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Innkeep

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I have been following Goo gle Analytics to specifically see how much traffic is being sent by my paid directories. This month I've noticed that I Lo ve Inns is down to number 26 (tied for 21 with several other sites). This is in spite of the fact that it shows up on page 1 of a goo gle search for B&B's in my area. BB online shows up well in analytics and is the first directory on the Goo gle search page. BB online actually runs neck and neck with the state BB association website in the stats. My 6 month old blog sends lots more hits to the website than all but BB online (I never signed up for the gorilla and here gorilla is pretty far down on page 1 of the searches).
I don't have any fancy tracker program to tell me how many visitors from each place will click through to book, and unfortunately, my demographic likes to call to book. I'm not in a touristy area and have very little local competition except from the motels. I have mentioned Tr ip ad visor to about 10% of my guests who seem to be the most internet savvy, and quite frankly, they have never even heard of TA. Now, they have heard of Ex pedia, etc. As Joey says, "absence of proof is not proof of absence" so I don't know if it's because I'm in a non-touristy area of the country that is still in the depths of the recession or because I don't have a paid link from TA.
In another thread it was mentioned that perhaps even online directories are no longer used by as many guests. Are any other Innmates seeing a decline in traffic from the traditional paid directories? I think I'll only renew one next year. Has anyone abandoned directory listings in favor of other internet strategies?
 
If you've had GA for awhile, you know you can compare to the same period (or different period) last year? I just did that and was actually rather surprised by who's up and who's down in referrals. It makes me understand a few things about the directories that maybe I didn't pay close attention to before.
Altho I can't track TA hits from last year, I do know that I'm getting a lot fewer guests saying they looked at TA before deciding. Maybe because it was a novelty last year and now it's old hat? Most of my guests call to make a rez so I do talk to a fair number of them (60%).
I have abandoned a lot of directories that were long-standing directories because of relatively low traffic. Whether or not that is a good idea, I still don't know.
 
One reason I keep a couple of them - in addition to the fact they do bring hits - is that more than one guest told me they found me EVERYWHERE and decided they had to find out why.
 
My update:
I am about neck and neck with your statz, I dropped the I LOVE directory as it was sending me ZERO GUESTS. I dropped the Lan ier one two years ago for the same reason, this year I dropped bandb.com after them being very very low on the referalls as well, gave it all hope to improve with all their marketing etc. And BBONLINE has been and remains #1 for us. Google Searches outranking everything by a huge margin, and local CVB, groups I also belong to in the top 10. Blog/Twitter/FB in there as well, but it seems i mostly send people over there than vice versa. TA is not on the radar for my location, at all, so far.
 
Yes agree to be found all over is good, but if you have a limited marketing budget, got to use those funds where most needed. Sometime we have to test the waters, like all of us did for TA. I am not sure that link was worth any $ now, looking back, but had to test it and find out!
 
Yes agree to be found all over is good, but if you have a limited marketing budget, got to use those funds where most needed. Sometime we have to test the waters, like all of us did for TA. I am not sure that link was worth any $ now, looking back, but had to test it and find out!.
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
 
Yes agree to be found all over is good, but if you have a limited marketing budget, got to use those funds where most needed. Sometime we have to test the waters, like all of us did for TA. I am not sure that link was worth any $ now, looking back, but had to test it and find out!.
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
.
catlady said:
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
Buy that webmaster a beer!
wink_smile.gif

 
Yes agree to be found all over is good, but if you have a limited marketing budget, got to use those funds where most needed. Sometime we have to test the waters, like all of us did for TA. I am not sure that link was worth any $ now, looking back, but had to test it and find out!.
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
.
catlady said:
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
I recall that one of your friends got an award from TA or was in some TA email blitz... is that the one???? If TA promotes a place, it will have great stats (even those that get negative promotion).
 
I too dropped a couple of directories after determining that they were producing enough even to pay for the listing.
I would think long and hard before purchasing a link on TA. If you are in a city that people do search for, then fine but if you are in Podunk near big city - TA does not have area search. No map to show neighboring towns to search for places - so if a person has not done their research elsewhere, they may never find you. They just moved me from a common searched city to podunk - when they did this last revision. I no longer get clicks from my link - my $$$ paid to them is now in the toilet.
Before listing with any of these sites, check to see how they show up in a google search for your city B&B - then if they show up well on page 1, check them out. Do searches for OTHER towns that have the same demographics as yours. Were they easy to find? How long did it take to get to where you wanted to go? Was the information accurate? Take all this into consideration.
 
