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thebestofchester.co.uk

Company Background

The 48th Most Popular Website in the UK (Source: Alexa.com June 2006)
The Fastest Growing UK Franchise – ever!

Background
Over the past 18 months a quiet revolution has spread across the UK as an army of work from home entrepreneurs have launched high quality community magazines in their own neighbourhoods. Today there are over 800 of these publications read by over four million people each month. Now this phenomenon has gone online and looks set to revolutionise the way people access local information on the internet. thebestof was born from the extraordinary success of MyMag which was launched by Sue Botterill in 2004. The My Mag local neighbourhood magazines are produced by local people, for local people, to promote local businesses and to develop and build relationships within the community. The website initiative takes the MyMag concept a stage further by providing an online format enabling interactive communication between businesses and the communities they serve.

Local Sites
thebestof was launched in July 2005 and in the first twelve months more than 260 work-from-home entrepreneurs have invested in the business and taken on board the running of their local site. From Aberdeen in the north, to Plymouth in the south, from Llandudno in the west and Norwich in the East – and pretty much everywhere in between – thebestof has established widespread coverage in virtually all the major centres of population in the UK. In addition, more than 250 Associates, publishers of local magazines, have signed up to work alongside the site owners and align their magazines with thebestof in their own areas. The commitment of the Site Owners, who are all playing an increasingly large role in their local business communities, allied to the fanatical support from a high energy central support team (based in Solihull, West Midlands) has enabled thebestof to make quite an impact in it’s first 12 months.

Site Features
The main features of the site are:

Comprehensive Business Directory – but no “listings’. All information on the Site is compiled or written by the Site Owners.

Full web page on each business – written and researched by the Site Owner. This includes: The worlds first Talking Ads, where businesses can literally talk to potential customers within their advert

Up to 400 words of text explaining what the business does and why people should use them. – Photographs and logos

Links to the company’s website

Email links so that visitors can contact businesses directly

Comprehensive Local Information page. Everything from councils to chemists, libraries, to local health providers.

Local news and events – what’s on and what is happening in each local area

Neighbourhood forum where local residents can discuss and debate issues that are important to them – and provide feedback on local businesses Businesses get everything detailed above for only £10 a month, which is substantially lower than other forms of internet advertising and marketing. At this price, and with this level of features, thebestof is making high quality internet marketing accessible and effective for small businesses right across the country and thousands of businesses have already reported uplifts in trade as a result.

Success
The most important measure of success is the amount of additional business generated from thebestof for the tens of thousands of UK businesses that feature on the site. You can read some of their feedback here. However, thebestof has created quite a stir in its first twelve months in some other aspects as well. It is the fastest growing UK franchise – ever. No other reputable franchise has ever gone from zero to more than 260 franchisees in such a short space of time. It is already the UK’s 48th most popular website, as ranked by Alexa, the online ranking specialists (www.Alexa.com). The ranking graph on Alexa shows what an impact thebestof has made compared to big names like Yell.

Strategic Alliances
Big Mouth Media – thebestof invests heavily in search optimisation, (both organic and paid-for) and Big Mouth Media, the UK’s leading search optimisation have worked with us since inception to ensure our high organic on Google and the other main search engines

Neilsen Norman Group – Jacon Neilsen is widely recognised as the “guru’ of web usability (the science of making a web site as user friendly as possible). Thebestof has worked extensively with him and his team to ensure the site provides the best user experience for all our visitors.

Google – thebestof has invested a significant six figure sum with Google to provide the Google Search Appliance for the site. The Google Search Appliance is an integrated hardware and software product that effectively provides the full power of Google search to our Site.

What it does -
The Google Search Appliance makes the tens of thousands of pages on local businesses, local information, local news etc. instantly available from a single familiar search box. Through an interface as simple and intuitive as Google.com, all visitors to thebestof.co.uk have instant, real-time access to all the information and knowledge from all our Sites across the country.

How it works -
The Google Search Appliance trawls thebestof every single day and creates an index of information that is ready for instant retrieval using Google’s search technology, whenever a visitor types in a search query.

In short, use of this cutting edge technology, from the recognized global leader, means that thebestof really is the “the best’ place to go on the web to get the local information you want. Instantly.

Overseas Expansion
Thebestof is delighted to have launched in Ireland in June 2006. Further expansion into US, South Africa and Australia is planned in the next 12 months.

 

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