Armagh County Community Portal

What is a County Community Portal

A Connected County Web Portal is a website that focuses on a geographic area and is inclusive of the communities, the businesses and organizations and its residents. It provides Regional Connectivity with Global Reach. By drawing the products and services into a single, attractive, comprehensive, and user friendly web site that can be easily managed while driving traffic back to all websites included in the portal. It is the window in which the rest of the world views your County, its communities and residents. It is your image to the world.“It is increasingly important for our culture to bring people together and to promote dynamics in professional organisations, mutual understanding, learning and harmony. Creating ”virtual communities” is one major way to do this.”

Armagh County Community Portal & the importance of same.

A Connected County Web Portal will be a critical part of the economic development effort. It offers more than a simple listing of local government officials, chamber of commerce members, community groups and/or meetings; it will be a vital part of your economic development infrastructure, and will provide an image of an energetic “online” Smart community that has an informed, tech-ready workforce and an informed population of residents.

It creates revenue in the deployment, the maintenance and the expansion of the portal. It will stimulate growth through existing businesses as they embrace the power of the portal and what it has to offer to grow their business.  Residents will be more inclined to get involved and take part in community activities when they have easy access to accurate timely information. Companies want to re-locate and invest in Smart communities that are at ease with today’s online technology and are planning for the future.

Armagh County Community Portal’s  purpose.

Armagh County Community Portal’s purpose is to show residents of the community what is in their own back yard as well as provide a home away-from-home for locals and a great source of information for visitors. The software being used has been putting communities online since 1999 and operates on a marketing model that puts communities and small business on a level playing field with larger cities and big business. The Custom made applications suited for Armagh County add more depth to the community experience and provide businesses with affordable online advertising and business solutions to sell their products and services.

Armagh County Community Portal is unique, as it offers a strong presence on the web therefore generating traffic to all websites within the county or community agency, independent business person or existing internet and advertising firms can generate revenue through the sale of online advertisement, internet business solutions, website development, and other web services made possible by the portal. The portal simplifies the selling process as individuals see where they belong and want to be part. Repeat traffic generators such as community calendars, classifieds, daily restaurant specials etc., ensure a recurring stream of web visitors who will visit the websites of the businesses within.

Armagh County Community Portal custom Content Management Software and Business Tools enables Staff to easily update their own high-tech and interactive County Portal in-house. This requires no specialized software skills and allows residents to contribute as well. This with the feeds from other websites in the county ensure your County Portal site is always current saving thousands of dollars in maintenance fees.

Armagh County Community Portal Features and Benefits include

• High search engine rankings therefore attracting traffic.
• Directs this traffic to current websites within the County.
• One database source ensures the accuracy of information while contributing to efficiency.
• The CMS allows staff to administer saving thousands of pounds in maintenance fees.
• Generates an “untapped” revenue stream for the county and communities it represents.
• Provides an accurate inventory of businesses and organizations by category and community.
• Events, news, photos and videos are driven by the community.
• Funeral, births, announcements, and cancellations add to traffic.
• Online sales flyers, promoting “going green” assists business sell their goods.
• Searchable listings of real-estate, used vehicles, equipment, etc. assist business sell products.
• County and community job board and classifieds (free to business) drives traffic.
• Local weather, tides, theatres, phone numbers, etc. drives traffic.
• Scheduling of events i.e. Football Matches, etc maximizes usage and increases rental revenue.
• Affordable online advertising for business.
• High traffic invites tourism and potential consumers to travel to your county to visit and shop.
• People use the internet to research places to live, work and play, they will find you.
• Creates a sense of county pride and encourages resident participation.

Armagh County Community Portal will provide a Private Label, turnkey, sustainable, revenue making county solution. The target could be an economic development agency, an entrepreneur, an established company looking for more revenue streams, or all the above working together. Services available through our Connected County Web Portal web sites include:

• Advertising streams from listing, sector ads, banner ads, sales flyers, etc.
• Website ad-on, i.e. business applications tied into the portal (automotive, etc.)
• Connection Hub Site design.
• Custom Application Development.
• Web support services; Hosting, Email, domain names, etc.
• Internet Advertising Strategies, including social Media
• E-business Solutions, catalogue, shopping cart and gateway.
• Project management applications for groups and business.
• Mobile Ready for the growing Smart phone market.

What truly makes Armagh’s Connected County Web Portal unique is the easy to administer, database driven back-end with the proven business tools in place to generate traffic and revenue for the county. Some of the custom business tools include: a CRM to manage clients and track progress:  CMS to manage clients advertising in the portal; a project management system to monitor projects; Reports, for sales, projects etc; email marketing tool; levels of permissions for users; full access to all aspects of the County Portal administration; and numerous community and business applications. It is Bilingual with functionality to be multilingual. Also is Mobile ready for the growing Mobile Marketplace.

Armagh Connected County Web Portal will save the County and its communities thousands of pounds in maintenance fees. This fact alone will recognize an actual R.O.I. through previously “untapped” revenue stream for both the counties and communities it represents. This will make this project a worthwhile investment.

The man responsible for bringing this unique software to Ireland is no stranger to the business world. Having worked in publishing for years he knows what brings communities together. His name is Des Mc Dermott a native of county Leitrim but now residing in Crossmaglen. Des explains that when visiting Canada on an official role as commercial officer for Monaghan tourism he was introduced to the MCG Group who were and are a premier full-service internet media and communications firm, located in the Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada.

Des insists that his vision is to unite communities and to assist individuals, groups, business and government departments, but also to embrace and innovate changing technology. The Connected County Web Portal is his flagship product and it is sustainable by providing businesses with measurable marketing solutions which will be achieved through recognized methods of monitoring your marketing uptake, something the business world has been waiting for. This unique software will be a gateway to promoting the County of Armagh to the entire world while at the same time showing the local community what is in their back yard and encouraging them to shop local. As a community portal the focus is about helping local businesses but also about bringing value to the customer.