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In the last post I talked about the many classified and business directories offered online for the Lake of the Ozarks. They seem to draw in some good traffic but don’t have great appeal to me.  If I want to look up a business listing I can always use the yellow pages that is delivered to my door every couple of months. Or I could just use the online yellow pages. I want reviews, interviews, stories about the lake that help me find out more.

So since the Lake of the Ozarks generates over 1 million searches each month we have decided to start our own Lake of the Ozarks website with articles and reviews from the lake. We have purchased 2 domains. LakeofOzarks.net and TheLakeoftheOzarks.net.

There is an interesting publication out there now call LO Profile. This is a magazine printed 6 times a year. We aren’t so ambitious to think we can have a printed publication but we want to provide a new online magazine that has daily, weekly and monthly features to help vacation visitors and residents.

We hope that thelakeoftheozarks.net will be a great resource for visitors and residents alike.  Visit often to see what articles and stories we turn up.

Continue reading to see the variety of designs and portal sites found in the Ozarks. Some of these sites need a website uplift others just need some minor tweaks to be more user friendly and also to come up in search engine results higher.

Let me know if I missed one and what you think of these sites. Do these sites work for your business? Are these good places to advertise? Would there be something more useful?

Ozarks Portal and Directory Sites

Lake Expo – A basic portal with news, ads, classifieds and pictures.

Lake Ozark Now – This site is a standard portal with lots going on.

Lake News Online – This is the online face of the local news group serving the Lake communities. They also use twitter. There is a sports account, http://twitter.com/thelakesports and the news tweets, http://twitter.com/LakeNewsOnline.

Ozarks First – If you watch Springfield local news you will see tv ads for this one all the time. Unfortunately this site doesn’t work in Chrome browser but it does in Firefox.

Ask The Ozarks – this is a new site that recently I saw on a local tv station commercial. I believe it was created to compete with ozarks first.

Live Lake Ozarks – terms themselves as the official lake of the ozarks website. The exact same content is at two sites http://www.odd.net/ or http://www.livelakeozarks.com/.

Lake of the Ozarks Bars – this is just a site with all or nearly all the bars listed in the lake of the Ozarks. They also go buy lotobars.com which you might see on advertising around the lake.

Lake of the Ozarks Vacation Guide – the website is a resource for visitors to the lake. Recently they updated their site with this clean look.

Ozarks Web Design and internet marketing

If you find your website is in need of an update or you want your website to be at the top of search engine results please contact Matt Anderson from Tonka Park – internet marketing and development, in Camdenton.

Bryan Auction – the well known auction/liquidator here at the lake. It appears that they kept the job in the family and their son redesigned and updated the website.

Osage Hills Church – a church in Osage Beach. It seems they might have kept this work in house as well using iweb from Mac.

Fun Lake Missouri Vacation Guide – the new site looks nice and you can compare the new lake of the ozarks vacation guide to the old style still on the funlakemeetings.com website.

Anyone else want to show off their new site?

The thing about Percy’s High Performance is that they have a huge catalog of patented solutions for the after-market car enthusiast or race-car driver. They have Speedglass, the highest quality racing windows on the market, for almost any make of car. Then they have this other stuff called Hyper Fiber. It is flexible material to make a mold in any shape and then cure it in minutes.

If you are a race-car mechanic, pit crew member, race car driver, high performance car nut or just like cool gadgets Percy’s is your source for high performance after-market parts.

You can shop directly from their online store http://percyshp.com/store/ or you can find most their parts in your local AutoZone or other parts store across the country. I find it amazing that this type of business exists in Camdenton, Missouri and can have a reach from Alaska to Florida.

Camdenton Chamber of Commerce

The Camdenton Chamber of Commerce has some great information on local businesses, local events and how to get connected. There is no doubt the information is on the site. However the design is something that is very unprofessional. For an organization representing the local businesses it is inadequate.

The Camdenton Chamber represents over 450 businesses and organizations in the Lake of the Ozarks area. Shouldn’t this organization be an example of keeping up to date with internet trends?  I would like to challenge the Camdenton Area Chamber to consider updating the appearance of their website to be a leader in the business community.

The Lake of the Ozarks area that the Chamber helps represent, primarily the Camdenton area, represents easily 15,000 residents both inside and outside of the city limits. The official numbers are very misleading due to the many residents living just outside city limits. But we could at least run with 15,000 for this conversation.  During Summer or Hunting season that number likely increases by the thousands.

A side-by-side comparison

So if the Chamber represents businesses in a community this size it should be comparable to other chamber’s around the country. I came across a chamber website in Buffalo, MN. Now the Buffalo Chamber has a wonderful website. While the information provided is no different in nature than what the Camdenton Chamber is offering you can see that the presentation of the content is much easier to follow. Where is your eye drawn? Which website would you prefer to read?

