As all people who advertise on Wyenot are very well aware (especially those directly involved in the tourism industry) Wyenot.com is almost certainly the most effective local advertising medium around - better than newspapers, the Tourist Board, magazines and it is even a strong rival to television. This is because, as younger generations grow up living and breathing computers, virtually everybody who wants to research a holiday or any other major purchase goes directly to Google first. And due to the unbelievably massive amount of work put in to keep Wyenot.com and Wyenot News popular with both regular readers and those just looking up one-off information, 'Wyenot' ranks at the top of all web search media for virtually everything local to Ross-on-Wye.

One thing I have deliberately never done is push the advertising side of this local news, tourism and community medium by going around touting for business. I hate sales people cold calling me on the phone or turning up on the doorstep and so have never done this to other people. Other than the sign writing advertisement for the local news on my car, my policy has always been to let people discover 'Wyenot' for themselves, by recommendation.

I know for a fact (because people have shown me) that some local internet advertising companies send out bullshit emails every month to their clients, quoting 'hits' figures on their web advertisements. This is another thing I have never done because as soon as people place an ad on 'Wyenot.com', they are invariable, immediately pleasantly surprised by the result, so I have always let this just speak for itself. Some have migrated to 'Wyenot' from other local web sites and told me how they have gone immediately from a zero enquiry return level to an unbelievably high return.

Some of these pleased businesses tell others how well it works and some keep it to themselves. Some have even offered me money not to take on an advertisement from one of their rivals. This, I have always refused because 'Wyenot' is for everybody!

This year, the tourism industry throughout the whole of Herefordshire and the Wye Valley (along with the rest of the United Kingdom) has taken a dive due to the atrocious summer we have had so far. You can see it in the figures. As a result, several 'Wyenot' customers have asked me, 'How many times has my page on Wyenot been looked at this month?' For this reason only, I have published a chart below - which is not just bullshit 'hits' information. It shows the actual times somebody has specifically gone to read an advertising page on the 'Wyenot' web server to look up information on that particular local business.

Unlike newspaper or magazine advertisements, where people might read an article on the same page as your advertisement, those businesses listed below could actually include each numeric unit in the chart as an actual enquiry - even if the reader did not choose to contact your particular business by phone and take it further. This is because they are pages specific to that particular business, which the reader of 'Wyenot' has singled out to enquire further about, having seen the 'link' leading to it elsewhere on the medium. I can see quite clearly on the server log, people checking one guest house against another to make their choice. In general, high page views / low bookings = accommodation too expensive or not the particular facilities that people are looking for.

A few notes of explanation:

• If the month is blank, that means that your advertisement did not exist during that month.
• The low figures in the first month of an advertiser coming onboard are due to that month being a part month - sometimes as little as just one day.
• The server log does not count my own visits to the 'Wyenot' web server whilst testing these pages because I test before uploading and very rarely look at the ads again because, with everything else, I don't have time.

A few interesting points:

• It would seem that visitors to the area like to visit places by the river - note the extreme popularity of riverside places such as the Saracen's Head, Riverside Inn, White Lion . . . (The Hope & Anchor will not show in the stats until September as it went live mid August, but the page is already high in the page rankings).
• It can be just the name of your business that helps and not for reasons of alphabetical order. One of the reasons the 'Wye Knot Inn' (which comes virtually at the end of the alphabet) does particularly well is because people confuse 'Wyenot News', thinking that the 'Wye Knot Inn' is involved (hence the 'no relation' on their page). The 'White House Guest House' does well from both being by the river and people either loving or hating George Bush - honestly - I can see it in the Google search strings.
• Even those businesses with the very lowest figures below have reported a high success rate from advertising on 'Wyenot'. Some of those advertising on 'Wyenot' have sent me extra money at renewal, voluntarily, telling me that I still do not charge enough. Thank you! I am still trying to keep the site affordable for everybody.
• If you look at the tourist businesses that have been onboard for the whole 12 month period, you can see that people begin to plan their holidays in January, then again in March/April. Only a few people plan their holiday in November, December and February.
• The chart below shows the top 10 most read advertising pages on 'Wyenot' - most of these advertising pages have had more visits than the average individual guest house web site (i.e. www.joebloggs.co.uk) would have in a year.
• The least visited advertising page on Wyenot that has been in existence for the full 12 month period has had 783 readers. Even this is more than some individual web sites have in a year.

I don't know where the enquiries are from:

One comment I often hear is that, when booking or purchasing something, people do not say where they found out about the service on offer, and when they do, they say something like 'the internet'. Most advertisers do realize that a very high percentage of enquiries come via 'Wyenot' - especially those who study the referral statistics on their own web site.

I have made a recent change to all 'Wyenot' advertising pages (this week) by adding a request at the bottom asking readers to say that they found the particular service via 'Wyenot.com' rather than just 'on the internet. Not everybody will take notice, of course (I know from the amount of people that ring the wrong phone number and try to book a room for the night in my house that many people do not read properly, they just look at the pictures) but hopefully, those who do will help give users of the 'Wyenot' service that little bit more information to help in the future.