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Holiday Web Sites

We are based out of the Quad Cities (a fairly unique area comprised of about 5 cities, and several outlying smaller towns).  The Quad Cities (or QCA) as it’s locally known,  represents just under 400,000 people.  One of the problems with our area is that everything is very fragmented, and because we’re several communities all literally butted up against each other and in two different states we end up having unnecessary competition between communities, this creates the problem….there is no unity when it comes to…well just about anything.  This is really frustrating when you’re trying to find something to do, or somewhere to go, etc.  Knowing this we’ve started our Holiday Web Site program, we’re creating several web sites, one for each holiday/season.

Our first web site was launched just last week, it is QuadCitiesHalloween.com, we’ve promoted this web site using only search engine optimization, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.  So far, the results are amazing, we’re generating a great following on Facebook and Twitter and we’re getting a tremendous amount of web site traffic.   You cannot underestimate the power of social media.  This web site is the first of its kind for our area, there are many sites out there that make a good effort at listing things (mostly provided by the local major media outlets).  I always get the feeling that those holiday lists are provided out of necessity and they don’t really put in the effort of making it a great local resource.

Here’s the video we created to explain/advertise QuadCitiesHalloween.com

The goal we have is to create an all encompassing directory of events, categorized properly, listing all the relevant information and providing a very simple method of accessing the information.  This project has become a really fun experiment, and is generating a lot of buzz.  We do not charge for the service, any event can be listed for free and anyone can use it for free.

So why do we do it?  We like to go and do things, and we can’t ever find anything quickly!  So we’re spending time now gathering all this data and creating these great local resources, at the same time it gets us some decent exposure.  We like giving something back to the community that has made us prosperous.

Enjoy.