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www.discovereastgippsland.com.au, our East Gippsland website launched only in November 2007, funded 50% by a grant from the Provincial Economic Partnership Fund and 50% by the East Gippsland Shire Council, has been a real hit and already reporting in excess of 30,000 unique visitors per month. The website is structured into three sections, they being Tourism (“Explore our regions”), Business (“Business opportunities & investment”) and Lifestyle (“Living & Employment”) and includes not only editorial information but also a large number of advertisements for local business operators.
Phil Rickards who is the East Gippsland Shire’s Economic Development & Tourism Coordinator and project manager for the development of the website, said that the website’s current success was a testament to a combination of sound planning, engaging a very professional website development contractor and having a strategy for ongoing improvements.
“To reach 33,623 visitors to the website in June 2008 from a base of 13,763 in December 2007 which was its first month of operation is a great result and shows that there is a real need for the sort of information available on the site. Essentially, our aims for the website were to put together a high quality economic development website to achieve the following - promote East Gippsland as a prime location in Victoria for investment and lifestyle migration, market the region as a prime tourist location to domestic and international visitors, and be a regional showcase and information portal linking regional businesses to the wider community”, said Phil Rickards.
The website advertising opportunities have been well received by industry with over 250 businesses, primarily in the tourism sectors such as accommodation, hospitality and tour operators being profiled to date.
But rather than resting on their laurels and being satisfied with the website’s success to date, the Shire and the local peak industry body, the East Gippsland Regional Business & Tourism Association, have begun a number of important upgrades to the site and have applied for support funding from RDV to assist achieving this.
“Improvements include increasing the advertising opportunities available for strictly non-tourism related business operators such as the Trades & Services and Retail sectors, and a Search Engine Optimization Editor enabling us to have optimal matching of the website to what search engines are looking for on an on-going basis. Upgrades such as these will make the website even more relevant to the needs of East Gippsland’s customers and help increase traffic even further”, said Phil Rickards.
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