Essex Reference Guide: Launching

Essex Inn, Essex, NY — Whether your business/organization is on Main Street or on the Essex outskirts we want to include you! (Credit: Nancie Battaglia)

Thank you for helping us create the most comprehensive, up-to-date and user friendly information source for the Essex, NY region. We are fast approaching our 3 year anniversary (and 1,500 posts), serving up just under 80,000 page views per year and sustaining over 30% annual audience growth. We want to ensure that next year is even better!

That’s where you come in…

Get Listed in Essex Reference Guide

We are organizing all of the content that we have published since June 2011 into an online resource connecting Essex residents and visitors to the information they need.

By early this summer we will launch an Essex reference guide with:

Updated website interface,
Mobile responsive interface,
Reengineered menu navigation,
Directory-based landing pages.

We are currently publishing dozens of reference landing pages to structure relevant content into an intuitive search engine optimized regional directory. Top level topic landing pages (i.e. Dining, Lodging, Wellness, etc.) present introductory overviews and funnel traffic to the most relevant resources. Resource landing pages (i.e. Neighborhood Nest, Chez Lin & Rays, Old Dock, etc.) showcase local businesses, organizations and resources. These can display text; images and/or video; contact information (telephone, website, social media, etc.); and a dynamic archive of related blog posts.

Anatomy of a Landing Page

This is the logo for the Essex Ice Cream Cafe. Do you have one that you’d like to include on your page in the Essex Reference Guide?

Your landing page in the Essex reference guide should present the most important information about your organization. An editor will review and optimize your landing page before publishing to ensure that the content is precisely targeted, search engine optimized, and – most important of all – to guarantee that it is user friendly.

These guidelines will help you create an effective Essex reference guide landing page:

Explain what you do.
Describe background or history, if relevant.
Add a “brag” testimonial!
Call to action, if relevant (volunteer, join, mark you calendar, etc.)
Mention events, seasonal dates, etc., if relevant.
Provide contact details (telephone, website, and physical address).
Text content should be 300 words minimum.
Include logo, photographs, video, etc.

An editor will include a dynamic archive section at the bottom of your landing page which automatically indexes and links past blog posts mentioning your business or organization. This serves much like third party testimonials, permitting interested website visitors to learn more about you. An editor will also add a map to your landing page if relevant.

Keep Essex Guide Up to Date

Once your landing page is published in the Essex reference guide, we will begin promoting you. And when you make important changes to your business or organization, simply let us know and we will update the page.

If you want to be listed in the Essex Reference Guide and provide us with your information or if you have any questions, then please contact us at editor [at] essexonlakechamplain [dot] com.

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New Year’s Resolutions 2014 (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
Discover Essex, NY! (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
Upcoming Essex Events 2/9-2/16 (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)

About Geo Davis

Geo Davis (aka virtualDavis) is a writer, storyteller and unabashed flâneur. He taught and coached at Santa Fe Preparatory School and The American School of Paris, co-founded Maison Margaux: "Paris à la parisienne" in Faubourg Saint-Germain, and owns Adobe Oasis in Santa Fe, NM with his bride.

Geo chronicles adventures (and misadventures) of rehabilitating an historic Essex home at Rosslyn Redux: Reawakening a home, a dream and ourselves; blogs about doodling and other esoterica at virtualDavis.com; posts sometimes unnerving, occasionally euphoric, and always pollyanna "midlife mashups" at 40x41.com; waxes nautical at Sailing Errant; and delves into matters of parenting, babylandia, and childfreedom at Why No Kids? He meanders on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube and Flickr.