I soon realized there was a major problem with the small businesses in small rural towns; they have no web presence… Most small businesses did not have any web site at all, and those that did it was very ineffective (By ineffective I mean I couldn’t find their web sites through the search engines no matter how hard I tried).
The Birth of Glen Innes Index:
I took it upon myself to fix the problem; I registered the domain name gleninnesindex.com and started to put every business in Glen Innes on this index (I have personally visited every business in town).When I started visiting Businesses in Glen Innes, I found quite quickly small businesses were waiting for something like the Glen Innes Index, where a single click brought every business in town in front of them; it turns out there were many people in town frustrated with the difficulty of finding local services on the web. So when I came through the door they are saying ok let’s give it a go.
After a year of blood sweat and tears I mastered the art of search engine optimisation , and hey presto If you search for any local product or service in Glen Innes you are guaranteed to find it on the first or second page of Google (courtesy of the Glen Innes Index) , and guess what.. Hundreds of people every day are using it – I know because every visit is recorded.
So what did I have at the end of all of this? I now know I have the power to generate significant amounts of new business for small businesses in Glen Innes; Most people do not realise the majority of people get on the Internet to compare products and services before they walk through your door.
The transformation into a small business:
When small businesses in town realised there were hundreds of people visiting the Glen Innes Index every day they wanted more; so I started to offer more.The original idea was to help small business improve their web presence, and the essence of that is and always will be a service I offer for free.
Being listed on Glen Innes Index guarantees you will be found if somebody is looking for you. There are many optional extras that I do charge a small fee for.
Who we are today:
Today you can replace the word Glen Innes for any other town in the Hunter New England area, I have created these local town indexes for all of the small towns and am having the same success I saw with Glen Innes Index.The other change is my son; I am a retail guy, I have spent most of my life running/owning/managing small and large retail outlets I know what it takes to sell, whether its face to face or over the web; I have created a selling framework that promises to bring very large benefits to the small businesses in each town, but when it comes to the technical aspects of the Internet I am a little lost.
My son(Jason) has spent the last 10yrs consulting on very large Internet and Web projects for some of Australia’s largest companies, as well as some of Australia’s smaller business.. He knows the technicalities of the Internet, inside and out.
Together we have joined forces to do two things:
- Accelerate the growth of Glen Innes and other town indexes, before too long I envisage the town indexes will be a crucial part of doing business (Just like the Yellow pages).
- Make a modest living out of doing something we both love – helping local small businesses.