I just got done watching the interview Michael Cyger of Domain Sherpa did with Michael Castello of CCIN.
Cyger again did a great job showing he truly knows his subject and asked great questions. Castello gave one of the best straight forward interviews for this or any other industry.
While I listened to the interview I checked out what is one of the premier names for CCIN. PalmSprings.com is a very simple looking site. You go through it and realize that is where the magic lies. It does not have a million plugins, it does not have a news ticker.
It does what Michael and his brother David set out for it to do. The site gives visitors thinking about coming to Palm Springs everything they need to know about, where to stay, get a tee time, find the restaurants and the shops.
Of course they are not simple, they have years of experience and a lot of tricks of the trade, that you need to run a geo site.
I think it was Dn Journal who first interviewed Michael years ago. In that interview he said the site made $1million a year. In the new interview, Cyger asked him how much the site made ? Castello with a transparent style that Google could learn a lot from, stated that with the downturn in the economy the site is about 20 % off. That is still $800,000 a year for a site that Castello said has very little overhead.
Of course they also have the great name, the category defining name for Palm Springs.
Anyone interested in website development should watch the interview and make sure you can concentrate with no other distractions. You will learn a lot, and know that you are at a disadvantage if you do not listen to someone who has the magic formula.
fizz says
It’s even better than that as it’s not the whole website but just the home page, as Ron’s article mentions: “The home page of PalmSprings.com alone generates more than $1 million a year in revenue.”
http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2011/january-page3.htm
Ken says
…my thanx for a most inspiring and thought-provoking post. Anytime an article foments ideas in its readers it serves its purpose. Kudos, Ray…
…oops, there goes another rubber tree plant…