DomainInvesting.com

In order to “pay the bills,” it is important that we determine how we will generate revenue for Lowell.com. Of course there will be home page advertising banners, but there need to be other ways to generate revenue throughout the site. After reviewing many other geographic websites and consulting with several people in the industry, I’ve determined that there are a few ways to generate revenue:
1. Sell a limited number of business listings in each section of the website (restaurants, shops, lawyers…etc). Each section would have 10 premium listings available, and each listing would link to a full page on the website where the advertiser can provide a business description, upload pictures, offer discounts or give other information. Because the number of listings are limited, the price would be high for each.
2. List ALL Lowell businesses (phone number and address) in different categories of the website, and offer each business the opportunity to pay for enhancements to its listing. Using phpmydirectory, each business can add other information to their listing for a set fee. We would also provide an opportunity for the business to upgrade their listing to the top of the results page and add a category banner to stand out from the other businesses in the category.
3. Same as above, but instead of charging for the listing enhancements, we would allow each business to enhance its listing for free. Although this won’t generate revenue, it would add content to the website, which in turn would bring more visitors, giving businesses a reason to pay for upgrades and advertising.
4. Offer free listings throughout the website, and place Adsense banners and links throughout the site. While this would be the easiest thing to implement, it might cheapen the look and feel of the website.
After reviewing the options with my developer, I decided to choose option #3. I think this brings the best of all worlds to the website and will give businesses the most value. When people visit Lowell.com, I want them to find all the information they need. I want businesses to be encouraged to enhance their listings at no cost, and if it is free, there is no reason not to do it. This will give site visitors good information about many more businesses than if we had done it another way.
Down the road, we may work with affiliate companies for hotels and for tickets, but until traffic grows, I believe selling the advertising space to individual businesses is a better option. This option will also allow me to work directly with Lowell businesses, which should help me learn more about the city. Down the road, we may incorporate more user generated content opportunities (such as reviews), but for now, we want to start out small-ish and scale as needed.
***Updated by Elliot***
As we continue to invest in this website and our vision is developed, we may change the revenue model if it doesn’t work within our budget. At this point, everything is subject to change!

Congrats to Sahar and team on the launch of Assista, the website he and Jeff Bhavnanie has been working on for a few years. The premise of Assista is that it helps you learn about a particular subject by tapping into other people’s questions. For example, I am currently researching Lowell, Massachusetts for my Lowell.com project. When I typed in “Lowell,” I saw questions that people had related to the city and to other Lowell-related topics (like Mike Lowell).
Overall, I think this is a fresh approach that will become popular, as it can help searchers expand the breadth of their initial search. While looking for one thing about a topic, many other questions can be seen, which could spawn new ideas and thoughts that may never have been had by the searcher.
Sahar and team has an aggressive goal of becoming one of the top 10 search sites in the next 18 months, and one of the top five in the next 3 years. These are lofty goals, but with the brains behind the project, it could be feasible. Here are a couple of suggestions I have:
1) As much as looks aren’t everything, the site doesn’t look great. I know this isn’t a major concern of Sahar’s at this point, but I think that will be key to going mainstream.
2) Speed is essential. While the results aren’t slow, they need to speed up. This will come in time.
3) It might be better if they frame the results from the “same window” page, that way the person can easily return to their results. For example, when the person clicks on “same window” for one of the results, they are taken to that site, but the Assista logo remains on the top of the page, so the person can return. I lack the tech knowledge/terminology – sorry.
4) When I got the results for a “Red Sox” search, it returned: 7336 questions / 267 exact matches / 7069 partial matches. There was no difference between 7336 questions / 267 exact matches. When I clicked both of those links, the same results showed up.
5) When I searched for something very specific, I didn’t receive any results. I searched, “Does salt increase cholesterol?” The search produced no results, but disappointingly, it didn’t make any alternate suggestions either.
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Overall, I really like the concept quite a bit. I like how I can get a popup window to show me a preview of the results page. I think this is going to get pretty big!

