Accolades - what impresses guests enough to book or what is overkill?

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JunieBJones (JBJ)

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This is from a nearby inn (up in the hills) – They do not say who the awards were from:
THE INN'S AWARDS:
  • Best Breakfast in the Northeast (They are not in the NE, didn’t they know this?)
  • Best B & B in the "city' Area (They are not in the 'city' Area in fact 1- 1/2 hours from this 'city')
  • Best Weekend Escape (These are all from a local weekly arts n entertainment mag i believe)
  • Best B & B/ Inn Located in the Country
  • Most Romantic B & B
  • Most Affordable Luxury
Do you feel it is worth having the accolades on your website? If so, how much and where? Should you have it plastered across the home page? Click here for article (if you were featured in a major magazine, ie Southern Living or WA Post etc). What do you think is a tasteful way to get guests attention that "hey I won some awards" or "they did a magazine spread on our B&B!" ?
I did a google search of this mountain area and down popped all the nearby B&B’s – “Local Business Results for bed breakfast ‘this mountain area’ a thru J. Although we were not at the top of the list – we have 35 reviews on this listing and the others have mostly 5 or 6. So the reviews do impact and bring you places in google. Gathered from Yahoo, BedandBreakfast.com, Trip Advisor.
 
I think it's good to have a list somewhere that refers the guest to these things. A big splash somewhere, like you said in Southern Living, etc, should be right on the home page. I add that info to my email signature...'As seen in...' If my big 'local' mag had voted me 'best of' I would also have that on the home page.
I would not have a list of all the awards on the homepage, but a link to an internal page with that list. Maybe something like 'Voted best...read what the voters/editors said!' with the link to the internal page. And if the list said 'voted best breakfast' I'd want to know by whom, but I'm old and wary. If the list said, 'voted best B&B in the city' and this place was miles from a big city, I'd assume it was the best B&B in the little town they were in, not the big city nearby. I'd look at that one as 'stretching the truth'.
Because we've seen what constitutes 'best of' ie- getting the most votes online, I'd be wary of any claims of 'best of' listed on any directory you pay to be on. But that's because I'm in the know. Before this, I would have assumed that someone had gone to the inn and evaluated the breakfast, romance, etc for themselves.
I think having the quotes from guests on the individual pages (one per page, not a slew of them) is a nice touch, which i just added to a couple of pages. Better than the page of quotes I had before. No one would read that.
 
Other than a mention on my blog page or a sentence somewhere about the SBA award, I do not say anything about the awards I have received because I figure who cares? It means something to ME and I do hope it impresses a few local people enough to make them sit up and take notice, but in the sceme of things? not biggie.
As for inn awards, I always wonder what was the criteria and where did it come from? Named Best Inn in Podunk County!! - hmmmmm how many inns are there in Podunk County? Was it a "self-nominated"? or by someone else? I do not consider any award that I had to nominate myself for as an award worthy of receiving. That is just my opinion......
 
Yeah these things bother the heck out of me. I believe most of those claims come as a result of the "ARRINGTON AWARDS" given over the past few years and people still cling to them. IF you have gotten a true award like #1 in TripAdvisor, or others REAL awards... then that would be a legitimate thing to tout.
We are just working on our association directory and we have folks putting in things like "#1 in the South" ...well what does that mean and who said it??? We have decided we will not allow those kind of claims in our directory. Facts and only the facts:) The same goes for all those "award badges" people plaster all over their websites. Who cares??? Unless is it a truely well deserved recognition...I think those things detract from a website.
Someone even put. AAA 3 Star Award 1998-2001. Well DUH...what does that tell someone??? They aren't good enough now to get the award??? Or they won't pay for it I should say:-( Not something I would keep on my website or in my publicity.
 
