What would you do with a premium CITY.com domain? Business directory? Hotel booking? Classifieds? Blog? Forum? Social Networking site? Magazine? Residents-focused? Expats-focused? Tourist-focused? Local language? English language? ... Or sell it? What would you do?
Travel forum. If the city is historically important or is a very attractive tourist spot then I will start a travel forum on that city. thanks
Could be a good option, but the timeframe for such a project is too long-term - 5-10 years. I'm looking for something do develop within 2-3 years. You mean like reviewing hotels? bars? restaurants? That's an idea... But tripadvisor has a dominant position there. Any other ideas or suggestions?
I wouldn't try to develop it. I would sell it as a domain at a public auction. There should be a better use for your domain. Probably you bought/registered it with no specific reason and now you are not sure what to do with it. I would think about how to use something before I buy it not after.
Actually I've owned it for over 10 years but didn't have the resources or time to make out of it what could be have been made out of it. Now I do, thus I'm looking for input before I start planning. I am looking at developing something over the next 2-3 years. Interesting idea. So a blog with tourism related content and then hotel booking options on the site. So most ideas here are focused on tourism, not local residents... Interesting... There is a huge demand for accommodation, so the booking idea is along the lines of the biggest potential. I'd need to give it some thought how I could have or create a competitive advantage over the dozens of huge dominant players (airbnb, booking, etc. etc. etc.)... Any other creative ideas?
Agoda, like booking or others is already too dominant. Just a portal for this one city doesn't seem feasible. Unless it focuses on alternative accommodation such as apartments or rooms...
The big players will rarely invest resources in dominating the SERPs for a specific city -- they just rank highly due to the huge authority their main website has. It's not impossible to outrank them.
That's actually a good point. Let me give it some thought. Would you suggest using a CMS/script or instead a completely custom setup?
Depends on what you want to do with the site. Wordpress/Joomla are versatile enough to allow you to do lots of stuff, but they're not turnkey solutions for each and every project one may have in mind.
I'd say Wordpress could be an option. Joomla I don't like using. Any other alternatives? suggestions?
You make it too complicated Investigate the advertising opportunities in the city and what it would mean for advertisers outside the city. Then start selling that, today, now. use the spaghetti method if it does not sell you drop it, on to the next. if you need leads contact me on how to do that as this is one of the things i ask money for. Themelis Cuiper
I think tourism is clearly the favourite. I'm going to give it this focus. Perhaps with a twist of hotel, apartments, hostels and leisure/dining/entertainment. Thank you all for your creative input! Let me see what I come up with and I will update on here.