Name of your website?Sanya Expat
Your name?
Mario Cavolo
Your Location (city, etc)
Sanya, Hainan Island
Please give us a short summary of your website?
SanyaExpat is #1 traffic-ranked English speaking website for Sanya offering hundreds of pages of content including tips & recommendations, property market expertise, apartments for rent & sale, products & services locally available, travel services including discounted airfare and group travel planning
What inspired you to launch your own website?
During my first visit to Sanya 4 years ago, I bought a beachfront apartment at Dadonghai beach. I realized Sanya would boom and there were'nt any good website resources available so I started the blog in March of 2007 and the site continues growing and expanding.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My first website is www.visiontovictory.com, also known as www.maricavolo.com now, and was launched in 2002. This is my business website for my work as a professional speaker, trainer and media/event host.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
The name fit the tourist city destination and focused on supporting the English-speaking viewers who are foreign expats living in Asia.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
SanyaExpat is loaded with personally researched information, tips & recommendations. The other Sanya websites are simply travel company websites. My site started as a blog and has hundreds of pages of content with direct, specific answers to reader's interests.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Right now, the goal is to continue providing needed information and services building an income stream with the site. Ultimately, selling the site will probably happen at some point in the future.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Very well. Because of the web, I have become more and more well known as the expert of Sanya and regularly meet new people and make new friends because of that. It is very satisfying and the related income continues to grow.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I would make it a full-featured rich content website, rather than blog based to continue building the readership, developing traffic and advertising income. The success of the site will continue getting better and better each year.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
No! I am always talking with potential partners and strategic alliances.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Dealing with the technical side of the web, ie. programming/SEO, etc.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Same, dealing with the technical side of the web, ie. programming/SEO, etc. For example, now I need to quickly set up an ad server.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
using the right keywords in my posts does alot to improve google ranking
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
results take longer than I might expect.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
I have had the site for around 18 months and I can expect big increases in the coming year. If not, I would probably sell it off.
Replace this with a question of your own
Thanks very much for your services, Cheers, Mario Cavolo
What is your website address?
Sanya Expat
