Portland's businesses and shops

Portland being small Island (of a sort) has always had a diverse range of shops and businesses to cater to the locals, at both tophill and underhill.

In the last ten to 15 years as we all know, regarding shops that has slowly decreased much like elsewhere in the UK with the rise of huge supermarkets to cater for everything under one roof at low prices, which has killed the trade for the small specialist shops, like the butchers, bakers etc.



Not to mention we will soon have a supermarket on the Island, hopefully this will not impact to much on existing shops like has already happened in most places.

Up until now we have had the co-op as the main supermarket and they have traded here for years, in several places on the Island, although they will have to deal with the new supermarket...it's healthy in one sense to have that competition as co-op is not cheap, when compared to all other supermarkets and they have had the monopoly here for so long.

The OAP's will jump for joy at least feel like they get much more for their pension should they use the new Tesco supermarket being built. I personally am glad it's to be a Tesco and not Adsa or such, with Tesco being a British brand.

As long as the jobs created go only to the locals it will be a boost to Portland and it's overall mood.

One thing I have noticed with many local businesses is they don't utilise the web as well as they could, some don't use it at all, which is a shame as the web gives all businesses a greater reach and a potential wider customer base not to mention there ARE people talking about these businesses online somewhere, whether they realise it or not.

Wouldn't any business owner rather know what was being said and have the opportunity to direct the conversation?

Even if businesses have a website, that alone is usually not enough, the "build it and they come" mentality is outdated and in truth doesn't usually work, it needs to be the central hub for your business.

So with that in mind and with the recent economy being a bit stale I decided to do my little bit on here to help local businesses, from next week, one day each week I have decided to pick a business at random on Portland and write about them, promote them, link to their website if they have one.

I have no preconceived preference for the type of business I will pick, should it be your business written about, lucky you. :o)  I can should be bribed, persuaded, charmed, left alone to choose.

Having decided to make this site a long term commitment there are of course some running cost as well as the time spent writing, promoting, and growing the site itself, the readership.

So another area I would like to help is to sell small ad blocks on here, 125x125 sort of sized boxes.

With over 700 subscribers and having new people visit the blog on a daily basis I am sure businesses can see the value in having an limited ad on here, more so when this ad income would most certainly go back into growing the site and it's readership so as to provide more value for the businesses who have an ad.

I aim to have only three boxes and as they will be always in view upon immediate visit here, what's known as "above the fold" where no scrolling of the website is needed to see that ad and the ads show on every page on the blog including archived pages.

To be fair, I would like to say, a minimum of one month and a maximum of six months on each ad, for each business at any one time, this means other businesses also get the opportunity to benefit.

If having an ad for your business on here appeals, please feel free to contact me to discuss it further, simply email me in confidence using deafdad+portland @gmail.com (remove the space before @) please send the email with the subject line: Ad on portland-bill.com offer.

Any thoughts? Feel free to comment below...