GUIDE2THEWORLD TAKES OVER THE PLANET

“A GUIDE2THEWORLD website in every continent, country, city and town on the planet where there are English-speaking people.”

That’s the dream of Small World New Media managing director Bernard Aherne, who has turned his experience of running websites in France to set up a rapidly growing global network of Guide2TheWorld franchise sites in the space of just eight months. With Guide2 sites already launched in Bristol, Croatia, Valencia (Spain), Poitou-Charentes (France), Cyprus and Spalding in Lincolnshire, with more to follow in Dorset, Midi-Pyrenees (France), Limousin (France) and Nigeria, it appears that Bernard, who only started franchising Guide2TheWorld in June 2008, could be well on the way to fulfilling his vision. The concept of the Guide2 sites is to provide a one-stop resource for people living in the area, those looking to move there or those just visiting. Sites have local news, tourist attraction and days out information, an events calendar, properties for sale and rent, accommodation and restaurant listings, as well as classified adverts and local blogs, where users can share their views on local issues. The sites also provide a cost effective way for local businesses to spread their message to their target audience. Already the existing sites are proving a big hit with residents and are shooting up the Google search engine rankings. Bernard said: “Because we’ve been there and done it with the sites we ran in France, we understand what works and what doesn’t. “We understand the needs of our clients, we understand our product and we understand our competitors. “We understand our business from the point of view of the franchisee. “We have taken all of these elements and created a product that we believe is the most exciting internet based franchise that exists today. “We believe that a Guide2TheWorld site looks better than any competitor’s site, allowing our franchise partners the competitive edge from the outset. “We also have significant funding in place to allow us to keep ahead of the competition, to invest in new technologies as we see fit, and rapidly expand the franchise network and, it follows, the strength of the Guide2TheWorld brand. “Guide2TheWorld offers a vast amount of content to our visitors; in fact a Guide2TheWorld site is fully comprehensive. “Unlike the many directory sites that exist, each Guide2TheWorld site provides a one-stop source of information for the local community, meaning there’s no need for our visitors to look elsewhere. This means a valuable audience for our advertisers. “As well as a cutting edge website, A Guide2TheWorld site has a concise, factual, editorial style with unique bullet point summary of each article that allows visitors to quickly ascertain whether they’ve found the information they’re looking for and whether they want to read on. “Each site earns revenue through providing advertising, affiliate or commission deals to local businesses. Being more than just a directory site means we have a whole array of solutions we can offer to a local businesses for their marketing needs, including directory listings, banner ads, button ads, advertorials,websites, property listings, accommodation listings, classifieds (small ads, jobs, cars and more). “Combine this with the growth of a powerful global brand, an easily memorable name, and a ground-breaking site design and we believe that this offers a hugely exciting franchise opportunity.” The cost of a Guide2TheWorld franchise starts from just £3,000 and depends on the size of the exclusive territory chosen by the franchisee. Despite the success of Guide2TheWorld so far, Bernard has no intention of sitting back and taking it easy and has plans in the pipeline to make the sites even more appealing to users. Within the next few months he hopes to integrate MyGuide2TheWorld into existing sites – a social networking platform similar to Facebook. Bernard said: “There is still so much more we can do with Guide2TheWorld and we will continue to develop new and exciting ideas which will ensure our sites stay on the cutting edge for design and usability. “We will not rest on our laurels. “We are committed to ensuring that every single one of our franchises is a successful and viable business, thus ensuring the long term success of our business and the Guide2TheWorld franchise.”

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