LADERA RANCH, Calif., Nov. 15, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Community Lifestyle Portals, Inc., parent company of LaderaPortal, a community website exclusively serving Ladera Ranch, today announced that it will begin connecting local businesses and residents through a new feature called the "Ladera Merchant Directory" on its website at www.laderaportal.com.
Until now, the options for residents seeking online information about local businesses had been limited to national online "yellow pages" search engines.
"When looking to do business with a local merchant, it would be ideal to have a thorough understanding of service or product quality based on their track record in your community," said Brett Buchanan, co-founder of the LaderaPortal concept. "We're giving residents the ability to rate and review the local businesses so that their neighbors will benefit from their experiences."
All Ladera Ranch retail businesses have already been provided with free basic listings. LaderaPortal is offering a variety of monthly and annual merchant sponsorship packages that can be tailored to meet local marketing needs. LaderaPortal sees six to eight thousand page views daily with nearly 100 percent of the traffic coming from the local community. The average user spends 17 minutes logged on to LaderaPortal each time they sign in, providing an excellent number of potential impressions.
"Ladera Ranch is a unique, young and high tech community," said Jerry Ursini, owner of Newport Rib Company at Ladera Ranch, and initial advertiser in the Ladera Merchant Directory. "We felt the best way to reach the residents here was to connect with them online, and LaderaPortal was the right medium."
LaderaPortal was started in January of 2005 by a couple of software industry veterans who saw a gap that needed to be filled -- providing an online connection for the vast and growing South Orange County community. Unlike some local competitors, LaderaPortal focused on building the culture of the online community and increasing the subscriber base before taking a turn toward a commercial offering. LaderaPortal consists of message boards, live chat, an arcade, local events calendar, breaking local news stories, club pages for local groups, traffic, weather and classifieds.
"In the beginning, we had people printing fliers off the website and posting them all around their neighborhoods in an effort to recruit their neighbors. The 'word of mouth' factor has been impressive," said co-founder Bo Kelleher. "One of the reasons for our success is that the community really took ownership of the site and made it their own."
About LaderaPortal
LaderaPortal is a Web property of Community Lifestyle Portals, Inc. (CLP). CLP provides residential community websites for focused communities that are managed by master developers, homeowners associations and property management companies. CLP was founded by Brett Buchanan and Bo Kelleher, two veterans of the software industry. The company is headquartered in Ladera Ranch, CA. CLP is privately held. www.laderaportal.com