Wednesday, December 29, 2004

New Year's Clean-up

Since we can't go clean up Fain Park in Prescott Valley, Arizona, because of the weather, we are cleaning up the eatstayplay.com offices. For two days all we are doing is going through files and re-organizing and purging.

This is a good way to take a look at where we are and where we are going in the coming year. So, put on the radio, pop some popcorn and settle in for major merge and purge!

Monday, December 27, 2004

Happy Holidays from eatstayplay.com

Merry Christmas!

In this holiday season, eatstayplay.com has another surprise: Nevada was launched on 25 December 2004. We are looking forward to fleshing out the attractions in this great state, as well as beginning marketing after the New Year.

In other news:

- A search for Prescott National Forest on Yahoo.com returns eatstayplay.com as number 3

- A search for Grand Canyon National Park address in MSN returns eatstayplay.com as number 15

- We get almost daily searches for Prescott Trolley Company.


Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Research is moving forward

Lately, we have been very focused on research: getting Utah up, fleshing out the other states, finishing the optimization on Alaska. Just basic housecleaning on the attractions.

This is a never-ending process:
if content is KING, refresh rate is Queen!

Next week, we have our first meeting with a new SEO firm that is local here in Prescott, Arizona. So, we will begin the dance with them to see if they have what we need to continue to move forward in the engines and also to see if they have the knowledge. I know just enough about SEO to know if somebody else is a good choice or not.

Sales will be gearing up after the New Year. We are expecting major sales in Arizona and to fully maximize the potential in Prescott, Arizona. While eatstayplay.com is much bigger than Prescott, or even Arizona, this is still our home base. That makes it PERFECT for beta testing our new sales methods and for getting the sales staff's feet wet.

In other news:
The Christmas postcards we sent out were a huge hit.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Utah!

The state of Utah was loaded over the weekend! Look for more attractions to be loaded in the coming weeks as we start requesting users to verify our information. Today, links to the Chamber of Commerce will be loaded for each popcenter.

After the first of the year, the sales staff will begin our initial marketing to that state. So, we have until then to find any abnormal pages and get them fixed!

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Prescott Valley Town Council Meeting

eatstayplay.com has adopted Fain Park, in Prescott Valley, Arizona. In the meeting this evening, the Mayor and Councilmembers voted and it is now official. I gave a presentation to the council, explaining about eatstayplay.com. I also invited the council to our first clean-up in January.

All in all, it was a great success. They laughed at my dog joke and I was able to slip in another joke about not being mic (Mike) shy. Lucky for me, there was a councilmember named Mike and he is an easy going guy.


Tuesday, December 14, 2004

New Record (even better than last time!)

eatstayplay.com had a double record setting day this week. Sunday finished out at a whopping 988 sessions.

To make it even better, Monday ended at 964! For the month of December, we are averaging WAY over 500 sessions a day.

Monday, December 13, 2004

All time sessions record!!

Sunday, 12 December 04, was an all time sessions record for eatstayplay.com. We had 851 sessions recorded AND there are still 6 hours of data left to post.

Funny thing is though, most of this traffic is coming from no-entry. Where are people finding us at? Users need to take our survey!

Friday, December 10, 2004

Town Presentation a HUGE Sucess

Okay, I'll admit that when it came right down to the moment, I was nervous to get up before the town council, the assembled townfolk, and the TV camera. I was especially worried when I saw that Teapot Inn had a powerpoint presentation.

But, it went off wonderfully. The council laughed at my jokes, I got the word out (some more) about eatstayplay.com, and hopefully, I'll be invited back! I even received compliments on being a good public speaker.

I'd do it again, in a heartbeat.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

New Hit Record

Monday: 732 unique sessions.

December: Average of over 500 sessions a day.

(I remember when we were happy averaging 100!)

First presentation

Well, the council of Chino Valley said that I would be coming in sometime in January. Then, I was called two days ago and invited to speak TONIGHT.

Good thing that I can pull together a presentation quickly. So, wish me luck, I'll be addressing the Chino Valley Town Council this evening on behalf of eatstayplay.com!

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Business Presentations

My latest venture as being the "most visible eatstayplay.com executive" is to go to meetings and give presentations about eatstayplay.com.

I am still working on perfecting my pitch to said organizations. I have to fine tune my PowerPoint slides and oh! buy a projector. (Kind of hard to have a meeting of 30+ people gather around the laptop screen...)

The best news is that I already have two presentations scheduled: Prescott Valley Town Council meeting on December 16, 2004 & the Chino Valley Town Council meeting for sometime in January. After that, it will be on to the Chambers of Commerce, Woman in Business organizations, the Hispanic communty, and other networking groups.

Good thing I LIKE public speaking. Guess all that training in high school will finally pay off!

In other news:
  • Our daily visitor count is picking up. We are averaging 500 visitors a day.
  • We have more merchants now than we have ever had before.
  • Networking at business parties is paying off with new clients, a partnership with a SEO firm, and even more name recognition.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Chino Valley Review

The article that was written about eatstayplay.com for the Prescott Courier was carried in the Chino Valley Review this week. After the great response from the last article, I am hoping for some more traffic.

What I really need are people to take our user survey. How can eatstayplay.com better serve its users if we don't know who they are, where they are coming from, and what they want?

Word on the Web is that Google is up to something. I can vouch for that! Just by looking at my stats for the previous week, I can see that a major change is in the wind. Hmmm, just in time for Christmas.