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The "hodge podge" could be described as "This is your website on drugs. Any questions?"
 
The "hodge podge" could be described as "This is your website on drugs. Any questions?".
Proud Texan said:
The "hodge podge" could be described as "This is your website on drugs. Any questions?"
First thing that popped into my head when I saw 'This is your website' was the tag line, like you quoted.
 
Great, as that was what I thought when I typed it in!
But, there are those who through the fog of drugs (for lack of a better term) cannot see their website being so disjointed. They do not see that guests have to try to build a lego page to get the picture that they are trying to sell. Of course, there are/were plenty of us who DID see it but put off fixing it, or put off spending the time, resources, effort to get it out of psychedelia-ville. Thinking or saying "it is good enough" or "people never complain about it so why change it?"
 
Great, as that was what I thought when I typed it in!
But, there are those who through the fog of drugs (for lack of a better term) cannot see their website being so disjointed. They do not see that guests have to try to build a lego page to get the picture that they are trying to sell. Of course, there are/were plenty of us who DID see it but put off fixing it, or put off spending the time, resources, effort to get it out of psychedelia-ville. Thinking or saying "it is good enough" or "people never complain about it so why change it?".
I keep getting requests for flashing things on the website. I have so far ignored those requests.
You're right. There are things that need fixing that are not getting done. There are days I would like to just call someone and say I want such and such changed. Then there are the days I want to play around and try stuff.
 
