'Sarasota Living Online - Your Online Information Source Interview'

Name of your website?

Sarasota Living Online - Your Online Information Source

Your name?

Cori Matzen

Your Location (city, etc)

Sarasota Florida

Please give us a short summary of your website?

Your guide to Sarasota Florida and it's surrounding cities. Find local businesses, hotels, beaches, shopping, real estate, free classifieds, utilities, DMV, golf, maps, attractions, lottery, restaurants and MORE....

What inspired you to launch your own website?

A need for relevant local information that is easy to find and navigate. Sarasota is where I live and where my children go to school, it is our home.

When did you launch your first website, and what was it?

In 2001, azlivingonline.com

How did you decide on a name for your website?

My site is locally focused and is about people living in Sarasota so the name speaks for its self.

What makes it different from other, similar offerings?

1. It is very attractive and well organized 2. It is easy to navigate 3. Our directory is located on every page 4. We have done a great deal of research to provide information and resources that people are regularly searching for. 5. We offer very economical rates to the businesses listed on our site. 6. We are local, we are not in LA trying to provide information about Sarasota. We live here, play here and our family is here.

What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)

Will probably keep it until my kids graduate but would entertain the idea of selling to a local realtor or magazine.

How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?

It depends how you measure success.

If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?

I would make the site more interactive, information requests, surveys etc..

If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?

I would have to hire and outsource.

What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?

none

What has been your biggest challenge?

marketing

What method has been most successful for promoting your website?

word of mouth

How has running your website differed from your expectations?

no

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?

I have had the site for over a year but really just launched it in September. I am not concerned with it not growing, we have tripled our hits already.

What will you find on www. sarasotalivingonline.com

Find Sarasota hotels, shopping, real estate, businesses, beaches, free classifieds, news, weather, sports, utilities, DMV, golf, maps, attractions, lottery, restaurants and MORE....

What is your website address?

Sarasota Living Online - Your Online Information Source

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