Hotel Banana Azul
Beachfront on Playa Negra

July website traffic through the roof!

The number of internet visitors to Puerto Viejo Satellite has been growing at an astonishing rate! An average 35% a month from April through July:

Our statistics indicate that these visitors are mostly out of country doing research on their upcoming trip to the area. You can see that from the outgoing clicks -- these are clicks from Puerto Viejo Satellite to listings who have chosen to support the website and their own business by purchasing a weblink to their site or Top Pick status as well as clicks out to photos, blogs and videos and volunteer opportunities for the area.  If you're curious here's where our last 500 visitors came from:

157	35.20%	Costa Rica
155	34.75%	United States
45	10.09%	Spain
39	8.74%	Canada
28	6.28%	United Kingdom
22	4.40%	Other

This is how different types of listings performed during the month of July (if you'd like to see how your own listing performed, please email me and I'll advise the specific statistic for you):

Talamanca News launched!

We've all been waiting for a local news source for the region and here it finally is! You can find it at www.TalamancaNews.com or by clicking the News link on www.PuertoViejoSatellite.com. 

Some of the recent stories you will find on the site:

If you'd like to receive The Talamanca News in your email inbox (no more than one email per day) you can subscribe to the email edition so you won't miss anything.

And if you have story ideas, firsthand witnessed an event the community should know about or would like to write for The Talamanca News, please write editor@talamancanews.com.

New Community Donations Page

Puerto Viejo Satellite is now supporting various community initiatives such as ReciCaribe and the new Cooperative for a Sustainable Talamanca by processing credit card donations on their behalf. We are covering the credit card processing fees so that 100% of the donation gets to the project being supported.

If you have customers who'd like to support the community but want to do it from overseas and/or via a credit card, send them to www.PuertoViejoSatellite.com/donate.php.

Tips for promoting your business or project online

Yes, high-speed internet finally came to Puerto Viejo and that has made many people stand up and realize how many of their customers initially found them (or didn't find them) through the internet before they arrived. But unfortunately, build it and they will come is not a strategy that works so well on the internet. Smart promotion is required. So in this newsletter we will publish a tip every month on how you can better promote yourself online.  For this first month we'll give you a brief list of ideas you can use and then in later months we'll go into specifics in more detail:

• Send the customers you can't accommodate back to www.PuertoViejoSatellite.com!  You got a reservation request but you're full? Well then send them back to the site where you know they'll find other quality accommodations.  In this way, we all benefit.

• Make your own website have a comprehensive resource list for the area. If people using your website can find out the answers to all the questions that you know visitors to the area ask over and over again, then they will come back to your website and recommend it to friends. But it's a huge amount of work to keep all the area info up to date (I know this--check out our Transport page for example) so one way to do it is to provide basic info and then provide links back to Puerto Viejo Satellite. We're working on adding more frequently asked questions about the area on things such as money and health issues soon.

• Are you listed on Tripadvisor? If you run a hotel or guesthouse in the area, you can't afford not to be. Like it or not, this is the most used place for people to check out comments from other guests. If you're not listed now, please email me when you are so I can include a link from your Puerto Viejo Satellite listing to your Tripadvisor listing. If you are listed then you need to encourage your guests to leave a review for your property on Tripadvisor.

• Have your guests sent you a great photo album or blog that mentions your place? Well then submit it to the Photos, Blogs and Videos page!

• Be helpful online. There are many online forums that discuss Costa Rica and people are often asking questions about the area. Don't spam the forums with your website, that won't get you a good reputation but instead if you can helpfully answer a question then do that. And if you can link to the answer on your own website or on Puerto Viejo Satellite then that's more likely to get you business later.  And remember, Puerto Viejo Satellite also has a user forum specifically for area questions -- if you're not registering and posting your community info there, then  you're missing an opportunity! (The forum doesn't look too active yet but you'd be surprised how many people are actually reading it even if there aren't too many posters -- check it out yourself and see how many times each post has been viewed).

Again, I'll go into more detail about these and other ideas in coming months.

Thanks!

That's it for this month, let me know if there's a specific topic you'd like to see in future editions.

Pura vida!
Doug Dosdall
www.PuertoViejoSatellite.com

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