There’s no denying that many high streets up and down the country are struggling to survive. An onslaught of ever-increasing rents, business rates, parking charges and the convenience of online shopping is all having an effect.
We all want our high streets to thrive, they are the hub of the community, and a thriving high street often creates an attractive place to work, live and visit. And indeed, there are high streets that are bucking the trend and still doing well, albeit these are normally in affluent areas or big tourist hot spots.
So just how do you get your high street to thrive and attract new businesses and visitors? Well firstly it’s important that the town centre is a welcoming and clean place, as it needs to be a place people want to spend time in.
Ways to Attract More Visitors
Create a Website
Bourne in Lincolnshire has a local web designer in Stamford to set-up a dedicated website for the town. Previously the town relied on a Wikipedia page and a page on the local council website for its online exposure. Neither of which really highlighted all the great things about the town.
It was therefore decided that a new professional website was vital in showcasing all that’s great about this little piece of South Lincolnshire. And there really is lots to be proud of here, such as the ancient woodland, the many well-kept parks, well-regarded schools, low crime, great transport links and affordable house prices to name but a few!
Alongside this, one of its core purposes is to promote the town to visitors by providing a wide range of visitor information and highlighting what’s great about the town, plus showcasing what a great location it is. The website uses a combination of uniquely written content, videos and images to represent the town. It also allows for businesses, clubs and organisations to submit their own content for inclusion of the site. It has been well optimised for search engines to ensure all pages rank highly for related searches on Google.
Effective Promotion
By promoting the town online, this helps to raise the profile of the area and encourage people to visit the town. Furthermore, the website aims to encourage residents to shop local by showcasing local businesses and events. This all helps encourage more people into the town and therefore hopefully creating a more vibrant town centre.
And the website certainly seems to be working, as there are hardly any empty units in the town and the pubs and restaurants are often busy, particularly at weekends. Of course, not all this can be attributed to a website but given that the site attracts nearly 4,000 visitors a month, that’s potentially a lot of additional exposure for the town.
The website gets a lot of visitors from other areas of the UK, particularly areas further south as people look to move to areas further north in order to take advantage of lower property prices. South Lincolnshire represents a great choice for those seeking lower property prices as prices here are much less than areas in and around London, whilst also providing a better quality of life. In Bourne and other towns in the South Lincolnshire area, crime is low and schools are highly rated. There is also good access to parks, woods and open spaces, along with some stunning countryside to explore. Furthermore, it’s still possible to get to London from near-by Peterborough in less than an hour by train, meaning commuting to London is still a possibility.
Updated Content
Of course, having a website to promote your town is only half the battle. It’s important that this contains accurate and up-to-date content, without any spelling or grammar errors. It requires regular maintenance to ensure content remains up-to-date and that the site runs quickly, and above all else, performs well on search engines.
Depending on how big your town is, this may involve employing a website administrator who is able to dedicate some time each week to make updates and check content. A website that is not up-to-date will quickly lose its appeal and people will lose trust in it.
It’s also important to mention that there are on-going costs associated with running a community website. There’s website hosting and domain registration to pay for, along with the cost of employing a website administrator (if required) and paying for any third-party services that are required. Website hosting alone can run into hundreds of pounds per year, so it’s important to find ways to generate a regular income through the site in order to cover any associated costs. The best way to do this is by offering advertising space to local businesses in Bourne.
Local Listings
BourneTown has a dedicated Business Directory listing local businesses who have signed up to the site. It also provides banner advertising for businesses and a Featured Business section on the Homepage. Part of the advertising offering also includes promoting the business on the Bourne social media platforms that form part of the overall marketing strategy.
This provides businesses with a great way of getting exposure online to local residents, whilst also providing a good means of income to help pay for the site. By offering a yearly contract for the advertising, renewals for advertising can provide a regular income stream. You stand the best chance of attracting business advertising if the visitor numbers are high and the site looks professional, with a decent amount of content.
Start a Blog
You could also create a Guest Blog section that allows for external parties to list articles that contain backlinks. This is popular with marketers and SEO specialists as it is a great way of building up domain authority, which helps with SEO. Of course, it’s important to ensure that the website has a good domain rating itself before offering this as domain authority is best built up by acquiring backlinks from high ranking and high authority websites.
A blog can also be a great way of ensuring that fresh content is added to the site on a regular basis therefore helping with SEO and providing a reason for people to re-visit the website.
Free Parking and Great Amenities
Free parking also helps encourage people into the town centre as it avoids what many see as an unnecessary expense. Of course, much of that relies on the local council providing funding and incentives where needed, which in these difficult times is not always possible.
Bourne itself is perfect for those seeking the perfect balance between rural living, with all the amenities of living in a small town. There’s many highly rated restaurants, bars and coffee shops, with a great variety of independent retailers and facilities such as gyms, swimming pools and entertainment venues.
Final Thoughts
Is a website the solution to struggling town centres in the UK? Perhaps not in isolation but it can go some way towards promoting an area and encouraging new businesses to locate there. Coupled with other investments, it is possible to turn the tide on a dying high street.
