WordPress Affiliate Manager

Affiliates Management Plugin for WordPress

Running and Monetizing a Niche City Portal Site

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My first affiliate commissions from the beginning of my online career came from running a city portal site and although I have since sold the site for a tidy profit, it continues to make money in much the same way.

For the longest time I was making money referring people to hotels, motels and hostels in my city and making referral commissions from TravelNow.com. I was able to brand my pages on TravelNow to look similar to my site but I found conversions to be higher when I didn’t.

At any rate, people that look online for accommodations have many more ways of locating deals that the SERPS aren’t always where they start looking. The site I ran used to get organic search engine traffic for phrases related to {city name} + hotels or {city name} + {hotel name}. With folks being more online savvy in general, a different approach was needed but is still effective.

Mostly now I see city portal sites asking people to use their hotel links to help support the site. The site best have some really good unique quality content for people to want to support them. Plus, the owner must be keeping track of the best deals from across the web (and being an affiliate at several booking sites) to offer the most value.

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Marketing for an Iconic Brand Case Study

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It’s easy to play armchair quarterback. We can talk theory all day long and it’s when the rubber hits the road that we learn what really works. Here, I apply my experience and education to one of my favorite places before getting off of red meat – White Castle. I’m anxious to read how you can apply the lessons from this case study.

Introduction

The strategic marketing issue that is addressed in the White Castle Restaurant Case is that given the consumer attitudes towards fast food and the overwhelming competition from national purveyors of fast food with their franchises; what White Castle needs is a focus on their core strengths and tight market niche as the low cost value meal for low to upper-low income consumers.

In response to this issue we would deliver a marketing campaign that would emphasize the strengths of the franchise and target the niche market. To accomplish this we recommend using Television, and print advertising, and point to the company website on these advertisements.

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