This is the revelation that occurred to me recently when looking at how we ended up in a city in Israel that is not on most people's vacation itinerary. Rehovot was the home of Ubique, a little company IBM bought to include inside their Sametime offering. They still retain offices here for Sametime development.
Many people spend tons of money to increase their exposure and search ranks which boils down to SEO methods that are a mix of data analytics, black arts, html coding, content writing, luck, algorithms and Google's daily whims.
People ask why we moved here and it is because when we searched for qualities of life that were important to us and our family, Rehovot kept coming up in our searches. Neither my wife, nor I, had been to Rehovot in the 9+ years we had previously lived in Israel. Now with kids, we wanted good schools, welcoming community, arts, sciences, location, transportation and other not unusual items.
About a year or two ago, an influential website, Nefesh B'Nefesh, literally translated as a soul for a soul, helps people making Aliyah to Israel. They added and updated some cities and areas for people to move to in Israel and one was Rehovot.
Naturally we did not just rely on this one site, but what we did not realize then was the bigger puzzle. People in Rehovot had started to make some websites, in English, for other people looking to move here. It was grass roots, but sometimes your niche is a niche within a niche and in this case it works.
What were we searching for, and found? Here is a partial list:
- Industrial Park filled with startups and established companies
- a synagogue that is mixed with Israeli, US, European, South African and Australian members
- some of the top elementary and high schools in the country
- reasonable living conditions and costs
- local train station accessible
- weather similar to Boca Raton
Most people know of Tel Aviv, Haifa and of course Jerusalem which all have benefits to living there (and IBM offices). When you did deeper and find out eBay, Google, Facebook and many others are in the Netanya/Ra'anana/Herziliya areas but I livedin Manhattan and London, and Jerusalem twice, to know I wanted to live in a more relaxed part of the country that my kids can grow up and enjoy the fields and parks, not just the nightlife.
If I was looking for a place to build solar powered hovercrafts this may not be the best location, compared to say gene splicing to help people become more collaborative instead of selfishly silo like which friends of ours work on at Weizmann.
What we all want is out there and your product or idea has a place on the internet and it is up to you to decide if the market is large enough for you.
The synagogue we belong to is the only one on the area that is growing and while 15 new families over the last year have moved here. The number may sound small to some of you, but historically 1-3 families moved to Rehovot a year. That is some serious growth!
The ripple effect of this growth, coupled by exterior influences, like growing anti-semitism across Europe and the US, has led to an increase in housing costs as more people look to purchase property. Various city events and services are being expanded as well to accommodate the foreign immigration.
SEO doesn't solve or provide all of your leads or growth, but sometimes a little bit here and there is all you need.
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