Yes agree to be found all over is good, but if you have a limited marketing budget, got to use those funds where most needed. Sometime we have to test the waters, like all of us did for TA. I am not sure that link was worth any $ now, looking back, but had to test it and find out!.
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
.
catlady said:
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
I recall that one of your friends got an award from TA or was in some TA email blitz... is that the one???? If TA promotes a place, it will have great stats (even those that get negative promotion).
.
Yep that is the one. That blitz really made a "blip" in their statz:)
 
Yes agree to be found all over is good, but if you have a limited marketing budget, got to use those funds where most needed. Sometime we have to test the waters, like all of us did for TA. I am not sure that link was worth any $ now, looking back, but had to test it and find out!.
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
.
catlady said:
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
We finally after three years got Monticello to list us on their website. They had just a handfull of inns listed and some of them were 45 minutes away while we sat here only two miles from them. The hits from them are huge!
Riki
 
We are all in a unique situation, that is why when someone comes to the forum and asks which directories are best bang for their buck, we are all different. So basically it comes down to we test the waters on any we feel might be beneficial for us. For years this forum and the old has had a ton of innfo on i lo vvvvvvvin s and it never has panned out for me, not for one second. But I gave it a shot for a couple years and now I know.
But...having said that and back on my GET YOUR WEBSITE IN GEAR bandwagon...I know all posts lead JB to this subject...
Example: an inn in a nearby city, where we are also listed as a regional B&B. It has a lovely innkeeper and lovely inn and a horrendous website that accepts only paypal, no online reservation system, and worse. She BANKS on her TA reviews. Whereas I don't, not in the least for my location, and in fact majority of guests go there AFTER seeing the TA badge on our website.
So get your website up to snuff, get those images "BIG BOLD AND FAST TO LOAD" let that rhyme by our new motto.
wink_smile.gif
 
Yes agree to be found all over is good, but if you have a limited marketing budget, got to use those funds where most needed. Sometime we have to test the waters, like all of us did for TA. I am not sure that link was worth any $ now, looking back, but had to test it and find out!.
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
.
catlady said:
My friends got their stats from TA for last week. THey had over 10,000 visitors to their TA page in the last month! And their GA stats agree with that. AMAZING!
We finally after three years got Monticello to list us on their website. They had just a handfull of inns listed and some of them were 45 minutes away while we sat here only two miles from them. The hits from them are huge!
Riki
.
Getting a link on a local attraction web site can be huge. I do not get a lot of hits from the Anna Ja rvis House web site (founder of Mother 's Day) but the link I had on her site got me a 2-room reservation in April that then booked a 2-night return with her husband a for few months later. This year alone 4 room nights from a free link. (And although there is another B & B a hair closer, they have not asked to be listed I guess because they are not there. And this is something I am NOT telling the "competition" about!)
 
I too dropped a couple of directories after determining that they were producing enough even to pay for the listing.
I would think long and hard before purchasing a link on TA. If you are in a city that people do search for, then fine but if you are in Podunk near big city - TA does not have area search. No map to show neighboring towns to search for places - so if a person has not done their research elsewhere, they may never find you. They just moved me from a common searched city to podunk - when they did this last revision. I no longer get clicks from my link - my $$$ paid to them is now in the toilet.
Before listing with any of these sites, check to see how they show up in a google search for your city B&B - then if they show up well on page 1, check them out. Do searches for OTHER towns that have the same demographics as yours. Were they easy to find? How long did it take to get to where you wanted to go? Was the information accurate? Take all this into consideration..
CH, the same thing happened to me. They moved my listing to the rural town that my mailing address is in which is no where near where my building is located. When they did this, I not only disappeared from the coastal town nearest to me, but now I'm not even on the coast page for my state. I am 1 mile away from the ocean and I'm not even listed in the coast region. It's ridiculous and I'm very angry.
I've spoken with the rep both at the PAII conference, then another one on the phone and they both think I should have my listing changed back, but even with a faxed letter from the president of the chamber stating I should be listed where I was, they won't budge. They say they have to use your "footprint" location and unless the county will change me, then forget it.
 
We are all in a unique situation, that is why when someone comes to the forum and asks which directories are best bang for their buck, we are all different. So basically it comes down to we test the waters on any we feel might be beneficial for us. For years this forum and the old has had a ton of innfo on i lo vvvvvvvin s and it never has panned out for me, not for one second. But I gave it a shot for a couple years and now I know.
But...having said that and back on my GET YOUR WEBSITE IN GEAR bandwagon...I know all posts lead JB to this subject...
Example: an inn in a nearby city, where we are also listed as a regional B&B. It has a lovely innkeeper and lovely inn and a horrendous website that accepts only paypal, no online reservation system, and worse. She BANKS on her TA reviews. Whereas I don't, not in the least for my location, and in fact majority of guests go there AFTER seeing the TA badge on our website.
So get your website up to snuff, get those images "BIG BOLD AND FAST TO LOAD" let that rhyme by our new motto.
wink_smile.gif
.
I totally agree with you JB. I'm sure I send way more people from my website to TA then they would ever send to mine.
 
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