The Wrangell Convention and Visitors Bureau met last Monday afternoon, May 20, to discuss a potential deal for search engine optimization. The CVB had been discussing a contract with Truly360, which is a contractor with Google. According to Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore, Truly360 was offering a two-year contract, for a total of $36,336, to help Wrangell and its local businesses use Google to its best advantage. This would include things like getting Wrangell higher up in search listings, getting Google Street View to come to town, creating a virtual tour of an important location in Wrangell, and providing training on Google's numerous resources. Wrangell would be somewhat of a "case study" for the company, Rushmore said, as they did not typically work with small Alaskan towns. However, this also meant they were offering a large discount on the contract.
"It would allow us to optimize our Google settings, and they'd be working with the businesses in town to do that, also," Rushmore said. "It would give us the travel guide option within Google, where it shows you the different things that we're able to do. It would help us grab all the assets around town, like trails and things like that, we'd have the ability to manage those and add additional information."
If accepted, the CVB would be using money from the Marian Glenz fund. Glenz was a Wrangell resident and longtime member of the CVB from 2008 until her passing in 2017. She left behind $50,000 to the convention and visitors bureau, to be used for marketing and advertising purposes.
As this contract with Truly360 would constitute such a large portion of the Glenz money, every member of the bureau that was present for the meeting voiced reservations about accepting the deal. The common argument from the bureau members was that this sounded like a terrific opportunity, but it was a lot of money. Nobody wanted to misuse these funds that a community member had left behind for them. There were also numerous questions about Truly360 itself. Brenda Schwartz-Yeager asked if it was possible to get similar services, for cheaper, from several different contractors instead of from just one, while Chris Hatton searched on her phone for reviews of the company. Corree Delabrue said that if nobody was gung-ho about accepting this contract, that was probably a sign that they should not.
The Bureau also asked if Rushmore had contacted any other communities Truly360 had worked with in the past, to hear what they had to say. Rushmore said that she had reached out, but had not heard back from anybody. She did say that, if the bureau wanted, she would reach out again and try to get additional info about Truly360 for them. After some discussion, it was agreed that the bureau would defer accepting this contract, pending additional information from Rushmore.
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