As the owner of The Trout Club Cabins, located near Bozeman, Mike Teitelbaum spent thousands of dollars on magazine advertising in 1976 and 1977. He also purchased a web page from a national company, but his site was buried deep on the Internet. Mike then realized that the only way to consistently direct traffic to his website at www.memorysite.com/Gallatin was to establish a Montana directory that would always be high up on the search engine lists. So the Montana Vacation Guide was born.
During the first five months of 1998, Mike received $9,600.00 in paid reservations from guests who found his web site by linking from his card on the Montana Vacation Guide:
This unexpected response convinced Mike that the Internet is one of the most cost efficient and proven effective ways to advertise. He expanded the Montana Vacation Guide directory so that now all service providers in Montana can list their facilities and services at a very low cost - only $59.00 per year for a Bronze Membership.
For the 1999 summer season, even more traffic was driven to Mike's home website from The Trout Club Cabins card on this directory. Then, on April 10, 2000 the Montana Vacation Guide was listed #1 on the Abbycon.com Directory of Travel Information at http://www.abbycon.com/travel/TravelInformation.htm , and in the years 2000 - 2002 over $50,000.00 was received in paid reservations over the Internet for each year.
So what is the secret of a business making money over the Internet? First you need to know that having a home website on the Internet is not enough because most surfers will never find it if that is all you have going for you. When your home website is listed, for example, as number 705 on a search engine's list, surfers will never find their way to your home website because very few surfers will check out more than 20 - 30 of the first listees on a search engine's list. And now some of the large search engines [Yahoo!, NBCi, Looksmart] are charging $199.00 just to submit your website to them for listing - and if they reject it, they still keep your money!
So the secret is getting listed with a non-search engine, high-traffic website that is listed high up with the search engines. A site that then can send traffic directly on to your website with just one or two clicks. That is what the Montana Vacation Guide is - a vehicle that will send traffic directly to your website.
How does MVG get
its traffic? -- by knowing how to get listed high up on search engine lists, such as the
#1 listing on the Abbycon.com Directory mentioned above, the sole listing on Yahoo!
at http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/U_S__States/Montana/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Directories
the important high listings on Open Directory such as at http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=ranches+Montana
and at http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Montana/Travel_and_Tourism/ , and similar good listings with a myriad of other search
engines and directories.
To find out how much traffic your home website will be receiving from the
MVG when you join us, have your Internet Service Provider (ISP) provide you with free
webstats each month. ISPs do this for their clients by using services such as
WEBTRENDS or WWW ACCESS STATISTICS BY RENT-A-GURU. Here is what Bonnie & Gil
Kimbrough of Big Arm Resort & Marina on Flathead Lake kimb@localaccess.com said about the MVG: "It has been our pleasure to be able to do business with
you... You do a great job. Thanks."
If you get a client, a sale or a reservation from just one of the hits originating from the MVG, it can pay for your membership for many years.
Those wanting more extensive promotion can choose the Silver Membership. For more information go to MEMBERSHIP. For a sample of a Silver Membership, go to for the Card at http://www.memorysite.com/Montana/GUIDES-OUTFITTERS/Butte/GButte.htm and go to http://www.memorysite.com/Montana/GUIDES-OUTFITTERS/Butte/BigSkyAngling.htm for the full page for Big Sky Angling Service.