Key ingredients to creating a portal - local, regional or industry focused

I have added this to the topic below as well

I am in the process of creating a regional portal. To make it work, strategy is critical.

The revenue model will be subscription. To make it attractive to all businesses and organisations I believe the following has to be present...

1. The site has to have the right theme. Does the theme of the site excite the potential subscribers/adveertisers to say I want to be part of this?

2. Does the site generate the right type and amount of traffic that will benefit the various type of businesses and organisations that will subscribe to be present on it?

3. Do the tools of the site allow for the subscribers to manage their content therefore eliminating or substantially reducing the admin overhead?

4. are these site tools easy and intuitive to use?

5. Is the site full of quality and informative content that is going to benefit the visitors?

6. Are the site tools easy enough to use for the average content provider to be given authorisation to make regular updates?

www.edgeNZ.com is my attempt at the above. We have only just launched but the response has been positive, with lots of support to get the content together. We are just about to begin a sales campaign for business subscribers... check out the "Where to stay" and "luxury" area to see our first customer or click on site of the week.

This site comes out of a passion of mine to brand our region "The Worlds Edge" and help turn what has for some time a depressed economy into one of countries most vibrant.

love to hear some feedback
Ross




e-cluster - Knowledge Management Systems

Hi Ross,

You have an interesting site.... But I didn't quite understand some things. I'd appreciate it if you could explain it a bit further (then perhaps I can comment)....

For example, I saw a place to sign up as a member, but I wasn't sure what I needed to be a member for. Can members add to the listings? What are the benefits of membership?

Also, where does the revenue for your site come from, is it from advertising?

It didn't seem clear to me.... If you don't mind answering these (just so I can understand your site better), I'd be happy to comment....

- Dien Rice

Hi Dien

Thanks for the feedback...

Just to clarify... The e-c toolset was born out of our need to create edgenz.com. The e-c toolset is the platform that creates edgenz.com and we are now selling that platform to national organisations like Industry New Zealand to handle their cluster development groups.

You are correct the signup isn't clear... It is to join an ezine about what is happening at the Worlds Edge. Will look at creating a more obvious and enticing sub form.

Members can't currently add to the listings directly but after thinking about it would be a good way to get their basic details to upsell them a more expansive listing.

What are the benefits of membership?
We are building a site network that will deliver the largest amount of traffic avaiable that relates to interest in this region. Therefore targetted traffic will be a benefit.

The site will become the regional portal.

The site has a theme that allows its members to leverage for their own branding...
leading edge technology
cutting edge forestry
leading edge people
the learning edge

see the about page and the pdf there for more detail...

The revenue comes from site subscriptions. We have a excellent content management system that allows users to maintain their own content. So we sell packages from 1 page to unlimited pages.

see www.e-c.co.nz for full feature set.

We are in the process of detailing these and putting them up on the site.

We have also begun affiliate relationships with graphic designers and web designers to use the e-c platform to create sites.

So if the entity uses e-c to create their site and they are in the region they get a free listing on edgenz.com. eg Luxury accomodation provider www.opoucountryhouse.co.nz is an example of this.

cheers
Ross


Knowledge Management Systems