Here are 5 quick fixes the Camdenton Area Chamber can consider after seeing a comparable chamber website in a comparable sized area. Even the logo with the sailboat is similar.

QUICK FIX #1 – Setup each page with Google Analytics

A quick and easy way to start understanding your visitors and their usage of your website is to install the freely available Google Analytics. There are many companies that can help with this or you can do it yourself. If you need help integrating analytics and understanding the data you can work with us at Tonka Park.

Analytics can help you understand which pages are working and which pages aren’t. It can help identify trouble areas or even successes. Having more information about your website will only allow your business to make better decisions about what your next step should be. Read more about analytics here.

QUICK FIX #2 – Make sure all images and links are working

Many sites often have links or images that lead to nowhere or don’t display properly. This shows a lack of preparation and review for your content. Each time you work on your site take a few moments to make sure everything loads properly. It may seem simple but the small things always make the difference.

QUICK FIX #3 – Add a search or sitemap of your content

Many organizations have large amounts of content on their websites and each week it seems to grow. If you are trying to cater to lots of different types of visitors then you will need to provide them a good way to get around your content. Sometimes a menu navigation cannot display all pages of content you have available.  A simple sitemap like the Buffalo Chamber offers or a search box to search the site would be helpful. You want to help your visitors find answers to the questions that brought them to your site. Don’t make them search manually by clicking around, give them an easier way.

QUICK FIX #4 – Setup your site on a CMS

I have no idea how many are running these large websites. But when you start getting into lots of content and weekly or even daily changes you need to move to a CMS solution. A Content Management System, such as WordPress or Joomla, can help you organize your content on the back-end.  A CMS could also address Quick Fix #3 as sitemap and search are usually built-in functionality.

Using a CMS will cut out maintenance time and make it easier to create even more content you were either reluctant to or unable to create under your current one page at a time system. There are open source and commercial solutions here. Professional firms can help you get setup on a blogging solution or a robust CMS to solve your content problems.

QUICK FIX #5 – Get a professionally designed template

The final quick fix could be considered a bit less than quick. Redesigning a website can take weeks or months in some cases. However, if you are happy with your content and simply want to take advantage of a new look a prebuilt template might be just right. There are several commercial sites that sell designer templates for basic websites to complex CMS websites. Now even though the template is prebuilt it will take some skill and expertise to integrate it into your existing site. So this still could be a few days or a couple of weeks to full completion.  But it will be less expensive than having a designer build a fully custom designed website.

I recommend browsing the templates at Themeforest. If you prefer you can contact us over at Tonka Park to help select a template from this affiliate or another you have found. We can then help uplift your current website and content to fit into the new template. We even can help you get up and running on a CMS solution.

For the record, I have not yet joined the Camdenton Chamber but have considered it. Any other members out there?

Don’t be overwhelmed

A great first step is to setup an online store to allow people to send in orders from around the country and even world. At first it might seem overwhelming to venture into the online shopping cart world. However there are several great products available to help make the transition better.

There are sites like Etsy, Big Cartel, Shopify and others to get your business selling goods online in now time. And if you partner with an IT professional such as Tonka Park, you can even venture into the custom online shopping cart solution such as Spree. There are pros and cons to each service and each tailor to a slightly different business segment. You will need to understand your business, your target market and then take some time to work with someone to review each solution to find the right fit.

Each of these solutions offer ways to work with Paypal or another merchant gateway to accept payments with ease. They also can track inventory, display multiple images and allow discount codes.

Helpful Resources

Over the last year Tonka Park has provided several articles reviewing and highlighting some of the better services available.

4-top-shopping-cart-solutions-reviewed

how-to-choose-an-e-commerce-shopping-cart

why-i-chose-big-cartel-over-etsy

KofC Fish Fry in Camdenton

Being the season of Lent we knew there would be more fish fry’s than the usual 2 a month. Since we hadn’t been down that way recently we wanted to make sure the fish fry was still on this Friday.  It was around 8pm so we decided to try an internet search using the words Knights of Columbus Camdenton. I figured would find a website with information about the Hall and their schedule of activities. I was dissapointed to find their website, http://lakeozarks-kofc.org/.  It was a design from 1999 it seemed with information only an active member of the Hall would even be able to make out.  I also found this website http://lakeozarks-kofc.org/councils/camdenton/6365.htm that hasn’t been updated since 2003. These sites could use some content strategy to improve readability and usability and in turn improve the search engine results.

For a hall that has weekly activities it was surely disappointing to find such a poorly utilized website, with an obvious neglect towards appearance. We ended up finding the phone number and having to call to confirm the fish fry was still going on.