Although I was born and raised in Nashua, NH, which is about 15 minutes north of Lowell, MA on Route 3, I hadn’t visited Lowell in a few years. I had driven through it many times on my way to various places, but I hadn’t stopped to explore. I think it’s very important to spend time in the city and meet with some of the residents to really get to know the area.
A few days after acquiring Lowell.com, I blogged about the acquisition, and received a comment from David Castello of Castello Cities Internet Network, a hugely successful geographic development company founded by brothers David and Michael Castello. I decided to call David to ask for a bit of advice, and he gave me some great advice I am integrating into the site and will touch on throughout this project. Among many things, I learned that having pictures would be important to keep the site fresh and enticing to visitors. Although Lowell isn’t a tourist destination, it’s an interesting city with some great architecture and historic sites.
I decided that in order to do this right, I would contact a local photographer and work out a mutually beneficial deal where photographs would be exchanged for advertising (and possibly cash). I did some web searching to find a Lowell photographer, and it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be to find one, which was certainly good news for the project I envisioned. Luckily enough, I finally contacted a highly regarded photographer, who happened to be somewhat of a Lowell historian advocate for the city (and everyone around the city seems to know him).
After explaining my vision, he was on board with the project. About a week later, I drove to Lowell and met with various people who might benefit from the website, including the photographer and public relations director for the local National Park Service office. Everyone seemed excited about the project and the opportunity to “show off” the city. These people realized the power of the Lowell.com name/brand, and they expressed an interest in becoming a part of it by providing information for the site.
Because of the reputation of Lowell, people who love the city are really looking forward to the opportunity to show the city in a positive light. The city has been through tough times, but has prevailed. I learned about the new lofts and apartments that have been created, and that there are many artists moving to the area. I also learned quite a bit about the rich history and the public facilities that have been recently built or renovated.
I think visiting the city and researching its history is vital for a project like this. I will need to continue to learn as much as I can in order to create the best possible website. In essence, I, too, am becoming an ambassador for Lowell with this website, and I need to learn as much as possible. I need to eat a famous Boott Mill sandwich at Arthur’s Paradise Diner. I need to visit the Revolving Museum. Hmmm… I wonder if I can expense a trip to Tsongas Arena to see the Dropkick Murphys play “Tessie.”

Although the Lowell.com development project is beyond the stage of preliminary planning, I wanted to take a step back and give an overview of the project plan and outline.
In order to become useful to Lowell, Massachusetts residents and visitors, Lowell.com must provide a valuable service to encourage visitors to return to the site. To give our advertisers a reason to advertise, we will need to increase our traffic naturally via search engine optimization, so people who don’t know about our website will easily find us. We currently rank low in the search engines, although this is better than when we weren’t listed at all just a few weeks ago. Lowell.com receives anywhere from 50-125 visitors per day, with most of the traffic coming via direct navigation, so we are in a good position at this stage.
Lowell.com will have detailed information about the city’s attractions. From museums and parks to neighborhoods and sports teams, Lowell.com will have unique information about all of Lowell’s attractions. Instead of lifting content from various websites, we have writers researching and writing specifically for this website. This is very important to our organic growth, and we plan to continue to build, adding more content and information. As we grow, we expect to earn higher rankings in the search engines, and we will hopefully be at the top of the list for searches such as “Lowell restaurants,” “Lowell hotels,” “Lowell lawyers“… etc, as well as many other niches.
Lowell.com will also have a large directory for people who need to find businesses in the Lowell area. We will provide free listings for almost every type of business in the city. The listings will be in an easy to use format, so our visitors will find what they need, and hopefully bookmark us for future use. If someone from out of town is planning a wedding in Lowell, they can use Lowell.com to find a wedding chapel, photographer, band, bakery, caterer…etc. Instead of having to look around at various websites, everything can be found at Lowell.com
To better serve both the business community and visitors, business owners will be allowed to enhance their listings for free. While almost all businesses in Lowell will be listed and categorized at no charge, the basic listing will only include a phone number and address. To add more value for all parties, we will allow business owners to add a paragraph or two about their business, a map to their business, and photographs that can entice consumers to call, all at no added cost to them.
To generate revenue to keep the website financially secure, we will offer businesses the opportunity to pay for category header banners, which will move their listing to the top of the category. Businesses in categories with much competition (such as law) will greatly benefit by moving to the top of the category with a banner ad. We will also offer home page banners to give these advertisers the most exposure. Category and home page advertisers will have their banners rotated throughout the non-profit pages, to give them added exposure throughout the site.
The ultimate goal of the website is to provide an aesthetically pleasing site that is easy to use and informative. As the website matures, more information will become available, giving added value to advertisers and visitors. Our mission is to be the most useful source of information for Lowell residents and visitors.
***UPDATED BY ELLIOT***
Just as an FYI, the current site looks absolutely nothing like how the final website will look. I am keeping the current site up (which came along with the domain name) in order to avoid de-listing in search engines that could possibly occur if I take it down.