upthejunction.com

Domains Update

John — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:02:48 +0000

Just a quick update to say that we’ve added some more domains to our portfolio. Amongst them we have:

washing line
flower shows – also will include public gardens news
ladies wellies
biketastic – a new portal for everything cycling

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Domains Update

Is It Nearly Christmas?

John — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:18:18 +0000

Schools haven’t even closed for the summer holidays and yet affiliates are already thinking about Christmas. In order to give themselves enough of a window of opportunity many affiliates and the merchants they partner with are starting to work on their Christmas sites. It’s an area that we’ve not previously had a dedicated site for but we acquired a generic domain name and so our novelty gifts blog is just starting off.

Although the main target will be Christmas gift sales (and we’re watching just how many days until Christmas carefully) the site can be general enough for year round gift ideas. It’s no secret that it’s a saturated market and competition will be high but we’ll see what we can do – maybe a concerted blogging effort will help? The aim is to add a few gift ideas to the site every other day in an attempt to build up a reasonable amount of gift ideas.

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Is It Nearly Christmas?

Channel 4 Funds Hyperlocal Projects

John — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:20:51 +0000

Just a very quick post to mention that Channel 4 via it’s 4IP initiative has announced that it has committed funds to two hyperlocal related projects. You can read more about them in this Guardian article.

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Channel 4 Funds Hyperlocal Projects

Hyperlocal Forum

John — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:16:49 +0000

Rob Powell, who owns several hyperlocal sites including his popular Greenwich site, has soft-launched a hyperlocal forum for like-minded publishers. I’ve joined myself this morning (these are our own local sites) so hopefully I’ll be able to share thoughts and ideas with fellow local news site publishers.

There seems to be a growing band of hyperlocal publishers so it’d be good to have a central place to:

discuss issues
exchange tips
suggest potential ways to generate revenue and increase readership
air content generation ideas
etc

Hope to see you there

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Hyperlocal Forum

Client News

John — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:27:25 +0000

We’ve been working on a website design project for Hardacres – a family run Liverpool funeral directors – and it’s not too far off completion now. An unusual project in some ways as you feel as though you need to refrain from using an upbeat, salesy approach. Hopefully, between us, we’ve got the general tone of the site about right.

The site has been developed using wordpress – our preferred content management system (CMS). Whilst this gives the option of including a blog, in this case the client will not immediately be publishing one. Much of the content came from a hardcopy brochure that was scanned in using some OCR software and then pasted into the CMS.

If you’d like a similar website designed for your business please feel free to get in touch.

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Client News

Brimstage Added To Our Local Sites

John — Sun, 10 May 2009 13:43:24 +0000

The latest domain added to our hyperlocal portfolio will cover the small Wirral village of Brimstage. Whilst it may be small (population approx 100) the village houses a popular embroidery / arts and crafts centre and there’s also Wirral’s only brewery that brews a bitter called Trappers Hat !

I’ll be cycling up there to take photos later in the week.

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Brimstage Added To Our Local Sites

Domains Update

John — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:10:09 +0000

Just a quick update to say that we’ve added some more domains to our portfolio.

cutlery drawer – for kitchen cutlery and gadgets
black labrador – look out for Archie, our new dog
podcast – covering the latest podcast releases
rose wine – a site all about pink plonk!

If you have any partnership ideas for any other the above sites, please do get in touch.

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Domains Update

Buying Websites

John — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:18:21 +0000

Along with our interest in buying domains, we’re interested in buying established websites. If you are selling a website that is preferably:

at least a few months old
does not rely on PPC traffic
has available visitor stats
has available revenue stats
a .co.uk domain

..then do get in touch. On the other hand, we’re not interested in:

3 week old, made for Adsense sites
anything to do with pills that make you thinner, bigger, happier, etc
ebook sales
gambling
dating
adult interest
and such like

We would consider websites that generate income via the amazon associates programme but not astores. We are also interested in UK centric hyperlocal sites.

If you’re also interested in domain name and website dealing yourself then I can recommend that you also read:

Scott Jones at Self Made Minds; Scott provides some really informative information about buying and selling domain names
Richard Kershaw at Quality Nonsense; Richard provides his new mailing list called We Buy Websites and is also interested in hearing from people looking to sell websites.
Elliot Silver in New York also discusses buying, selling and developing both niche and city geo domains.

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Buying Websites

Is Twitter Killing Affiliate Blogging

John — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:44:31 +0000

On the day that Bigmouthmedia launch their inaugural B.A.B.E. award (with a jolly decent £1,000 prize!) I’ve been thinking if twitter has taken over from blogging?

Now, whilst I detest myspace, don’t use facebook because of all those daft games it seems to have, I think twitter (my profile – feel free to follow me) is a really simple, effective marketing tool. I follow people who I think offer some useful tweets and search.twitter.com (via RSS feeds) is just great for finding content for my emerging hyperlocal sites.

There could be valid reasons why affiliates/seo’ers/domainers aren’t blogging so much:

nothing much to say recently
no point in repeating what many others are saying
too busy working on other projects/revenue generation in this tougher economic climate
apathy
140 character tweets force you to be concise ..and therefore it’s quicker

I follow a few affiliates, not all by any means as you can only read so much. Now I’ve not done any research at all but my gut feel is that affiliate blog posting is slowly playing second fiddle to tweeting.

It could just be the people that I like to read and more generally blogging is still going strong – what do you think?

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Is Twitter Killing Affiliate Blogging

Sefton Park Added To Our Hyperlocal Portfolio

John — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:39:55 +0000

We registered another hyperlocal domain property yesterday after the previous registrant allowed the registration to expire. Sefton Park is one of Liverpool’s best known parks and is home to the stunning Palm House. This is our second domain relating to parks as we also own Birkenhead Park.

We’re looking forward to visiting Sefton Park over the coming summer months to take photos and get ideas for content – sounds like a good excuse for a family picnic!

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Sefton Park Added To Our Hyperlocal Portfolio