.

The name is parked and I get about 1 view a day, with no backlinks, and no SEO.

What would you do?? Any input is appreciated!

 

[GF]

It's kind of hard without knowing the name of your domain, what area, etc.

 

[jkennedy]

Develop it into a area portal, with info on hot nightlife spots, restaurants, etc...
Maybe after some development you could sell some ad space to local business.
Could be a good opportunity if the area is still under development and gets popular.

 

[Ipdster]

Develop it into a area portal, with info on hot nightlife spots, restaurants, etc...
Maybe after some development you could sell some ad space to local business.
Could be a good opportunity if the area is still under development and gets popular.

Yes, I was considering this, but I'm a noob and haven't started a successful website yet. I was hoping to find a good way to off of the name without a lot of work...

If all else fails, I'll create a portal and promote it. So what would you say? Link up a bunch of big events, promote traffic, contact promoters to update information, and then sell ads to stores?

 

[HuntingMoon]

setup a simple page with wordpress/joomla etc., and then create a directory for the local businesses to pay a small annual fee to be listed in.

 

[jkennedy]

setup a simple page with wordpress/joomla etc., and then create a directory for the local businesses to pay a small annual fee to be listed in.

This would be the easiest cheapest way.
But you need to have traffic for this, why else would anyone pay just to be listed.
Personally I would start off by making a directory myself, gain some traffic, then promote the site to businesses to advertise in it.

 

[Ronald Regging]

But you need to have traffic for this, why else would anyone pay just to be listed.

It happens more than you could probably imagine. A slick sales pitch can go a long way for a lot of businesses that aren't too Internet savvy.

I once interviewed for a job at a local web development firm. They ran one of those home value calculator sites and sold packages to real estate agents all over the country to have access to leads generated from the site. They would charge agents like $995-1499 a year for lead generations. No money back guarantee. They're payment merely entitled them to exclusive access to leads generated in the zip code they purchased for a year.

Being a domainer and understanding web development, I naturally had a lot of questions. Their site wasn't anything too spectacular. There was no SEO done at all, no massive marketing campaigns, just an average site that probably got a tiny bit of traffic. Perhaps a lot more than a few hits, but definitely nowhere near enough to remotely justify the prices they were asking.

They didn't seem to like my questioning and wouldn't comment on their traffic... As if I was somehow unraveling their house of cards and they didn't understand how I could understand how all of this works. (Afterall, I was only interviewing for a phone sales job). Suffice it to say, I never heard back from them.

But the point is that with enough sales effort, you really can sell something with absolutely no data to backup your claims.

If you want to operate like that, that is...

 

[Ipdster]

Thanks for the ideas guys.
I would like to set up a simple site, and contact local event promoters to post their deals.

Which easy-to-use platform would you recommend to provide limited access to promoters for posting?

Thanks!