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RUNNING YOUR OWN LOCAL WEB SITE If you have visited one of the websites in our group and think you would be interested in running one don't hesitate to get in touch. Below is a list of the questions people ask most frequently but if you want to discuss further contact partners@neighbournet.com How much does it cost to take on a site? How much time does it take to run a site? How much money can I expect to make? Are there any rules to follow? I already run a local web-site - why should I join your group? Are you willing to set up outside London?
How much does it cost to take on a site? We charge you nothing and take care of all the hosting and web costs. Your main cost will be your time. Firstly, don't worry if don't have web design skills - we will train you. The basic requirements are good written English and a good understanding of your local community. How much time does it take to run a site? This is really up to you. Initially there is quite a bit of work gathering information but once that is complete then you should probably be able to maintain the site adequately with 10 hours a week. Obviously the more time you spend the better the site will be and the more commercially successful. Much of the time consuming work, such as moderating discussion forums is taken care of by us. We also deal with technical queries and handle your invoicing (if you want us to.) How much money can I expect to make? Initially the sites make nothing because traffic takes a long time to build. It is usually 12 months before any meaningful revenue appears. After that it depends on how much time and effort you put in to promoting the site to local businesses. Experience has shown that local sites can make a respectable revenue once they have become well-established. We also have clients who like to advertise across sites so if you can generate traffic revenue will follow. I already run a local web-site - why should I join your group? Being part of this group allows you to get on with developing your site as a local resource as opposed to worrying about things like application development, discussion board moderation, user registration management, invoicing and other administrative headaches. It will also put you in a mutually supportive network which will share content and data with you and look after your site when you are on holiday. Our network is also starting to be recognised as a credible media by press agencies, media buyers and key civic players such as the police and Local Borough Councils. Being integrated with our ad software means we run campaigns across sites easily for clients. We are constantly developing and upgrading our applications. If you don't have the resources to re-engineer your site to allow for the increased use of digital TV and mobile computing that is set to happen over the next 18 months you will need to do something to guard against obsolescence. All our future applications developed centrally are given to group members free of charge. We already have a suite of integrated applications which is uniquely geared towards local community web-sites with many more planned. User registration, newsletter mailings, discussion forums and classifieds are all run of the same database and come with none of the hidden costs of so-called free applications that many sites use. Some of our applications are groundbreaking in the way that they present information for a local audience. Check out our property search engine. If you already have a substantial membership list and high levels of daily traffic we may be willing to discuss a minimum revenue guarantee. You can also retain ownership of your domain and you will have no obligation to continue if you find the partnership to be unsatisfactory. Are there any rules to follow? We feel that the sites should reflect closely the characteristics of the area that they cover so you are free to redesign the look and feel of your site should you wish. We expect our editors to have no editorial line but offer the site as an open platform to anybody in the community who wishes to express a view. All our sites are family friendly. You must offer free pages design services and advertising to local community groups. Are you willing to set up outside London? In principle yes, even outside the UK would not be a major problem. It would be more difficult to do because there would be less customers and information to share with other members of the group but that doesn't rule it out.
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