Latest Developments with udonmap.com

Latest Developments with udonmap.com

Despite being Thailand's low season and the endless days of rain and bad weather we've been having recently, UdonMap has been doing exceedingly well.

August has seen a healthy increase in visitors; the average visitor count has been hovering around the 5,000 per day mark with a peak of 6,377 this Tuesday. A total of 609,843 pages were viewed in August alone.



UM continues to creep up the global traffic rank according to Alexa.com, we're currently 136,152 which is up 17% over a 3 month period. UM’s traffic rank in Thailand is 3,185.

This month 50.93% of visitors have accessed UM from Thailand, 11.57% from the US, 8.82% from UK, 5.6% from Australia and the remaining visitors mostly from EU countries.

6 more sponsors have climbed on board in August. Premium Outlet Mall has booked the map front cover for every single issue of 2012. Other new sponsors include Jintkam Massage, Big C Car Wash and BK factory. I would also like to welcome back Nan Bar and Peter Pools Thailand, former sponsors who’ve decided to come back to UM.



Last month the UM office relocated to Downtown Plaza. The new office location offers better parking and a location that's easier for customers to find, plus there's a food court which our staff are certainly happy about. If you visit us, we're on the first floor; there are elevators at both ends of the building, we’re number 37a.

Following the departure of Arjay, two new Mods have been appointed so that we can respond more readily to forum needs and members feedback. The mod team currently consists of Jed, Parrot, Bob Helm, BangkokButcher and myself.

The forum remains a positive part of UM's business and as such we will be utilizing it more in the future with the latest news and events in Udon. This month we've seen an average of 2,500-3,000 members and guests view the forum on a daily basis. The forum now has a Google page rank (PR) of 3 and the front page has a PR of 4, a very good Page Rank as rated by Google.

We have had two new office staff join us recently. Kod joined us last month as our graphic artist. He is responsible for the graphics in the printed publications, movie editing and also helps out with the website from time to time.



Chom joined us a couple of weeks ago. She is our new marketing & customer relations staff. She works with us Monday to Friday and is studying for a master’s degree on the weekends. She speaks excellent English. If you're a sponsor of UM, you will most probably be dealing with her in the future.



We will be putting together small video commercials for all our sponsors in the next couple of months starting with sponsors who joined us back in the early days. For example, 'Decors Choice Kitchens' and 'Good Everything Restaurant' have been sponsors since the very start back in 2004. So keep a look out for their videos in the near future.


http://www.decorschoice.co.th


good-everything-restaurant-t14745.html

If you're a regular reader of UM you will notice that this business was recently posted in the classified section. It wasn't an easy decision to make because it has taken a lot of time and hard work to get the business to where it is today, but it's a decision that had to be made due to personal circumstances. So far I have received numerous inquires and I'm currently in talks with a couple of serious buyers. If anything develops, I will let you know.

We are currently working on a new printed publication to compliment our current editions. I will talk more about this in my next update.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all UM’s sponsors for their continued support as well as all our valued members for their interesting and useful contributions to the forum.

Onwards and upwards.

I would like to wish everyone on UdonMap a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome the following advertisers who are joining us this year:

Centara Hotel
Central Plaza
Premium Outlet Mall
A - House Builder
Daddy Coffee
Chaiyapluk Massage
Hollywood Lakeside & Sitta Property
At Home in Udon
Udon Day & Night
Birds Paradise Resort
Chris's Place
Nee Massage
Ratchasee House Estate
QuinL Thailand
Aribaba Restaurant

Our new map publication will be out in a couple of weeks, it's double the size of the current edition and I'm pleased to say that all advertising locations have been filled for 2012. The map has been completely redrawn and now includes the whole outer ring-road and a zoom section of the central area.

Magazine issue 20 will be out soon with some quality articles (thanks to Jeff & Steve) and of course plenty of useful info.

Our video interviews are currently work in progress, we had a few technical issues last month which should be ironed out soon.

I would also like to say a big thank you to everyone involved with UdonMap, the team and I really appreciate everyone's continued support.

Onwards and upwards in 2012.

Lee, as always, I have the highest respect for your magazine, map, website. There is no comparison to any competition out there....and by that I'm not referring to just UT. I always think back to the days when about the only street map in Udon was the mimeographed copy that the Charoensri Grand offered its customers!
Out of curiosity, when you approach a new business, do you/your staff give the business owner a run through of the website (forum)? With a few exceptions, it seems most of the businesses running ads in the magazine don't take advantage of using the forum to promote their business (and then, we have a few who don't advertise who try to use the forum to promote their business!).
Just as an example, it seems the free 'advertising' that coppie's has received has benefited their business......judging by the number of people who report going there to eat. Imagine if that owner (who appears to be at least a bit computer savy) advertised and then promoted his business with a weekly special that he advertised on the forum!
Having said all that, it seems obvious that you're not lacking sponsors......or viewers!

Best of luck in the new year on the one business more than any other that promotes living in Udon!
John

Thanks for the feedback John.

parrot wrote:Out of curiosity, when you approach a new business, do you/your staff give the business owner a run through of the website (forum)? With a few exceptions, it seems most of the businesses running ads in the magazine don't take advantage of using the forum to promote their business (and then, we have a few who don't advertise who try to use the forum to promote their business!).

We always give all new customers a run down on the various sections of the business and stress the importance of using the website to promote from time to time. The opportunity is there to generate more interest but not everyone uses it unfortunately.

I would like to welcome the following sponsors who joined recently, individual information threads about them will be posted shortly.

Cyrstal Home
EK Decorate & Designs
The One Residence
7 Colours
Tida Naka Therapy
Baan Sriphakdee

I would also like to welcome back Zaleena Resort and Pattata Panya School, former sponsors who’ve decided to come back to UM.

Magazine Issue 20 is now available to view on-line here: http://www.udonmap.com/en/magazine.html the hard-copy will be distributed in a few days.

The latest revamped map that I mentioned above is now available for download on-line and the hard copy will be making its way around town this Thursday. We will also be distributing large laminated maps to various places around town e.g. Airport, TAT, police station, bars & restaurants etc.