As ever we’d give anyone the same advice as usual;

• Take off the rose tinted glasses – becoming an ex-pat in Lanzarote, as anywhere else, is not as easy as it first seems, especially if you need to make a living.
• Don’t buy immediately, make sure the move is really for you. Rent for at least the first six months, get to know the areas, get to know the property market, and spend time to find out which are the reputable estate agents before considering buying property.
• Follow personal recommendations – but also be aware that not everyone are as genuine as they seem. Earnings are not what they are in the UK, so a ‘kick back’ culture is exploited by many to generate business/supplement poor earnings.
• Try to learn at least a little of the language – it’s a basic courtesy to our Spanish speaking hosts…

We’ve been here some years now and have seen all sorts of people come through the Lanzarote Relocation site. Dreamers who will never make the move, people who try but are not fully committed, some who really want to but it’s not the right time just yet, people who try with the best of intentions yet don’t succeed – and of course some real success stories!

For us the site has been a real success for its visitors – and we think the main reasons are that we are honest and open about who and what we are, and the advice and information we offer is free. We make very little money from the site – and we have no wish to. It  pays for its costs with affiliate advertising – and certainly doesn’t even come close to paying for the large amount of time spent on it. But money was never a part of our thinking behind this site. We simply wanted to pass on what we have learned from moving to and living on the island to others.  The site has gone from strength to strength, and continues to grow. We’re very proud to be able to say we are not part of the ‘kick back’ culture that so many are as we take no financial incentive for recommending any of the companies on it.

Yes – Lanzarote has suffered from the recession – despite what some will tell you, the property market is still pretty stagnant from what we see – which on the upside means there are bargains to be had. Many ex-pats are heading back to the UK as it has become increasingly harder to make a living or find jobs in Lanzarote. Bars have closed, as have many other businesses, tourism numbers have been down – though the island has seemed relatively busy over the Christmas period… It’s probably not the best time to move out here right now unless you have money or real confidence in your ‘plan’. If you’re going to be dependant upon finding a job – it may be best to shelve your ideas until the global market changes.

We’ve been very lucky with our business – we’ve continued to grow and are still growing with website builds for clients on the island and in the UK. We’re fairly confident in saying that with over 150 active clients in Lanzarote, Gandy-Draper is most likely the largest English speaking web design business on the island – with our client base being made up of English, Spanish and German clients.

Our Canary Nightlife site continues to grow with new clients signing up in Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria and Tenerife over the course of 2009 and shows great potential for further growth.

Thankfully, it’s been a fairly good year all round for us – life is what you make it! Make no mistake though, we work hard for what we have – life on a holiday island isn’t necessarily a holiday…

Happy New Year to everyone on and off the island!

Related posts:

1. We practice what we preach…
2. Stop moaning about the recession and dip your hand in your pocket!
3. Telefonica

This recent article about us was in the April edition of ‘Spain’ magazine back in the UK.

There are of course business benefits to us from press articles…

• they add credibility
• they have the potential to bring in business (this one brought us an SEO client)
• they may create additional website traffic – the Canary Nightlife and Gandy-Draper sites saw additional traffic throughout the circulation period
• our clients see that actively marketing ourselves and our sites s in turn driving traffic to their advertising with us and their own websites

We were approached to do this article after an article about Elle in the expat section of ‘The Sun’ website.

Watch this space – we may have another on coming up soon…

Related posts:

1. The importance of marketing in the credit crunch…
2. “Now available on computers…”
3. Happy New Year!

Canary Nightlife (launched in February 06) – is a site promoting bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants in the Canary Islands. It’s a very busy site (hits are measured in the many hundreds of thousands every month) which we have proven delivers business to our clients at a very reasonable cost. It also includes a busy forum.

Lanzarote Relocation (launched September 07) – is our guide to moving to Lanzarote. It’s simply a blog of our own experiences of emigrating, our musings about life on the  on the island and other general Lanzarote information, including guest articles. As far as we know this is the only independent site of its type. Again this is a very busy website and features well in Google searches.

As we have written about elsewhere both sites have been imitated – more than once  – as is so often the case with many businesses on Lanzarote. But, we’re confident in our ability to stay ahead of the game – after all this is what we do for a living, we’re not doing this as a hobby or as an after thought!

Cue more insults from our friend “Bob in Cyprus”!

We currently have a number of other projects in the making – watch this space!

Related posts:

1. Happy New Year!
2. What is Google Page Rank
3. I hate Twitter…