NessLink: Keeping communities & businesses in contact and up to date with Destination Development in the Loch Ness area. To get our regular NessLink e-newsletter click HERE

September 6th 2010:  

DLN Date for your Diary: Our next networking evening is on the 30th September. For more info and to RSVP click HERE.

PC Backup offer for DLN Members: Click HERE

MET Office Weather : Click HERE

News: Dangerous Dores Road, Bid to save Canal ship, Lovat’s D-day Piper Dies, Great Glen Help for Heroes Challenge, New Event for Festival of Running, Re-site Speed cameras..

Events:   10/09/10: Dinner Cruise, 10/09/10: Iain MacPahil, 10/09/10: Birchwood Highland Gala Dinner,  10/09/10: Stars in their Eyes, 11/09/10: Shinty, 11/09/10: Ceilidh, 11/09/2010:Outdoor Cinema–Seachd The Inaccessible Pinnacle, 11/09/2010:First Monster Challenge 2010, 12-17/09/10: Whole Way Walk: Inverness–Fort William. , 16/09/10: North Africa Wine & Food Evening, 17- 25/09/2010: Loch Ness Beer Festival, 18/09/10: Mushroom Hunt, 18-19/09/2010: Nokia Coast to Coast, 23- 26/09/2010 Loch Ness Film Festival, 25/09/2010 The Abriachan Produce Show , 26/09/2010:  Coire Loch Walk Event, 07/10/10: Fashion Show - Urquhart Castle. Ongoing: Mondays - Poker Night. Is your event here? email details now!

 

DLN’s own online events booking system!    Accommodation, attractions, events and more! To sell tickets to your local event online or join our shopfront trial - contact us!

UPDATED: A4 Printable events list for  September : Click HERE for you or your visitors.

Special offers :    Is Your Special Here? Let us Know!

Business Listings:   Slimming/Weight Management service for Drumnadrochit, New Photo Service

Business Information:   28/09/10: Free Sustainability Seminar, 09/09/10: HIT Scotland Dinner, Booklochness.com

Your Opinion: Have Your Say on Proposed Council Cuts: Highland Council budget Blog .

Regular Events & Classes: Scottish Country Dancing Invermoriston, Yoga - Cannich, 29/09/10: New Beginners Session Tai Chi, Dance for Kids and Zumba for Adults, Feis Gleann Albainn Term Time Classes, Singing Class, Art Classes, Sewing classes,  Just some of the  activities on offer around the Loch Ness area.

Local Information:  Road  info, Online Weather, transport info & more

Community:   Help raise £1000 for local lad to go to Uganda,   Post your community information here!

Environment & Heritage:  Forest Heritage Scotland project website, 06/09/10: Cill Chuimein Heritage - Fort Augustus & Area Heritage group event, 07/09/10: South Loch Ness Heritage Group event, Forest School, Woodland Biodiversity Workshop.

DLN Information: Destination Loch Ness Membership information.

Recruitment & Volunteers :   Local Jobs! Looking to fill a vacancy? Jobs are FREE to post.

Small Ads:  Items for Sale, Rent & Wanted. Put your small ads here - it’s FREE to post!

Participating Business Information:   Exclusive offer for DLN Display and 45% off leaflet distribution from EAE

Get In Touch! Email Nesslink with any information you would like to post on the site or add to our regular e-bulletin.

Nesslink is a community site brought to you by Destination Loch Ness Ltd.

Many key businesses from Loch Ness investing in Destination Loch Ness ltd believe in communities and businesses working together to develop the destination. If you would like to join this innovative organisation to develop your business or community group, please click HERE

Is your business not yet Quality Assured? Join DLN, commit to becoming QA’d and VisitScotland will waive its joining fee! If an accommodation provider has chosen not to be quality assured, you can still join DLN provided you either already meet, or meet within one year, a Trip Advisor(or Flipkey if self catering) rating of three stars or more. If you would like to join this innovative organisation to develop your business or get more information  click HERE

 

Exactly what questions are visitors asking the search engines about Scotland?  You ought to find out then tell them what THEY want to know, that isn’t always what you think they want to know.

Last week in a newsletter I offered a tenner to the best answers to the questions below, now the response has been very laid back to say the least. One business sent answers like this below!!

Good Afternoon………..
2 x `silly` questions…..so 2 x `silly` answers !!!
Q 1 when does heather bloom in Scotland ?
A 1 when the Heiland lassie is pregnant………….!
Q 2 how to ship golf clubs to Scotland?
A 2 you `clap them in irons `……………!
 With regards
Rosalyn Luffman
Web: www.bestbandb-lochness.co.uk

Thank you Rosalyn, for at least taking time to answer, I like the ”clap them in irons” one! Not quite the sort of answers I had in mind but at least I got a laugh (not hearty!).

The thing is though, the questions are not as silly as you might think, they are just two of the very real questions that people are asking the search engines frequently!
Don’t believe me?
Have a look at this tool, type in the word Scotland to see a list of questions that people are asking about Scotland. I admit some of them lower down the list are a bit daft.

The questions I asked though are worth answering in our visitlochness.com blog or even in the main site, and guess what? If I write a blog post or web page about heather in Scotland or about how easy I found it to ship my golf clubs from abroad I will get Google to send all those people who ask these “Silly questions” to my page! and hopefully they will see my hotel or B&B whatever, it could end up in a booking – it is worth doing. There’s lots of questions being asked which we locals take for granted, most of us don’t even know what questions people are asking. But using tools like on Wordtracker we can find out what people are asking and turn it to our advantage by answering at least some of the more important ones.

We are wrong to assume that everyone in the world knows as much about Scotland and Loch Ness as we do. Most of the people in the world have never heard of Loch Ness and have no idea where Scotland is, other than it is somewhere in Europe, despite what you might think! I watched someone on Weakest Link recently take a guess that Loch Ness was in the Lake district, that was someone from within our biggest market too!! People outside our tiny island know very little about us, unless they have a connection of some sort, so we at Visitlochness.com are trying to change all that and broadcast as much information about our little piece of heaven that we can find to the world, the internet makes that easy. That’s why I asked for your help in answering the questions. Many of you are much wiser and have a much wider local knowledge than me.

Earlier this week someone phoned to ask me how they could hire a boat to do some fishing on Loch Ness. It’s embarrassing to say this, but I didn’t know the answer! If even only a very small number of you take time out to contribute we will in the long term all benefit from more business and that’s what I and the people behind DLN are all trying to achieve. I would like to create a page on the Visit loch Ness website so please anyone with good local info is welcome to send to andy@visitlochness.com  

Another Reply from Alex Sutherland of Lochness Hideaways

1. Heather blooms during the tourist season in August but this season should not be confused with the Grouse shooting season or the “Glorious 12th. as it is sometimes known. Tourists should be shot but encouraged to return.

2. A Golf Club or Clubs are not always highly mobile in fact extracting members from the 19th. hole at the end of the day may be comparable to trying to herd cats or pigs of which I have some experience. The obvious answer to the golf club problem which has already been solved by anglers is to have a telescopic club shaft with an array of screw on interchangeable heads easily transported in a carry on airline bag and the usually tasteless head cover worn on the head of the travelling golfer to complement the aficionado’s well known sartorial elegance.

Well thank you both for sending your answers members will love them! but I really don’t think I can use these ansers to help our tourist visitors so I will roll over the tenner again this week to make it worth £20 for worthy answers, having given you all a chance to see the questions in Wordtracker  are genuine.  You might see other questions in there that you can reply to as though you were answering a visitor.  All contributions are welcome, and dont forget, it could earn you £20