improving BB.com value equation?

[Alibi Ike]

Are you tracking your website with Google Analytics or something like that, so you can tell where your traffic is coming from?
It's the reason I dropped T/A, the traffic was simply traffic displaced... it wasn't adding to my traffic and the bounce rates were just too damn high. I didn't see the point of paying them that enormous fee for that small uptick in traffic. But BB.com sends me a lot of traffic..

I track with google analytics and also a b&b stats program called intell-a-keeper which can track exactly where an online reservation comes from. It even helps when a reservation comes over the phone...you just tell the person to click on a logo on your homepage and it will track where they found you. It's pretty cool.
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If you feel more comfortable, we can always switch to email. But what percentage of your traffic is coming from BB.COM
I do realize that stats may be very different in the US than for Canada. Especially considering how many of the sites simply put Canada on the back burner. But they should still be telling you on analytics what percent come in and what your bounce rate is. How are they compared to other such sites?
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direct hit
[/td] 28.40%
[/td] 20.73
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.google.com
[/td] 26.38%
[/td] 19.26
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.bedandbreakfast.com
[/td] 05.96%
[/td] 04.35
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.beachconnection.net
[/td] 04.69%
[/td] 03.42
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.obbg.org
[/td] 02.95%
[/td] 02.15
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.purpleroofs.com
[/td] 02.19%
[/td] 01.60
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] google PPC fed
[/td] 02.07%
[/td] 01.51
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.nwcoast.com
[/td] 02.00%
[/td] 01.46
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.google.ca
[/td] 01.91%
[/td] 01.39
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.bnbfinder.com
[/td] 01.75%
[/td] 01.28
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.facebook.com
[/td] 01.66%
[/td] 01.21
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] blog.xyzbedandbreakfast.com
[/td] 01.56%
[/td] 01.14
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] webmail
[/td] 01.49%
[/td] 01.09
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] search.yahoo.com
[/td] 01.38%
[/td] 01.01
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.excellent-romantic-vacations.com
[/td] 01.37%
[/td] 01.00
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] us.mg2.mail.yahoo.com
[/td] 01.37%
[/td] 01.00
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] us.mc307.mail.yahoo.com
[/td] 01.37%
[/td] 01.00
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] us.mg3.mail.yahoo.com
[/td] 01.37%
[/td] 01.00
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.bbonline.com
[/td] 01.37%
[/td] 01.00
[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] www.thebedandbreakfastdirectory.com
[/td] 01.37%
[/td] 01.00
[/td][/tr][/table]This is how intell-a-keeper gives you the information. I really don't care how many hits I get from a directory, I only care how many actual reservations I get. This list represents actual reservations that have come in the last 1 1/2 months (in our slow season). These are from not only online bookings, but also most phone reservations (sometimes I forget to have them click the intell-a-keeper logo when I'm on the phone with them). As you can see, this program allows fractions of reservations coming from different sources. For instance, if a guest has seen us on bb.com AND bbonline, the program will assign 50% of that reservation to each directory/source. Many times the reservations have more than 5 different sources they found us on.
The first number is the % of bookings and the second number is the actual number of bookings. There were 73 actual bookings and by far, the most came from direct hits and google.
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That's a pretty neat reference.

 

[EmptyNest]

Are you tracking your website with Google Analytics or something like that, so you can tell where your traffic is coming from?
It's the reason I dropped T/A, the traffic was simply traffic displaced... it wasn't adding to my traffic and the bounce rates were just too damn high. I didn't see the point of paying them that enormous fee for that small uptick in traffic. But BB.com sends me a lot of traffic..

I track with google analytics and also a b&b stats program called intell-a-keeper which can track exactly where an online reservation comes from. It even helps when a reservation comes over the phone...you just tell the person to click on a logo on your homepage and it will track where they found you. It's pretty cool.
.

Is that just a proprietary tracker from A cor N? I have seen them advertise it and thought it was just for their customers.
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CL, if your question was for me, yes, it's from that company, but you don't have to host or have them design your site. It can be added to any site from what I understand. They just have to put the coding in.
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Yes it was for BD..thanks. I didn't know it was available for anyone.

