Most of the time there is no shortcut to success. Even so-called ‘overnight sensations’ usually have to work hard and long to get to the ‘sensation’ part; the ‘overnight’ could last years – decades even – until the critical mass has been reached.

We have been pleased to see a heightened interest in web-based content, even over the last six months since Christmas 2008. Subscribers to our weekly e-mail newsletters (Grand Bahama Info and Nassau Info) have increased dramatically, with more than 300 new subscribers added in just a few short months.

Even more significant has been the boom in the number of visitors that are drawn to BahamaIslandsInfo.com on a daily basis. We are always attentive to the many ways that people discover — or stumble upon —  BahamaIslandsInfo.com, because we want to be sure we are doing everything reasonably possible to get the word out about our web site.

We spend considerable time every day refining, improving and expanding BahamaIslandsInfo.com to make it more useful, more accessible and more accommodating to our web site visitors’ needs. We don’t just want you to visit our web site once, we want you to come back every day — several times a day! — to stay up to date with the news that affects you.

To help get the word out we focus on three main methods:
1. Make sure the content is relevant to those either living in the Bahamas or those that visit (planning to for the first time, planning to return, or those that live in the Bahamas seasonally);
2. Work hard at ensuring that the content is as current as possible; and
3. Pursue as many different external methods to spread the content and word around through other online resources.

Relevance is more than just seeing if the word “Bahamas” shows up in an article; any five-year-old that can spell “Google” can find thousands of articles and information about the Bahamas online. But sifting through the clutter to discover those that are the most salient and pertinent to people with a genuine interest in the Bahamas is the key.

Whether it is a shark attack or shark conservation, a serious crime or a new investment that will bring jobs and income to Bahamians, a government initiative that will impact our lives or a storm that will impact our homes, we strive to dig deep into the content that will be of greatest interest to our readers.

Some web sites will tell you that they focus on “the positive” side of life in the Bahamas; a valiant intention, to be sure. We wonder, though, how well informed their web site visitors will be after weeding through a clutter of flashing lights only to find half-baked feel-good anecdotes and press releases with little to no substance.

We respect our loyal web site visitors’ intelligence and maturity enough to believe that they are more than capable of enjoying informative and entertaining feature articles right along with the whole truth of the local, national and international news. We seek out reliable and legitimate sources for content, not the ill-informed or agenda-laden bloggers that try to pass off their bias as news and rumours as fact.

Sure, we get phone calls and e-mails telling us about something that seems incredible or newsworthy to some, but a few short questions later we can often determine that the source is questionable and the story is shaky; we take our responsibility to you seriously. We aren’t saying we haven’t (or won’t) make mistakes, but we work hard at trying to discern the truth and present it to you for your own consideration.

Our team and many of our frequent readers and contributors are constantly hunting down the information that we believe you want. And we listen to your feedback and pay close attention to the factual statistics on readership and clicks on articles. This tells us what people are seeking most. We use every tool available to us to watch out for trends and activity that we believe to be representative of our readers’ interests.

Ensuring that our content is current is just as important as making sure it is relevant. To be sure that current content gets to you as fast as possible, we post new articles every day of the week, even on public holidays and late into the night.

Every single week we repeatedly see articles that we have posted on BahamaIslandsInfo.com show up in newspapers and web sites days later. This is just further affirmation that we we not only are delivering you the right content, but we are getting it to you faster than most others on any given day.

We also use every available means to get the broadest possible visibility for our content; getting it in front of more people is a vital part of being a successful web-based service.

To accomplish this goal we have built relationships with other Bahamas-focused web sites that hold similar values of design excellence, content integrity and true relevance. One excellent example of such a relationship is BahamasLocal.com. This well designed and executed web site is a cross between a Bahamas search engine and a business directory; businesses can list their company information for free and there are options for enhanced listings for greater exposure. As BahamasLocal.com creator and co-owner Jason McDowall has often noted, the web site has given exposure to companies that otherwise might not get web visibility.

