For a couple of years now I have had a side project called Best Aussie Online that I envisioned as being a showcase of Australias best websites to the world. Being a patriotic and proud Aussie I really believe that Oz has alot to offer the world, not only online but in the real world as well.
The site was doing OK but not doing what I had hoped, as every website had to be entered manually, and I didnt have enough fingers and toes to really build up the content to the level I wanted. So I started thinking about scrapping it completely and selling off the domain, but then the world decided to have a little bit of a meltdown.
When the Global Financial Crisis hit I started rethinking what my core vision for the site was and I started to think more locally. I really feel that for Australia to survive this ‘crisis’ its going to be up to the people of this country to put our foot down and put our money where our mouth is. We need to look after Australian jobs and businesses by spending our money within Australia, purchasing not only Australian owned, but Australian made products and services.
With this I decided to do a knockdown and rebuild on the website and completely start from scratch. My main focus is now to showcase Aussie Websites to Australians and try and help people make informed decisions about spending their money within Australia. I know its a big task but I believe its what we need to do.
BestAussieOnline.com.au has now been revamped into an automatic submission directory where owners of Australian websites can list their websites for FREE in a standard listing, without reciprocal links, and with search engine followed backlinks. This is my way of giving back to the online community that has given so much to me in so many ways. There are no catches, will be minimal advertising and this really is a site by an Australian for Australians.
All submissions will be reviewed by my team before being accepted to keep the quality of the directory high. I plan to do a monthly showcase of noteworthy websites and or products and hope to give away a featured listing every month for the site of the month. Hopefully some sponsors will come on board as well and we can run some competitions to give away some Aussie products too.
Featured listings will be able to be purchased for a small fee and in time advertising spots will be able to be purchased as well. But as I said before advertising will be kept to a minimum to keep the annoyance factor down.
For all my fellow Aussie bloggers there is a dedicated category just for blogs. It will be broken up into subcategories that will hopefully cover all the areas that Aussies blog about. So make sure you head over to Best Aussie Online and list your blog for free.If I have missed any categories you can suggest more via the contact form and I will do my best to accomodate everyone.