 

[Alibi Ike]

Are you tracking your website with Google Analytics or something like that, so you can tell where your traffic is coming from?
It's the reason I dropped T/A, the traffic was simply traffic displaced... it wasn't adding to my traffic and the bounce rates were just too damn high. I didn't see the point of paying them that enormous fee for that small uptick in traffic. But BB.com sends me a lot of traffic..

I track with google analytics and also a b&b stats program called intell-a-keeper which can track exactly where an online reservation comes from. It even helps when a reservation comes over the phone...you just tell the person to click on a logo on your homepage and it will track where they found you. It's pretty cool.
.

If you feel more comfortable, we can always switch to email. But what percentage of your traffic is coming from BB.COM
I do realize that stats may be very different in the US than for Canada. Especially considering how many of the sites simply put Canada on the back burner. But they should still be telling you on analytics what percent come in and what your bounce rate is. How are they compared to other such sites?
.

Here I get a decent showing from them, but it's dropped off 50% year to year. So, where I used to average around 200-300 visits/month, it's down to around 700-900/year. It is high-quality traffic. The bounce rate is low and the page views are high. But the ultimate reservations from them are slipping. The listing used to pay for itself by March and started making money by April. Now, I'm well into summer before it's paid for.
The odd thing is, no matter what site we're listed on the CPC hovers around a dollar. The best referrer is free-Google.
I had a telemarketer call the other day trying to sell me a listing. He said, 'I can get you the traffic. If your website is not good, they won't stay to look around.' Essentially, that's the rub. Once the traffic gets there, do they like what they see?
On a couple of directories that answer was no. The bounce rate was hovering around 40%. So I dropped those because their clients were not looking for places like mine.
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Did you look at the level beyond that, to see where on that site they are coming from and what the bounce rates are from the different pages? I have like a 50% bounce rate if they come off of the gift certificate pages, but it drops to 10% when they come from either the search or from my dedicated page on their site.
Also, how are you doing off of Google Maps.
One thing to consider is that different websites have different demographics (go into Audience). You can see some of them by installing and going in to the Alexa Toolbar. T/A is the only site that skews very differently. Take a look at those website and compare your own via analytics and you might be surprised at how different some of the audiences are. For example, bb.com has more with no college and bnb.com has more college but less grad school... but bnb.com has a heck of a lot more than are browsing from school... and yet have higher incomes...
Basically bb.com's audience can be summed up as:
Caucasian women 55 and over who have college degrees and above, who have no childern and work with good household incomes and half of which are American.
T/A's audience can be summed up as:
Caucasian women 25 to 65 who have some college or degrees, no children, work, have higher incomes and only about 40% of them are American (and that doesn't include sub-domains, so I assume it's MUCH lower, since they have seperate stats for TA.fr and TA.ca and TA.co.uk for example.
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I don't do that kind of detail.
But it's good to know the detail you mention is out there next time someone calls me trying to sell me a link on their site, 'Who's your demographic? Who do you target your ads to?' Then decide if their demographic is mine as well.
I basically use GA to see where the guests come from (referrers) and what pages they look at (interest) and what keywords they use (website functionality). My experience, and many others I've spoken with, is that more guests are coming right from a Google search ("I Googled B&B's in your town and there you were!") Google map referrals have more than doubled since last year (113% increase). Of all the directories I pay to be listed on bandb.com is the only one where the referrals dropped even tho I am still paying them.
There could be a lot of reasons for that...my listing is stale, my pictures don't speak to the guests, my text is boring, there are a lot of 'second city' B&B's on my page now that weren't there before, I don't pay a premium to always be at the top of the list OR, bandb.com doesn't get the hits they used to. I guess I'd have to talk with the other B&B's listed in my town and see if they are getting traffic.
Edited to add that in looking beyond the first 20 listed referrers in GA, I am seeing that free listings with targeted audiences are picking up quite a bit. So, this is for a specific market that I don't target on my own website. Most guests looking for that particular amenity find me on a directory rather than thru a Google search.