I do agree with Bree that an article is a different animal. Spalsh that article up there - those are darned hard to come by and those MEAN something.
But for me to post - even though I do feature rail-trails - that I was named WV Trails Advocate of 2008 by American Trails on my web site goes in the category of Big Rip!
 
re comments just added : Like them, but can't read them and I have a high rez large monitor with 20/20 vision. Are they GIF's for clarity or is it the font?
 
Yeah these things bother the heck out of me. I believe most of those claims come as a result of the "ARRINGTON AWARDS" given over the past few years and people still cling to them. IF you have gotten a true award like #1 in TripAdvisor, or others REAL awards... then that would be a legitimate thing to tout.
We are just working on our association directory and we have folks putting in things like "#1 in the South" ...well what does that mean and who said it??? We have decided we will not allow those kind of claims in our directory. Facts and only the facts:) The same goes for all those "award badges" people plaster all over their websites. Who cares??? Unless is it a truely well deserved recognition...I think those things detract from a website.
Someone even put. AAA 3 Star Award 1998-2001. Well DUH...what does that tell someone??? They aren't good enough now to get the award??? Or they won't pay for it I should say:-( Not something I would keep on my website or in my publicity..
catlady said:
Someone even put. AAA 3 Star Award 1998-2001. Well DUH...what does that tell someone??? They aren't good enough now to get the award??? Or they won't pay for it I should say:-( Not something I would keep on my website or in my publicity.
THOSE STICK OUT in my mind as well, why not put "AAA 3 star Award 4 years running!"
 
re comments just added : Like them, but can't read them and I have a high rez large monitor with 20/20 vision. Are they GIF's for clarity or is it the font?.
JunieBJones (JBJ) said:
re comments just added : Like them, but can't read them and I have a high rez large monitor with 20/20 vision. Are they GIF's for clarity or is it the font?
Ah, my mistake...I did them as jpg's. I couldn't read them all that well, either but I'm old. I'll redo them. Thx.
 
Everyone if you have not, have a test run on GOOGLE CHROME, it is SUPER FAST! (a new BROWSER)
 
I have been using it for a week or so and agree the page load time is superior to IE.
 
Everyone if you have not, have a test run on GOOGLE CHROME, it is SUPER FAST! (a new BROWSER).
JunieBJones (JBJ) said:
Everyone if you have not, have a test run on GOOGLE CHROME, it is SUPER FAST! (a new BROWSER)
I used Google Chrome awhile ago. I found other programs weren't working as well at the same time. What's odd now is I just did a search on it for where I posted about it but it doesn't show up.
 
Everyone if you have not, have a test run on GOOGLE CHROME, it is SUPER FAST! (a new BROWSER).
JunieBJones (JBJ) said:
Everyone if you have not, have a test run on GOOGLE CHROME, it is SUPER FAST! (a new BROWSER)
I used Google Chrome awhile ago. I found other programs weren't working as well at the same time. What's odd now is I just did a search on it for where I posted about it but it doesn't show up.
.
Here it is https://www.innspiring.com/node/1157
 
Everyone if you have not, have a test run on GOOGLE CHROME, it is SUPER FAST! (a new BROWSER).
JunieBJones (JBJ) said:
Everyone if you have not, have a test run on GOOGLE CHROME, it is SUPER FAST! (a new BROWSER)
I used Google Chrome awhile ago. I found other programs weren't working as well at the same time. What's odd now is I just did a search on it for where I posted about it but it doesn't show up.
.
Here it is https://www.innspiring.com/node/1157
.
It's still pretty early in the morning for me...
tounge_smile.gif

 
So far it is working like a charm. IE has been slowing down and locking up lately and Firefox has had its glitches (even tho I run updates regularly), so until I come across something I will be using Chrome for a while. Seems to be pretty good so far! I didn't read that thread before for some reason.
 
So far it is working like a charm. IE has been slowing down and locking up lately and Firefox has had its glitches (even tho I run updates regularly), so until I come across something I will be using Chrome for a while. Seems to be pretty good so far! I didn't read that thread before for some reason..
Let me know if there is an ad blocker. That's my big pet peeve.
 
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