WHAT CAN BE ACHIEVED IN ONE YEAR? A LOT!

The goal was to promote Knysna by expounding its beauties and tackling its challenges head-on. Love Knysna! alone posted 175 blogs (news/articles). Across our various websites, that figure was more than 500. That’s a huge online contribution. And that’s before considering standard web pages on our sites which would add another 85, more or less. It doesn’t stop there! We created websites for locals. Most were businesses but the exponential factor continues when a blogger such as Mike Wood joins our online community. You can also get a sneak peek at an 80 page website with blogging capabilities that we’re creating for Knysna Mall.

It hasn’t being easy. It’s required passion to overcome the recession. There was zero support from bodies such as Knysna Tourism and Knysna Municipality. Some money trickles in through Knysna Website Design but the vast majority has been run with zero budget. We’re living in a changing world that offers us insecurities rather than promise, where many are too often surviving the moment rather than aiming for goals.

We’re hoping that our second year will find more Knysnians working together towards a a common vision. We have an amazing town! We live where other people dream of holidaying. Never forget that!

WHAT’S NEXT?

• We’re making our slogan: The Prettiest Town in South Africa! Because it is!
  
• Crazy, crazy website competition and special running during the rest of June. Win a website or substantial vouchers. First come first served. You can find all the details at Knysna Website Design. Let’s get everyone online!
• Completion of www.KnysnaSchools.co.za. We’d hoped to have added a free page for every school by now but found it extremely challenging to find helpful staff and teachers. But it’s about Knysna’s kids and prospective families moving here so we’ll give it an extra boost. If you a teacher or a parent on a School Board, please check if your school is listed. If not, please send us the information that’s requested on the front page. We have evolved the site from a directory to a news source. If you have school news, we will post it.
• We’re launching Love Knysna Projects whose slogan will be One Knysna, Our Knysna. For these ideas to become reality, we will need support from the community and local businesses as well as participant response:
• We want teens to become better writers and more knowledgeable and excited about Knysna. Education needs to be fun if it’s to become a personal attribute. Next month, we’ll announce a Youth Journalism Project whereby students can earn part-time credits towards a reference for their higher education (being a better writer helps towards any diploma or degree). If you know of pupils between grades 9-12 who’d be interested, contact us.
• Training teens to build websites. We do not see Knysna Website Design as a business competitor. It is a vehicle to get Knysna online! Having a website nowadays should be as commonplace as a telephone number or edress. In a perfect Knysna, everyone would be able to build one for any purpose e.g. blogging, online CV or business. This will be in 2 parts; paid and charity. For the price of a website, we will not only provide a website but train a teenager how to build it. This will run in conjunction with training for the underprivileged. More details to follow soon.
• The Our Knysna project promotes multicultural integration through fun and education. The first step is to unite teenagers from all communities through field trips promoting social unity, a sense of belonging and an awareness of tourism as a mainstay industry of the region.
• We will provide a free web page on Love Knysna to businesses and people that make our town more attractive. These categories are on the top of the website page and include Fun Things To Do in Knysna, Sports (e.g. paragliding, boating), Arts and Culture (painters, potters), Music, Photography and Health & Beauty. You need to be well established business or member of the community. The Food section is for restaurants but for that you’ll need to provide a meal and drinks for 2. We have to taste it to recommend it:)

Believe that you can help in any other way? Please contact us.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:

• Let us advertize you for free. Send us your press release with a photo. We won’t post general business advertisements but will promote events and good news that benefits Knysna.
• Paid advertising: We’ll be launching a banner advertising system later this month. Local business and event ads will be used to assist covering costs. We’ll also choose and promote for free people and causes that further our town. For more information, contact us.
• Become a contributor. If you have talent as a writer and spare time, send us a blog for consideration.
• If you read a blog, take the time to share your thoughts in the comment section below. Not only do search engines give credit to sites receiving comments but a world with interaction is a better world!
• If you had a good read, share it! We’ve added easy social buttons below each blog that allow you to email at a click of a button. Or post to Facebook, Twitter etc.
• Get your friends, family and colleagues to subscribe. It literally takes seconds and then you’ll receive our free bi-monthly newsletter which will keep you informed.