If you have a commercial website or a network of them, you probably spend a lot of time chasing up advertising on the internet. You may also use an agency or two which take 40-50pc of the income they generate.

Maybe it’s getting a bit harder out there now, with PageRank depressed and an almighty credit funk hanging in the air like a bad smell.

Here’s an alternative. Depending on the topic(s) of your site(s), try placing small display ads in the business section of your local newspaper or trade press.

Ask readers to consider internet advertising. You might remind them that it’s very competitive with comparable colour display stuff in magazines, or text lines in the small ads.

I stumbled on this field while following up our plans for a local West Country subNetwork. While assessing the potential for local ads, I saw how many national and international companies are present here in Devon. There are also lots of small businesses that trade internationally, often selling produce online, and also bags of computer and tech SMEs, some on the new technology park set up by the university.

It occurred to me that this was a treasure trove of potential advertisers for the Syntagma network, let alone a dedicated local one. As a source of text-link ads and 125s — which we haven’t picked up on yet, but intend to — it’s a veritable goldmine.

Advertisers don’t have to be based in the U.S. — a common assumption online, mainly because volume-wise it’s such an enormous market. But, for a middling sized digital network, there is literally huge potential in your local area.

I can happily pass on this piece of intelligence because there are no digital networks based in the West Country of England — that I know of.

Maybe they’ll all come jumping out of the undergrowth now.

We’re here at last in our new offices in the West Country of England. Nearby is the Elizabethan Quay and the kind of architecture you only see in films.

We have lots of plans going forward including a new site, Sideways Health, which we hope to launch next week +. This could develop into a mega health site on the one domain, which will be a departure for us.

There’s also our private subscription retail information site to roll out next month, which will probably be the flagship of the business in coming months.

It’s been a tough grind over the past two and a half years, but we’re now beginning to mature as a business, partially breaking clear of the old SEO plus advertising model into a cluster-attack mode that makes us less dependent on one factor staying the same, while insulating us from the swings and roundabouts of internet business.

The year ahead is going to be a hard one for everybody, with the American economy having “fallen off a cliff” at the turn of the year, and Britain set for an even bigger fall.

To counteract this, we’ve switched to retrench mode, clearing away all debts, diversifying our interests and cutting costs sharply. We’re confident it will do the trick even if another dotcom crash is imminent.

How are you doing?

A quick “hold the front page” news flash to say that our office move is in progress. We are currently tripping over packing cases and crates, which is why there’s not much activity here.

Where we’re going

We’re actually moving on Sunday, so still a long way to go and much to do.

We’ll be back fulltime on Monday. Have a great February.

Syntagma Media is on the move.

We’ve been planning a move of office for a year but have been unable to find anywhere with the right combination of location and facilities. Until now.

The historic Quay district at Exeter’s Watergate

Next week will be spent packing up and the move will happen over the weekend beginning February 1st.

We’ll probably be offline for a few days while we struggle to get the comms going again, but all should be set again by Monday the 4th.

The new Syntagma Towers will be situated in the Elizabethan Quay area of Exeter.