You have to keep the things that are working, just tweak them. As an example...the 'tickertape' thingy does nothing for me, but the INFO contained in there is important. Have it just be a static sentence or two on the page. Highlighted with a different background so it stands out. Not 'gaudy' standout, just a different color or font color.
Thank You Joey, I'm going to do this...
LOL.. Joey,
Yeah, we figured sometimes we just have to cuss, but not everyone wants to read EXACTLY what cuss word someone used!LOL.. Joey,
OK - the begging part was inspired by the promenently featured k9's on the website. our cav are not permitted begging, but will retreat to her basket, keeping quiet while sniffing each wif of bbq about once a week.. she know she will get a bone later but....
About the reviews though, my point is that dis-satisfied guest are 10x times more likely to blog, yelp, google, TA etc their feelings about their stay.. this is why reading about a "shitty" camera on a webforum is somewhat meaningless, as all the happy users simply don't write about it. ( case in point, apple have sold close to 3 mill (thats 6 zerros) iphones, everybody is bitching, yet there is no line at any store I have been to with people returning the phones, only a line of people wanting to buy)
So. it gives big rewards to keep track of the real happy guests, send them a polite and personal email, thanking them, then saying, "I normally send a email asking guests to please rate my B&B , I have copied and pasted the links I normally use at the bottom of the email, please if you have the time, take a moment rate us and or review us on any one of these links, if you have a particular website which is more meaningful in your country for travelers to my area, that may be a ever better place for a review or rating, Joyce and I appriciate you time and thank you." (something like that anyway)
As far as I am concerned, that is begging on the web, but it results in a shocking amount of positive ratings and nice reviews from people who otherwise would never remember to write a review.
I would say that more than 30% of my bookings state something like "we read several reviews about your place and are very excited about staying with you in Los Angeles"
and a big amount of request emails say "we read the reviews about you are really hope you still have rooms on oct 15 2010"
I cater to a younger international crowd 25-45 ish, they cary crackberries and iphones and crave free wifi... and they check ratings before booking. providing the information they want have been key to staying roughly 95% booked all year.
EDIT - OMG - there is a prudency filter for shitty LOL... Im going to like this forum.
Bo
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I also think having an additional room will help. You could try to optimize one page for 'your town, your state lodging' as all that shows up for that are the hotels. Also try to show up well for that trail nearby. When you have time (har, har, I know) try to start a blog that talks about some of the local activities. That helps to get you some traffic. It may be minimal, but it may be just the extra oomph you need.
Morticia, point taken.Yeah, we figured sometimes we just have to cuss, but not everyone wants to read EXACTLY what cuss word someone used!LOL.. Joey,
OK - the begging part was inspired by the promenently featured k9's on the website. our cav are not permitted begging, but will retreat to her basket, keeping quiet while sniffing each wif of bbq about once a week.. she know she will get a bone later but....
About the reviews though, my point is that dis-satisfied guest are 10x times more likely to blog, yelp, google, TA etc their feelings about their stay.. this is why reading about a "shitty" camera on a webforum is somewhat meaningless, as all the happy users simply don't write about it. ( case in point, apple have sold close to 3 mill (thats 6 zerros) iphones, everybody is bitching, yet there is no line at any store I have been to with people returning the phones, only a line of people wanting to buy)
So. it gives big rewards to keep track of the real happy guests, send them a polite and personal email, thanking them, then saying, "I normally send a email asking guests to please rate my B&B , I have copied and pasted the links I normally use at the bottom of the email, please if you have the time, take a moment rate us and or review us on any one of these links, if you have a particular website which is more meaningful in your country for travelers to my area, that may be a ever better place for a review or rating, Joyce and I appriciate you time and thank you." (something like that anyway)
As far as I am concerned, that is begging on the web, but it results in a shocking amount of positive ratings and nice reviews from people who otherwise would never remember to write a review.
I would say that more than 30% of my bookings state something like "we read several reviews about your place and are very excited about staying with you in Los Angeles"
and a big amount of request emails say "we read the reviews about you are really hope you still have rooms on oct 15 2010"
I cater to a younger international crowd 25-45 ish, they cary crackberries and iphones and crave free wifi... and they check ratings before booking. providing the information they want have been key to staying roughly 95% booked all year.
EDIT - OMG - there is a prudency filter for shitty LOL... Im going to like this forum.
Bo
.
.
