Revamped MarbellaGuide.com rewarded with sky-rocketing popularity

Living in a foreign country presents a particular set of challenges, but expats in Marbella, Spain will be happy to find lots of useful information gathered into one website: MarbellaGuide.com. Now into its sixth year, Marbella Guide is packed with interesting articles and local news, as well as a job forum, weather information, a services directory and lots more. The website has seen one quantum leap in popularity after another since it was redesigned in August 2005. Thousands of people visit MarbellaGuide.com every day, looking for anything from Spanish property for sale to what new DVDs to expect at the local video rental shop. Last March saw a new record of 98,018 visitors, so something definitely must be right!

‘The property pages are our most successful feature,’ says Craig Edmonds, director and editor of MarbellaGuide.com. ‘Thanks to our extensive network of estate agencies, we now have an online database of over 35,000 properties of all types and prices for sale in the Costa del Sol, as well as in the rest of Spain.’ Thanks to Marbella Guide, long afternoons spent running from one estate agent to another may soon become a thing of the past, as more and more people discover the luxury of property hunting from the comfort of their homes.

‘People who plan to visit Spain on a property-buying trip are finding our property database particularly useful, because it allows them to save precious time by identifying interesting properties beforehand,’ Craig adds. ‘This means they can fix viewing itineraries with agents in advance, and so make the most of their trip.’

The MarbellaGuide.com property database is searchable by town or area, with the results classified according to property types, so that users can easily find what they are looking for. Many of the property listings also come with one or more photos. All include the price, as well as a detailed estimate of a typical mortgage plan, making it easy for prospective buyers to determine the financial commitment involved in the purchase.

According to Craig, MarbellaGuide.com is always on the lookout for reputable estate agents who want to take advantage of the website’s popularity and include their properties in the online database. ‘This will not only be good publicity for the agents themselves, but will give our visitors an even better choice,’ he adds. ‘Of course, we carefully vet all new advertisers to make sure that they provide an honest and professional service to our visitors.’

Another regular feature of MarbellaGuide.com is the cinema guide, with timetables of films being shown in English at theatres along the Costa del Sol. ‘My wife and I are great cinema fans,’ explains Craig, ‘but finding films showing in English involves checking all the individual cinema brochures every week. So I decided to gather all the information and make it available to other cinema-goers too.’

Needless to say, this guide is very popular with those expats who feel that a night out at the movies is not one of the pleasures they should have to forgo in return for the privilege of living in sunny Spain. The cinema guide is updated weekly and available both online, as well as via an e-mail mailing list that has grown to over one thousand subscribers.

Home-cinema fans are now also catered for, with the newly-added DVD releases page that lists forthcoming major film releases week by week, up to one month in advance. DVDs produced for the Spanish market usually include the original soundtrack. This makes them an ideal alternative for anyone who lives too far away from an English-screening cinema and, of course, just the thing for those who would rather spend a relaxing night in.

While living abroad may seem like an eternal holiday, the good old green notes (or rather, the multi-coloured Euros) have to come from somewhere. Once again, MarbellaGuide.com comes to the rescue, with its job-hunting forum that receives daily job postings from some of the top recruiting agencies in the region. ‘When I came to Marbella five years ago, looking for a job wasn’t an easy task,’ says Craig. ‘Now, just by going through our jobs forum, people can find out what jobs local recruiting agencies have available, and the best thing is that they can do so before they even leave their home country.’

With so much up-to-date information on Marbella collected in one place, it is no wonder that MarbellaGuide.com continues to attract more and more visitors every day. So, what next? What is in the pipeline at MarbellaGuide.com? Craig says, ‘The thing that keeps our visitors coming back is interesting and relevant content, so we’re always thinking up new sections that will make MarbellaGuide.com even more useful. For example, we are currently working on a new ‘What’s On’ guide, full of information about local events and activities, to create a one-stop-shop for anyone deciding what to do in Marbella.’

This sounds like excellent news for regular visitors to MarbellaGuide.com, and also for those who have yet to discover lovely Marbella and all it has to offer.

For more information, please visit www.marbellaguide.com. You can also send e-mail to craig@marbellaguide.com or contact Craig directly on +34 699 651 718.


About MarbellaGuide.com

MarbellaGuide.com was established in the year 2000 by Craig Edmonds as a compilation of useful information about Marbella and its people, culture and entertainment, aimed primarily at the local expatriate community and other foreign visitors. It is edited by Craig, assisted by Justin Parks, and features contributions from expatriate writers living in the region.

Craig moved to Marbella in the summer of 2000 and runs a small, but successful, web design company, 123Marbella.com. He lives with his Spanish wife Ester and their baby daughter, Olivia, who was born in October 2005.