The Website that jump-started the Internet in The Bahamas has become the largest, highest-traffic independently-owned Website in the country. And, like The Bahamas, it just keeps getting better. The industry leading community portal, BahamasB2B.com, has again broken it’s own record for quarterly site traffic and advertising revenues.
As BahamasB2B approaches the anniversary of their fifth year on the Internet they are reporting an astronomical burst of positive traffic. In fact, according to one of the several volunteer Bahamas Network Webmasters, they have been experiencing a steady growth since their launch in August, 2000.
But since the start of 2005, each month has broken the previous monthly record, leading up to what has now become the highest increase in web traffic of their history.
“The site has always been a favourite of both the Bahamian public and foreigners, however, this new growth trend has shown a heavy increase in foreign-related traffic,” said the BahamasB2B webmaster, who goes by the name of “Shogun”.
Since the release of their Bahamas Vacation Message Boards and the new Bahamas Island Guides, the site has attracted a whole new group of tourism related visitors in addition to their traditional news, real estate and business traffic.
Marketing Director Niki Bright notes that organic traffic (traffic generated from unpaid listings and directories) has increased significantly. “Traffic from search engines is up almost 300% because we appear on page one of the three major search engines for over 1,000 Bahamas-related keyword phrases.”
Due to the number of sites in the Bahamas Network, they sometimes have several listings, for completely different Websites, appearing among the top ten listings for valuable keyword phrases.
“We don’t count our traffic by hits, we count page views, it is more accurate… and we’re doing very, very well,” Ms. Bright said smiling.
“We have been earning more from advertising and our affiliate commissions this year than ever before, and our mailing lists have been growing by leaps and bounds,” she added.
But not all web traffic is welcome, and BahamasB2B has certainly received its share of persistent hack attacks. According to Shogun, this is all part of being at the top of the charts. “You know you are an important site when you have so many people interested in you. It lets us know that we are not ignorable,” he chuckled.
He admits that BahamasB2B is regarded, by some, as being a bit controversial at times. “But it’s all for the good of the country,” he says, adding, “we have heightened awareness and initiated dialogue on many important issues.”
“90 per cent of the feedback we get at BahamasB2B is very supportive and encouraging. That’s why we keep on going.”
