BahamasLocal.com Business Listings Attract 900,000 Views Monthly
Bahamas Local, the online search engine often called the Google of The Bahamas, released figures today showing some 900,000 business listings are viewed monthly with a total of 17 million hits since the site was launched in 2009.
"We are really pleased to note that the popularity of BahamasLocal.com has continually grown with numbers of visitors and unique visitors increasing nearly every month," explained Jason McDowall, who spent three years building the site prior to its launch. "We thought it was amazing when we got the first million hits and we are now up to 17 million with 900,000 visits to individual businesses in the last month alone."
Those listings hits, he said, spike during special times. "At Spring Break, for instance, we'll see a huge spike in pizza companies, scooter rentals, clubs, bars and searches with certain key words or tags." For businesses, taking advantage of special calendar cycles is easy, said McDowall. "Businesses can edit their listings themselves, add tags or key words, post specials. There is no charge so those businesses that understand the power of the internet have the opportunity to benefit."
McDowall, who partnered in the site with successful entrepreneur and former Bahamas Chamber of Commerce president Dionisio d'Aguilar, said restaurants continue to be a major draw as do movie theatre listings.
"But more and more we are finding that viewers are checking BahamasLocal.com for news and I think the popularity of our news feeds has surprised even us," said McDowall, who attributes part of that popularity to the constant updating of news produced by media houses and agencies and posted on the site often as it happens. The latest figure shows 800,000 total news articles viewed per month. "It is not surprising since the trend worldwide is toward online news, particularly for up to the minute headlines. By the time the paper comes out in the morning, those who are accustomed to getting instant news as it happens view the next day's paper as history, but refer to it for more in-depth analysis."
According to very recent research by PEW International, TV is still the most popular source for news, but online news -- whether on computer, cell phone or other mobile device -- is quickly overtaking newspapers and radio with only half as many Americans reading a printed newspaper as they did a decade earlier. Some 55% of regular New York Times readers now read the Times online.
"We are becoming increasingly oriented toward getting the information we need to conduct our lives efficiently and effectively from online sources," said McDowall, "and I am proud to be part of what has become an important tool for businesses and individuals in The Bahamas."
