Name of your website?The North Texas Business Conference: Business Solutions EXPO
Your name?
Robin Courtney
Your Location (city, etc)
Dallas Texas
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Our website is the online portal to The North Texas Business Conference. It started out as an informative event for the region's businesses to learn how to more effectively promote themselves, to attract more customers and to learn more efficient ways to do business over all. To keep our region's economy strong, we all need to know how to keep the business rolling in! Then, it became a place where people from all over the world started coming! 42 countries to date. So hopefully with our pod casts, links to exhibitors, etc. we can help even more people grow their businesses and better their lives!
What inspired you to launch your own website?
People. We all need a way to make a living, and doing what you love is so much more fun! As soon as the conference is over, we'll load up the website with even more information. As it is now, people can learn about the event - which is totally affordable - only $59 for what should cost $750 and up considering our level of presenting speakers. But we wanted to keep it affordable so those attending can use what they saved in registration fees, on products and services to grow their business! That's what its all about. Any profits we do make go right back to the communities kids, through Hope Cottage's Family counseling center. Those attending can also save a life by donating blood. See? It's all about people.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Oh my gosh! I think it was a little business selling special salts. I made it myself with some $50 program downloaded off of the Internet! I had no idea what I was doing and didn't make a single sale. Learned a lot and certainly did my share of yelling at the computer - I'm not very computer savvy - even to this day!
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Oh brother. You're asking a woman who couldn't decide on a name for her new born child for two weeks, how I decided on a name for the website? I actually named it twice. First it was fantasticexpo - which was okay - but didn't really tell you what it was - I'll probably use that url for something else down the line. But then I finally decided on businesssolutionsexpo because solutions was searched more than strategies. So that's how it got its name.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
We have a lot more information to offer, and going forward will have even more. We are including the community and really talking about the overall region. We're not strictly about the physical event, all of our speakers are really fabulous people, really into helping people. Even our exhibitors - they are great people who are all becoming great advocates for each other's businesses. I think our event website is a great advocate to our community.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I would like to see businesssolutionsexpo become a resource for any business owner or manager to find information, make new business friends and really help visitors, the physical attendees, sponsors and exhibitors learn all the latest and greatest in business strategies and solutions. I think of our event as offering a real, serious value and not just a venue for some authors to make a bunch of sales.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
So far I think pretty well. Already a lot of business has taken place because of the conference and that's really cool. The entire point of the conference is to generate business for those involved and to see that happening PRIOR to the conference is incredible.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Wow! First, I would hire Tony Wright or Giovanni Gallucci or Ken Partain to sit down with me and tell me how to develop the website correctly for search engine optimization. I'd then hire them to get all the SEO together and ramp up the traffic. I'd hire a professional photographer, make-up artist, stylist, and models and shoot all orginal graphics. Get a graphic artist to do a really cool logo, do some cool programming for more functions for our visitors.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes! We are ready for plenty of bandwidth. I am lacking the forum - but that will be up this week.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
As the conference has found its own "energy" I've had to make a lot of changes to the website copy - that was an unexpected expense. The other thing was finding an affordable registration service that had all the functionality we wanted.
What has been your biggest challenge?
SEO, finding decent stock photos and finding a forum I like to use.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Directories and search engine results by far. E-mail marketing too.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I think I expected it to be easier - there's so much to consider - like finding a forum style you like - lol.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Let's see, almost 6 months? We'll run it for the next 5 years for sure. We may even run it until Armageddon - lol!
Knowing what you know now, would you have still started this website?
Uhmmmm? Yeah, I think I would. When it comes to helping people, and seeing the business that we've generated for people already - yeah, I think I would. I think that this event is going to make a huge difference for businesses and those thinking about starting a business. They'll both learn how to most effectively market and advertise and start generating revenue much faster than other start ups. Isn't that worth staying up all night? Yeah - I'm happy with that.
What is your website address?
The North Texas Business Conference: Business Solutions EXPO