While having to find the phone number for Knights of Columbus in Camdenton and make a phone call to confirm an event is not all that big of a deal it is slightly off putting when you are trying to use a search engine to find the answers when the business might be closed for the night.

Eventually I found what appears to be an announcement of the fish fry on the Lake News Online website, only it was for the previous weekend, http://www.lakenewsonline.com/communities/camdenton/x692835299/5-things-to-do-this-weekend. And then finally I found it on the KofC website, http://lakeozarks-kofc.org/kc10.html, after we already called. The fish fry is every Friday during Lent starting at 4:30p till 7p for a cost of $7. And of course all  you can eat.

Yes you have a website, but does it work for you or against you?

So yes the Lake of the Ozarks Knights of Columbus have a website but is it useful? Not that they are going to lose business but they aren’t serving their community better with having an out of date and poorly laid out content. Simple tools like WordPress or other freely available content management systems make publishing easy.  Take some time to consider a small improvement to your website to make it easier for you to manage and easier for your visitors to get the information they need.

Small business websites

While many small town businesses try to avoid spending extra money on what may appear frivolous websites can be implemented rather quickly and for less than you might expect.  Hosting can cost around $3-10/month and web design or seo marketing can range from several hundred to thousands. But for the most basic sites a good template can be used to lessen the cost of a new website.  Check out themeforest for an amazing resource of affordable templates that an experience web developer can implement quickly keeping the overall costs to a minimum.

For any small business needing to improve the performance of their website through attracting more visitors search engine marketing and simple website design can be a big help. Hiring a firm that specializes in search marketing or web design such as Tonka Park can help your current and future customers enjoy their experience with your company’s internet image.

If you found this article searching for the local Knights of Columbus you already have an example of proper content can help in search engine results.  If you just need the phone number, at the time of this article the phone number for Knights of Columbus Hall in Camdenton Missouri is 573-346-0010.  Again consider contacting Matt over at Tonkapark.com about your website needs.

‘You need a website. Period.’

For many businesses in the Camdenton, Osage Beach and lake area an advanced solution wouldn’t make sense. I am not trying to say they would, but intentionally focusing some of your advertising efforts towards the internet should be a requirement. To provide an always-on business presence will put you ahead of your competitor who hasn’t yet moved to the internet. Scott Clark addresses the need for a company website plainly:

First of all, let’s get this out of the way… you need a website. Period.

And not just any ol’ website, but a great website with clear, crisp professional, easy to navigate design with superb user ability and functionality. Furthermore, you need a website that is just as easy for you to use administratively, as it is for your site visitors to use.

It doesn’t matter if you are a national corporate brand, a smaller brick and mortar with ‘plenty of business’, a brick and mortar with only local business, or an ice cream shop that only sells to people between 5’10 and 5’11 wearing baseball hats before 3 pm only… you still need a website! Your business can be broad or niche, it can be large or small, and despite what you may believe… you need a website!

No matter the cost

Don’t let the potential costs of a website turn you away. There are many levels of service and different options that can be customized to meet your specific needs. If you invest some money into an e-commerce site, a product gallery or an online newsletter you are likely to make your money back in new sales due to the work of a experienced designer and developer. Search engine marketing or campaigns can be another way to spend money that helps attract new customers online.

If you want to venture into creating your first business website, updating your current site to be more professional and useful to your customers, build an e-commerce storefront or start a new search engine marketing campaign please consider contacting Tonka Park for the internet services.

Local business websites

For those businesses in the lake area towns such as Camdenton and Osage Beach there are starting to be more businesses creating websites to help accommodate the visitors that travel to town and for the locals who use their services all year long. Unfortunately, there are still many businesses relying on billboards and yellow pages for communicating with their potential customers. This works to an extent but more and more people are trying to find information on the internet using search engines before they visit town. Being able to find information on the internet will help these consumers make a decision on whether they will use your services or furthermore if they know that your services exist.

Lake area directories

There are directory sites that are more like newspapers and classifieds. The lake area sites that you might find useful are www.lakenewsonline.com, funlake.com, www.lakeozarknow.com. These sites have some area business information, local news, picture galleries and advertisements for local businesses. They are helpful tools for small businesses to list their services or advertise and for consumers to look up local information. But they are limited in how you can portray your business. Having a unique domain just for your business will help create brand identity and allow you to provide dynamic content that can help draw in new customers.

Create a web presence

If you are a lake area business needing to get your company online to replace or supplement your current advertising please consider a new website or search engine marketing campaign. There are several local companies that can help get a basic website started for a reasonable price. Take a look at the web development services offered by Tonka Park. They can help you get started with your first web site or help you update your current site to be better at drawing in new customers. Even if you aren’t in the Lake of the Ozarks region Tonka Park can help setup a website or improve your search engine results.