BahamaIslandsInfo.com delivers all the news content for BahamasLocal.com; not only does this enhance the content at BahamasLocal.com but it reveals the features and benefits of BahamaIslandsInfo.com to a wider audience.

There are several technology tools that we have embraced to help spread Bahamas news and information to a wider audience. Our Facebook page has touched a massive new segment of the online Bahamian community of over 50,000 people.  And our series of Facebook advertisements have been viewed more than 4.5 million times and drawn nearly 3,500 visitors to BahamaIslandsInfo.com.

Our news content is continuously picked up by Google News, with articles showing up in search results as little as four minutes after being posted to our site.

The content aggregator feature RSS (real simple syndication) is a way that many people keep in touch and up to date with the content across many web-based services. While some Bahamas-based web sites are just discovering this useful tool, BahamaIslandsInfo.com has been providing it since the day it was launched. (If you want to use our RSS feature just click the RSS icon near the top of the right-hand column of almost any page.)

Our most recent addiction…er, addition…to our technology tool arsenal has been Twitter. Still very much on the inclining slope of popularity, Twitter is an excellent way to get brief updates and info from friends and businesses online. On our Twitter feed (add us on Twitter @bahamasnews) you’ll get Bahamas news updates mere seconds after content has been added to BahamaIslandsInfo.com. When you spot a headline of interest you can easily click from the Twitter notification to jump straight to the full story. Hundreds of people follow us on Twitter and we have seen readerships stats jump by a factor of two or three for any article posted on our Twitter feed.

One of the great things we have seen over the last few months has been the substantial spike in other web sites around the world cross-linking to BahamaIslandsInfo.com stories that have particular regional, international and global interest. Web sites such as those operated by MSN, The Wall Street Journal (including a special section dedicated to President Barack Obama), and several Bahamas-focused travel web sites including About.com’s Caribbean Travel Blog, have all picked up articles from BahamaIslandsInfo.com that they believe their readers will find of interest.

These efforts have brought BahamaIslandsInfo.com to the place where it is now a significant contributing force in the Bahamas news and information sphere. Averaging between 1,000 and 1,500 visitors every day with traffic coming from dozens of countries and referring web sites, BahamaIslandsInfo.com has truly come into its own, just a year and a few months into its life. We thank you for helping to make that happen.

But all of these things, as effective and important as they are in operating a web-based service, are only truly effective if we know that our readers are satisfied and well-served by our efforts. We have always appreciated the encouragement, criticism and comments from you in the past and we welcome it in the future. Please write to us at info@bahamaislandsinfo.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and share your thoughts and your ideas.

~ejr~

Apple announced a new line of iMacs March 3, 2009

The iMac, for those unaware, is Apple’s all-in-one desktop Mac that incorporates the display, CPU, hard drive, optical drive and speakers into one slick, compact unit.

The iMac now comes in two primary configurations – the 20-inch and 24-inch versions – with three variations of the 24-inch model available. The 20-inch unit is a killer deal, making the Mac much more accessible for most families. That unit sells for just $1,199 in the U.S. and includes a 2.66GHz processor, 2GB of memory and a 320GB hard disk. That’s more than enough for any family  or small business. And of course all of them include iLife 2009, a sweet suite of software that makes any Mac sing (and more!).

But the big news is the starting 24-inch model which sells Stateside for only $1,499. In Apple’s official release they said, “For the same $1,499 price as the previous generation 20-inch iMac, the new 24-inch iMac delivers a 30 percent larger display, twice the memory [4GB] and twice the storage [640GB].” The two siblings of that unit offer greater storage and processor speed at $1,799 and $2,100 respectively. Click HERE to visit the Apple.com page about the new iMacs.

Apple also announced today a refresh to the Mac Mini and a new Mac Pro tower using Intel’s new Nehalem Xeon processors, calling it the ‘fastest Mac ever’. Sweet.

~ejr~