Medellin.co - City Guide

Medellin.co - The Unofficial Official City Guide

"From Nothing to Largest City Guide Website for Medellin, Colombia. My Journey."

Medellin.co is a destination marketing organization that helps people discover what to do, where to eat, and who to trust in Medellín. We focus on promoting travel, tourism, and economic development for the city — connecting digital nomads, tourists, and locals to the businesses that make this place thrive.

This is the story of why I built it, how I built it, and what I’ve learned along the way.

Why I Built Medellin.co

I acquired the domain Medellin.co in 2022 because I felt like Medellín needed something better a trustworthy website that showcased the best of the city.

At the time, most of the existing content about Medellín online was outdated. The city’s government sites were often broken, poorly maintained, and mostly written in Spanish. You’d find a great article with a promising headline, only to click a link that led to a 404 page. Even the biggest blog about Medellín at the time, MedellinGuru, had stopped publishing new content. And many of the other sites looked like they hadn’t been updated since 2015.

I kept hearing the same complaints in every expat group and Facebook forum: “Where do I find a good dentist?” “Is this lawyer trustworthy?” “Where should I go for salsa?” The answers were usually scattered, inconsistent, or buried under sarcastic replies and toxic comments. Sometimes you would have trustworthy service providers that promote their services only to have their comments ridiculed or lost within hours of posting.

So I decided to build the kind of site I wished existed when I first moved here.

What Problem Does Medellin.co Solve?

Medellín had a trust problem

Tourists and expats were arriving in a city they didn’t fully understand, often without speaking Spanish, and turning to social media groups for answers where half the responses were scams, bad advice, or arguments.

Meanwhile, local businesses were struggling to reach the very people looking for their services. Tourists didn’t know who to trust. Business owners didn’t know where to advertise. And no one seemed to be maintaining a reliable guide to the city in English.

That’s the gap Medellin.co set out to fill.

How We Built It

I didn’t want this to be “just another blog.” I wanted Medellin.co to feel like an official city tourism website but friendlier, more modern, and built with real user experience in mind.

The Design

I worked closely with my designer, Kunvar, to create a unique layout in Figma. Every page was designed from scratch. No templates. No themes. Just a clean, professional design that balanced visual beauty with usability.

We spent about two months refining the UI/UX, making sure that users could actually find what they were looking for whether that was a trusted lawyer, a new restaurant, or the best rooftop bar for sunset.

The Content

Before the AI boom, I hired three local Paisa writers born and raised in Medellín who spoke fluent English and knew the city like the back of their hand. I didn’t want generic listicles or keyword-stuffed articles. I wanted real local knowledge, written by real people who live here.

We spent over a year researching, writing, and editing creating pages about neighborhoods, safety tips, nightlife, and everything in between.

Today, Medellin.co is home to hundreds of articles and directory pages, all of them fact-checked, updated regularly, and written with care.

The Tech

The site is built on WordPress, but you’d never know it. We used Elementor Pro and Crocoblock to build a custom website from the ground up. No off-the-shelf themes. Everything from the homepage to the directory listings was developed specifically for this project.

I hired a Crocoblock specialist to help with the more complex features, like business directories and lead forms. The development process took around 15 weeks in total.

SEO and Growth

When I first bought the domain, Medellin.co had a Domain Authority of 18. Today, it’s at DA 29 and climbing.

I work on SEO almost every day. It’s one of the reasons the site performs well, even in a competitive niche. I’m constantly updating articles, adding internal links, fixing broken pages, monitoring keywords, and optimizing for search intent.

It’s also a great way for me to keep my SEO skills sharp. I run a software business in a totally different industry, but SEO is one of those skills that translates everywhere.

On a typical day, the site gets between 1,500 and 2,500 visitors. Traffic tends to spike when something goes viral, when we rank for a high-volume keyword, or when Medellín makes international news.

We’ve earned several featured snippets, and we’re now included in AI search results from platforms like Perplexity, Google’s AI Overview, and even ChatGPT’s web tools. That wasn’t the original goal, but it’s definitely been a welcome side effect of writing good, factual, human content.

Where Things Stand Today

Right now, the site is profitable, well; just barely. We have a handful of paying advertisers, and over 50 verified service providers who receive leads from our directory. Some of them are personal trainers, lawyers, local businesses, or guides. Others are restaurants or coworking spaces. Many have seen a steady increase in business thanks to their listings.

But the real value, for me, has been in building something that helps people. I get emails every week from travelers thanking us for the info we provide. Locals appreciate that we promote their businesses in an honest and respectful way. And new expats often tell me that Medellin.co was their go-to resource when planning their move.

The Technical Backbone

Medellin.co Technical Infastructure.

Backend: PHP 8.4 with MySQL database
Monetization Model: Advertising
Frontend: WordPress / Elementor / Crocoblock
API Server: Alma Linux & PHP
Frontend Hosting: Switched to Hostinger
Database Server: Alma Linux & MySQL DB with Redis
CDN: Cloudflare

Looking Ahead

I’m still adding new pages all the time, especially about topics like events, medical tourism, and transportation. I also have plans to improve the business dashboard for verified providers, giving them better tools to manage their listings and leads.

Eventually, I’d love for Medellin.co to become the official unofficial guide to the city. Not just a blog or a directory, but a true digital companion for anyone exploring Medellín — whether they’re here for three days or three years.

Building Medellin.co has been one of the most rewarding projects I’ve ever worked on. It started as a side project — something I did because I saw a gap and wanted to fill it — but it’s grown into a trusted platform that helps thousands of people every day.

It’s also a reminder that sometimes the best businesses aren’t the ones chasing trends. They’re the ones solving real problems in places you care about.

Client Name

Carlos Arias

Release Date

January 4, 2023

Project Types

Media Project

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Medellin.co – City Guide