It's Swirt's 'baby'. Some of us helped him at the outset with drafting some policies. The 'cuss filter' came up, I think, when we had someone who did a lot of that.Morticia, point taken.Yeah, we figured sometimes we just have to cuss, but not everyone wants to read EXACTLY what cuss word someone used!LOL.. Joey,
OK - the begging part was inspired by the promenently featured k9's on the website. our cav are not permitted begging, but will retreat to her basket, keeping quiet while sniffing each wif of bbq about once a week.. she know she will get a bone later but....
About the reviews though, my point is that dis-satisfied guest are 10x times more likely to blog, yelp, google, TA etc their feelings about their stay.. this is why reading about a "shitty" camera on a webforum is somewhat meaningless, as all the happy users simply don't write about it. ( case in point, apple have sold close to 3 mill (thats 6 zerros) iphones, everybody is bitching, yet there is no line at any store I have been to with people returning the phones, only a line of people wanting to buy)
So. it gives big rewards to keep track of the real happy guests, send them a polite and personal email, thanking them, then saying, "I normally send a email asking guests to please rate my B&B , I have copied and pasted the links I normally use at the bottom of the email, please if you have the time, take a moment rate us and or review us on any one of these links, if you have a particular website which is more meaningful in your country for travelers to my area, that may be a ever better place for a review or rating, Joyce and I appriciate you time and thank you." (something like that anyway)
As far as I am concerned, that is begging on the web, but it results in a shocking amount of positive ratings and nice reviews from people who otherwise would never remember to write a review.
I would say that more than 30% of my bookings state something like "we read several reviews about your place and are very excited about staying with you in Los Angeles"
and a big amount of request emails say "we read the reviews about you are really hope you still have rooms on oct 15 2010"
I cater to a younger international crowd 25-45 ish, they cary crackberries and iphones and crave free wifi... and they check ratings before booking. providing the information they want have been key to staying roughly 95% booked all year.
EDIT - OMG - there is a prudency filter for shitty LOL... Im going to like this forum.
Bo
.
.
I had no need for the cuss part, was just repeating a oft stated sentiment which probably would be considered kosher by most and got a kick out of the filter as it was a complete surprise.
hey you said "we" you part of making this fine forum.?
Bo
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We had guests who have said they chose us because of the dogs!
All good advice, with the exception of the thing about search engines hating stale content. I'm not saying "don't make changes". I'm just saying that making changes for the Search engines "fresh" purpose is faulty logic. There are just way too many sites that have changed nothing on their home page in years that are holding solid positions for it to be true.
^ agree mostly, I put that poorly.All good advice, with the exception of the thing about search engines hating stale content. I'm not saying "don't make changes". I'm just saying that making changes for the Search engines "fresh" purpose is faulty logic. There are just way too many sites that have changed nothing on their home page in years that are holding solid positions for it to be true.
Changing some minor text under a photo on your home page does not trigger an automatic higher listing. Time is much better spent tweaking text for guest purposes or adding new pages. What search engines do like is NEW unique content. This is why a blog can be helpful and why people have misinterpreted that a fresh page does better than a stale page. A blog can do well not because its homepage is constantly changing, it can do well because it has a growing supply of new unique content (new fishing hooks in the water). Often the constantly changing homepage of a blog is hurt by updates as any given post appearing on a homepage may be out of tune with the original target of the blog.
I say this not to change your thinking on it, but only to squelch a myth before it becomes so entrenched that I spend a lot of time trying to dig it out of clients' heads. Unfortunately, this myth is pretty well entrenched already. There are subtle facets of truth to it, but most are taken out of context and prevent people from understanding what is really happening. I have seen too many innkeepers who go and fiddle with a word on every page for the sake of having the page be "technically" fresh, or others who put a date at the bottom of the page and update the date to convince the search engines it has been touched. It is all for not ... and sometimes the minor changes end up doing more harm than good.... like when the innkeeper is trying so hard to make a wee change that they end up altering the wording so that their target phrase no longer exists on the page, or the words Bed and Breakfast no longer appear.
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that comes from working with them for a very long time. but agree that fiddeling with parameters and sentens structure is not the answer. Yes a blog "can" be a good thing, but way too many people should not "quit their day job", being a interesting writer is not the same as knowing how to type.Yes swirt, you are right. I know we don't hear from those who never come here.... I have the dogs info on my page because I read on a previous thread here that if you have 'pets' you need to let your guests know on your website. Perhaps I need to change the way i do it though. My babies stay back in our private area and guests don't even know they are there unless they have read about them on our website.
If you don't want the general public to know your Inn you might want to remove some details from your posts, it was fairly easy to figure out.
