The New Economics Foundation replied asking for a specific example of how my communications model could work to achieve sustainable economic development in Exmoor.
I wrote an article some time ago about specific ways the Internet could be used to promote regeneration. At the time, I tried to get the idea promoted locally through local authority channels but with very limited success.
The plan was as follows:
Regeneration through a new Exmoor and West Somerset eHighway
The aim of my analysis is always to achieve progress rapidly and realistically, with minimum cost, and in a way that affects only the parts of the population that want change. Too many projects take for-ever, soak up £millions and end with little benefit except to a few large capital contractors and risk-reduction consultants. Additionally, in an area that is heavily retired, change has to be handled delicately, perhaps unobtrusively, if it is to succeed.
At the heart of my proposal is a plan to create a high traffic e-highway throughout West Somerset and Exmoor.
The plan is simple, almost invisible to detractors and fills an essential demand.
Many small businesses struggle to get visitors to their web sites. If they could integrate themselves into a local e-highway bearing huge volumes of purchasing visitors, many of their marketing problems would be solved.
In West Somerset and Exmoor we are now one click away from the billions that are traded each day on world-wide markets. Bringing large volumes of these high value customers to local web sites has the potential of springboarding the regeneration of this area in a way that is very straight-forward, immediate and non-contentious.
My plan is in three phases:
Phase 1:
Raise the awareness of local businesses who can benefit from e-commerce of the importance of interlinking their web sites. In this phase it is vital to have a publicity campaign which acts to get a handle on the type, numbers and location of these businesses so that an ongoing dialogue can be established with them. Without their involvement and cooperation the plan cannot succeed.
I have written an article which I include below covering in detail the ideas and arguments involved in this phase and which I have previously tried to get promoted locally.
Phase 2:
During this phase, with encouragement, local businesses have started developing an increased number of appropriate links between their sites. Their web site traffic will have started to increase and they begin to ask questions as to how they can maximise the linking process and make it more efficient.
The main purpose therefore of phase 2 is to raise local businesses and organisations awareness of web site development tools that will help them in the linking process and to encourage their use.
Phase 3:
In this phase, we see perhaps thousands of local web sites tightly interlinked in highly relevant ways that benefit both their visitors, who quickly find what they are looking for, and the owners of the sites who therefore achieve greatly increased sales. Traffic on many of these web sites has grown exponentially and with increased traffic has come increased wealth for a substantial number of businesses involved. The e-highway for West Somerset and Exmoor has arrived.
The path forward is now to build on this success economically and socially. Fortunately, success feeds on success and attracts the successful. No longer a backwater, the area now combines wealth creation at the cutting edge with beautiful countryside and a creative and stimulating working environment.
Here follows the article. The first paragraph is the headline.
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How we can all benefit by promoting a West Somerset and Exmoor e-Highway.
Agreeing with fellow web site owners to exchange reciprocal links has been standard practice since the beginnings of the internet. Indeed, the internet would not function without the billions of hyperlinks that can be clicked on to give viewers access to more information about a subject.
Hyperlinks can cross-index information within your own web site but they can also be created between your web site and other web sites with relevant content.
Reciprocal links not only help everybody but are generally free apart from the time spent communicating with fellow web site owners, setting up the link and maintaining it.
Example 1:
Visitors to local hotel web sites from tourists who are planning to visit West Somerset and Exmoor for a holiday will be more than happy to see a nicely ordered series of pages of links to local entertainment web sites such as restaurants, sports halls, music venues, horse riding courses etc.
Example 2:
On the other hand, if somebody is surfing the net to get information about a particular interest, say childrens entertainment, they might find a local site offering horse riding courses. If the equestrian site then also provides a list of links to local hotel sites and to other entertainments for mum and dad, the sale of the horse riding course for the child may be more easily made.
The important factor in all these links is that they are non-competitive and mutually beneficial to the site owners and to the surfers.
Success for a web site owner is then simply a matter of focussing on building and organising a body of high quality reciprocal links! It's easy, enjoyable and relatively non-technical.
Indeed, there is a strong argument to say that a web site owner's time is far better and more profitably spent identifying and linking with other relevant web sites than worrying about getting ranking with the search engines.
The truth is that each search engine only at best provides you with one link under each search term. Furthermore, the list of links for any search term from any search engine can be very long indeed with many thousands of sites competing to rank highly in the list in order to get some visability.
Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that well linked sites are actually ranked higher by the search engines.
But search engines can be fickle. They can rank a site highly one day and drop the site the next. Few businesses will want to sustain this level of uncertainty. How much easier it is for local sites to form mutually profitable relationships by exchanging links which bring in web site traffic that is not only enduring but is highly relevant and focussed on their site's product!
Furthermore, the total sum of all these individual links can easily be seen as a virtual e-highway dynamically linking the businesses of Exmoor and West Somerset. As more links are agreed by the site owners, the e-highway becomes more successful and so do the businesses that through their individual efforts help form the e-highway and regenerate the area.
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This article is provided by Rob Watson who works as an author on the Internet. Free publication of the article is welcomed providing it is attrributed to Rob Watson.
The key point which must not be ignored is that there must be a cobweb of links for this plan to work.
It would be easy to set up a central site that tried to link to everybody. This hierarchical approach would almost certainly not work for a number of technical reasons although it is obviously tempting for those who want to build empires.
To build a powerful and traffic building cobweb of links for the Exmoor, West Somerset and surrounding areas would require a considerable amount of education, promotion and the development of a sense of an open community. Therefore the link building eHighway plan needs to be implemented as part of my proposals described here
I hope this is what the New Economics Foundation is looking for and I'll send it off today.
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