Show us a great .Tel

@telblogger
that would be a great offering.

typically to recognize the proximity of a device close to any location requires the presence of a communication device like a beacon at the location. It will detect the presence of the device and attempt to communicate. 
This requires the hardware and its supporting software on site.

At the directory level the only solution that I can imagine is if the directory has the exact co-ordinates of the business (easy) and then we have as you suggest the user subscribing to the service and submitting his phone number, and (here comes the very hard part) some facility of tracking the movement of the phone through GPS and when it comes in proximity to the 'base' a push notification is triggered.
This is very involved and would involve resources beyond what a directory would deploy.
And....  this is way beyond my level of expertise.

another idea that could approximate the results you want: A directory subscriber through his listing could offer push notification services to anyone who submits his phone number, and whenever the entity has something to offer customers it sends out a PN.
of course this is no longer proximity marketing.

Cheers and best wishes.
ps.
would love to get some more input from the forum on this.

@telblogger

further..... I do not know of any directory that is doing this nor do I know of any solution available to directories.

@Gibbs

Have been adding content for taupo.tel. There are 1,500 businesses in the area and have been adding their details by hand to an spreadsheet (7 columns) then copying those details to build a Wordpress page for each of the 1,500 businesses. As you might guess (in terms of lots of time) this is projected to take at least 100 hours of work.

Just wondering if you have found an easier way to add this type of content. I have looked at scraping programs etc. but not sure if they are any good. The other option seems to be hiring someone on Upwork.com to help.

Any suggestions? Appreciate any input at all :-).

A solution for directories could be the use of Mark Kolb's CMS. It has the look of old .tel sites and the control panel with the ease of use of the old .tels. Many directories are hosted on his server.

For example take a look at:
http://lcbo.tel/
http://aurora.tel/
http://gta.tel/

TelBlogger wrote:
Have been adding content for taupo.tel. There are 1,500 businesses in the area and have been adding their details by hand to an spreadsheet (7 columns) then copying those details to build a Wordpress page for each of the 1,500 businesses. As you might guess (in terms of lots of time) this is projected to take at least 100 hours of work.

Just wondering if you have found an easier way to add this type of content. I have looked at scraping programs etc. but not sure if they are any good. The other option seems to be hiring someone on Upwork.com to help.

Any suggestions? Appreciate any input at all :-).

YES - Follow the lead of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc - allow users to create a Free Account at your domain and let them do all the work of creating and maintaining their own data !

http://MikeSeaton.tel

There is a contact page on taupo.tel where people can enter their data for free but the level of traffic means this is not an effective way to build the directory. I've gone for manually entering a basic listing for every business with their own pages and then I hope to sell upgrades with social media integration and a whole lot of other information for each business. Building free pages first will help to build traffic and rankings. 

Waiting for people to enter their data is just not practical at this stage IMHO.

@Telblogger,

I really like the way taupo.tel is developing but, to my logic - why would someone pay you to upgrade a listing when their essential contact details are already listed by you free of charge - particularly as they were probably not even thinking about being listed in a directory before you created the free listing for them? The internet is littered with valueless free listing sites.

If you have not committed yourself too far yet, you might consider hiding the listings that you have already, replace the free sign-up with a paid registration form, and then get on the phone to potential customers and sell them a listing - on the basis that it is locally built and run, that it is designed a a rapid means for those with need to contact local, reliable service providers, by the most up to date means (given the demise of paper directories). It's like riding a bike - you fall off a few times - say the wrong thing a few times, and then you are away. Alternatively, you can pay commission to someone to do it for you. They just have to be local, understanding and sincere but focussed sufficient to obtain the sale.

I have not, and will not display third party advertising on my sites (e.g. no Google Ads). This has been a plus point with local businesses.

Marketing has always been by direct action. 1000 plain white business cards (handy for sticking on fridges and in wallets/purses with " www.taupo.tel - reliable local businesses and services" or some such, cost about £25 and have been the main method. Get a few thousand printed and walk the streets putting them through letterboxes, on car windows at the market/mall, hand them out on Saturday mornings on the High Street, etc., and social media, of course.

Keyword search functionality is a critical element of a directory. Your's works well on the categories. Will it include the further descriptive text in in paid/enhanced listings?  The keyword search was the best part, and the downfall, of the old .tel. If Telnic had not created Telnames or, had enabled the keyword search on a directory .tel to search the content of a Telname site, then everything would have been OK.

With regard to the mobile view, I note that the keyword search box presents well down the page on taupo.tel and, also, that the link to search the directory category listings is hidden away in a menu. You may wish to consider placing these in a more conspicuous position at the top of the site.

Your welcome message (more suitable to an "About Us" page?) contains lots of hyperlinks to taupo.tel which, of course, bring whoever is using them back to the same point. Should these references simply be de-activated?

I hope this helps.

Best wishes.

@Blunderer

Thanks for taking the time to let me know your thoughts on taupo.tel and for your excellent feedback.

With regard to some of the points you raised:

1. I am hoping people will pay for upgrades because they will get a much more detailed page with multiple ways to be contacted and information that will land them very high in search for their category. The upgraded pages will include fb feed, enquiry form, url, twitter feed, video, photos, full description, multiple categories etc. Each page kind of like a minisite all of its own. I also need the free listings for all 1,500 businesses to generate traffic and give the user something to come back to.

2. Yes, phoning is a great method and I am arranging a commission agent to do this once the site is complete. What were you charging for your listings?

3. I had 3rd party ads from adsense on the previous iteration of taupo.tel with the limited format and they generated good revenue. I will remove the ads from any upgraded web page purchased by a customer.

4. Great idea about the business cards; thanks.

5. To answer your question yes there will be full descriptive text for search functionality.

6. Yes, was aware of the search problem with mobile websites. I am redesigning the front page like the Listify theme with a big photo and a search box in the center of the homepage for all device types. Not sure where I'll put the search box on the other pages.

7. Once the front page is redesigned I will move the existing text to the About page as you suggest. Have now removed the redundant (as you correctly pointed out) taupo.tel links in the homepage.

Again I appreciate your excellent suggestions and thank you again.

Best regards.

I dunno, 
I keep coming back to the app store, to find a simple website tool.
And you know what, the telnames web creation app is still the best thing out there.

Im talking quick website.
Get an idea, and get it  up and running in a few minutes.
You buy a .tel, you buy a regular domain nane, and you point it permanently at the .tel website.

Update it or whatever, in 2 secs, with the telnames app.


HOW ON EARTH DID THEY FAIL ON SELLING THIS.
Weebly, all the others, ate JUST TOO HARD.
And cost a lot.

Boracay wrote:HOW ON EARTH DID THEY FAIL ON SELLING THIS.

The idea behind .tel was revolutionary.

Telnic’s / Telnames’ business strategy was and still is catastrophic!