If I were coming to your area, I would pick your place because of your animals...we have the same breed and they are the bestBut I really, really would not want to book if I had to call or email. It seems like there are only a few b&b's in your area and you are in a pretty neat spot here where if you'd spruce up your site just a bit you could slay the others.
Get Webervations or Reservation Key immediately. They are the most cost effective and the easiest to implement. You will not believe the feeling the first morning you wake up to a reservation that's come in overnight...KA-CHING! We offer an online booking discount and more than 90% of our bookings are online...and the QUALITY of guests we are getting is better than ever, because we're getting the kind of people who are willing to research where they are staying before making a reservation.
PICTURES. Your place looks incredible, but the pics are small (although larger and better than those of your competitors, for sure). Take multiple room views. Show the bathrooms. Have you seen Morticia's recent site upgrade? If you did a flash intro like hers with the rooms, the grounds, and your breakfast it would really draw people in. I guess overall I would say there are too many words and not enough visual for me. I would get rid of that review page entirely (there seems to be a formatting issue with it, the words overlap and I can't read them). Use the B&B.com or TA widgets if you want your reviews there.
Who are my innkeepers? Obviously someone takes care of such great big place, and has great knowledge about the many antiques inside...I want to see you! Get yourself in the pic with your animals. It's obvious that you are a huge part of what makes your guests so happy (from reading the listed reviews) so let folks know who they'll be seeing when they walk in the front door.
Your location seems superior to that of your competitors, emphasize the convenience and one of a kind nature of this.
Sorry if this is more info than you wanted to hear, but I know first hand the impact that a high quality, visually driven website can have. We are in a heavily b&b populated area, and our site took our Inn from consistently 4th in occupancy to 1st in one year..
Rupert, I have to be really careful about how much info about myself or family that I put out there and I can't put pics of myself on my website yet. Due to my 'paying' job and the type of clients I see.Rupert said:
don't know how I messed that up, but the top half is Ruperts quote and the bottome paragraph is my note... sorry Rupert...If you don't want the general public to know your Inn you might want to remove some details from your posts, it was fairly easy to figure out.
If I were coming to your area, I would pick your place because of your animals...we have the same breed and they are the bestBut I really, really would not want to book if I had to call or email. It seems like there are only a few b&b's in your area and you are in a pretty neat spot here where if you'd spruce up your site just a bit you could slay the others.
Get Webervations or Reservation Key immediately. They are the most cost effective and the easiest to implement. You will not believe the feeling the first morning you wake up to a reservation that's come in overnight...KA-CHING! We offer an online booking discount and more than 90% of our bookings are online...and the QUALITY of guests we are getting is better than ever, because we're getting the kind of people who are willing to research where they are staying before making a reservation.
PICTURES. Your place looks incredible, but the pics are small (although larger and better than those of your competitors, for sure). Take multiple room views. Show the bathrooms. Have you seen Morticia's recent site upgrade? If you did a flash intro like hers with the rooms, the grounds, and your breakfast it would really draw people in. I guess overall I would say there are too many words and not enough visual for me. I would get rid of that review page entirely (there seems to be a formatting issue with it, the words overlap and I can't read them). Use the B&B.com or TA widgets if you want your reviews there.
Who are my innkeepers? Obviously someone takes care of such great big place, and has great knowledge about the many antiques inside...I want to see you! Get yourself in the pic with your animals. It's obvious that you are a huge part of what makes your guests so happy (from reading the listed reviews) so let folks know who they'll be seeing when they walk in the front door.
Your location seems superior to that of your competitors, emphasize the convenience and one of a kind nature of this.
Sorry if this is more info than you wanted to hear, but I know first hand the impact that a high quality, visually driven website can have. We are in a heavily b&b populated area, and our site took our Inn from consistently 4th in occupancy to 1st in one year..Rupert, I have to be really careful about how much info about myself or family that I put out there and I can't put pics of myself on my website yet. Due to my 'paying' job and the type of clients I see.Rupert said:You never know what they might do if they knew where I live (not to mention if they knew I owned a B&B)! I have had my life threatened a few times (but not because of anything I did or said, but due to 'coworkers' dumb comments, or simply by 'association'). I work under my maiden name and in various counties. My job is very stressful and yes, I am VERY ready to quit, but financially can not right now.
After I do quit my job and some time has passed then I will be able to put that info on my website.
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Because your site is not huge, you can probably find a GOOD webhost/website builder for not a ton of money. Try to find someone who specializes in B&B's as they know what a good B&B site should look like. You can do a search for 'B&B website designers' and come up with a few right off the top who are good.