I totally agree... not too long ago I was looking for a B&B and encountered several places where I could not find the specific LOCATION!! What the?
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website.
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website..
Totally understand that but it's $7000 we don't have. If I got a 'professional' site would it bring in $70000 in business? Not likely. I need a 10-fold return to farm out something I can do myself.
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website..
Totally understand that but it's $7000 we don't have. If I got a 'professional' site would it bring in $70000 in business? Not likely. I need a 10-fold return to farm out something I can do myself.
.
I made enough extra reseravations during our first month of our new site to pay for the new site. So to answer your question, YES it will! I didn't think it would either but it will! So you have to ask yourself, is $7000 a good investment to make $70,000.00? Over the last 3 years with our new site I have doubled that. I was the one who designed our site before and added things to it. My wife finally came to me one day and asked me what I thought of our site. I told her it was great. She then showed me some examples of other sites and asked if it would hurt my feellings if we had someone build us a new site. I was kinda upset at first and then swallowed my pride and decided to do it. $7000 is a lot of money. I'm still kicking my self because of the amount of money we have lost because I thought I was the man and could do our own website. Its your right to do your own. Please don't be mad at me. Just trying to tell you what happened with my website upgrade!
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website..
Totally understand that but it's $7000 we don't have. If I got a 'professional' site would it bring in $70000 in business? Not likely. I need a 10-fold return to farm out something I can do myself.
.
I made enough extra reseravations during our first month of our new site to pay for the new site. So to answer your question, YES it will! I didn't think it would either but it will! So you have to ask yourself, is $7000 a good investment to make $70,000.00? Over the last 3 years with our new site I have doubled that. I was the one who designed our site before and added things to it. My wife finally came to me one day and asked me what I thought of our site. I told her it was great. She then showed me some examples of other sites and asked if it would hurt my feellings if we had someone build us a new site. I was kinda upset at first and then swallowed my pride and decided to do it. $7000 is a lot of money. I'm still kicking my self because of the amount of money we have lost because I thought I was the man and could do our own website. Its your right to do your own. Please don't be mad at me. Just trying to tell you what happened with my website upgrade!
.
Yes, your new website is very nice and a step up from your previous site. My project for next off season is to buy a template and redo the site so it no longer it a home built site. At 70 pages it will take some time to accomplish everything I want to do. I still like the creative control. Can you make updates on the fly to your site or do you need to file them with Acorn and let them do the updates?
I hate the idea of being in a queue and waiting to add photos or text or packages.
I've seen sites done by Acorn that were not up to their usual standards and the owner of the site told me it was $7000 for the site and there were maintenance fees and update fees and then the photographer fees as well. I guess if we get a windfall we'll consider it.
However, it would take more than a year to recoup the investment and there are a hundred other things the property needs.
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website..
Totally understand that but it's $7000 we don't have. If I got a 'professional' site would it bring in $70000 in business? Not likely. I need a 10-fold return to farm out something I can do myself.
.
I made enough extra reseravations during our first month of our new site to pay for the new site. So to answer your question, YES it will! I didn't think it would either but it will! So you have to ask yourself, is $7000 a good investment to make $70,000.00? Over the last 3 years with our new site I have doubled that. I was the one who designed our site before and added things to it. My wife finally came to me one day and asked me what I thought of our site. I told her it was great. She then showed me some examples of other sites and asked if it would hurt my feellings if we had someone build us a new site. I was kinda upset at first and then swallowed my pride and decided to do it. $7000 is a lot of money. I'm still kicking my self because of the amount of money we have lost because I thought I was the man and could do our own website. Its your right to do your own. Please don't be mad at me. Just trying to tell you what happened with my website upgrade!
.
Yes, your new website is very nice and a step up from your previous site. My project for next off season is to buy a template and redo the site so it no longer it a home built site. At 70 pages it will take some time to accomplish everything I want to do. I still like the creative control. Can you make updates on the fly to your site or do you need to file them with Acorn and let them do the updates?
I hate the idea of being in a queue and waiting to add photos or text or packages.
I've seen sites done by Acorn that were not up to their usual standards and the owner of the site told me it was $7000 for the site and there were maintenance fees and update fees and then the photographer fees as well. I guess if we get a windfall we'll consider it.
However, it would take more than a year to recoup the investment and there are a hundred other things the property needs.
.
I can change anything on my site I wish. They give you as much control as you want. Your site is built for what you want. So the sites that you see them building are the owners choice not Acorn. I agree, some of the sites I see them build are horrible. Keep in mind, thats what the owner of the site wanted. Once your site is built they will host it for under $200 a year. If you want them to make all the changes for you then yes, it will cost you money. We recouped our money in a month. Everyone is different. For the last 3 years we have had record years. Last month we had a record month of 94% oc for 7 suites. Everyone has to make their own choices in the way they run their business. I wish you the best!
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website..
Totally understand that but it's $7000 we don't have. If I got a 'professional' site would it bring in $70000 in business? Not likely. I need a 10-fold return to farm out something I can do myself.
.
I made enough extra reseravations during our first month of our new site to pay for the new site. So to answer your question, YES it will! I didn't think it would either but it will! So you have to ask yourself, is $7000 a good investment to make $70,000.00? Over the last 3 years with our new site I have doubled that. I was the one who designed our site before and added things to it. My wife finally came to me one day and asked me what I thought of our site. I told her it was great. She then showed me some examples of other sites and asked if it would hurt my feellings if we had someone build us a new site. I was kinda upset at first and then swallowed my pride and decided to do it. $7000 is a lot of money. I'm still kicking my self because of the amount of money we have lost because I thought I was the man and could do our own website. Its your right to do your own. Please don't be mad at me. Just trying to tell you what happened with my website upgrade!
.
Yes, your new website is very nice and a step up from your previous site. My project for next off season is to buy a template and redo the site so it no longer it a home built site. At 70 pages it will take some time to accomplish everything I want to do. I still like the creative control. Can you make updates on the fly to your site or do you need to file them with Acorn and let them do the updates?
I hate the idea of being in a queue and waiting to add photos or text or packages.
I've seen sites done by Acorn that were not up to their usual standards and the owner of the site told me it was $7000 for the site and there were maintenance fees and update fees and then the photographer fees as well. I guess if we get a windfall we'll consider it.
However, it would take more than a year to recoup the investment and there are a hundred other things the property needs.
.
We have an Acorn site also and use an editor to make changes ourselves. I'm very comfortable making text changes and small pics, etc., but if I needed any major change, I would have them do it.
Acorn is all about letting the innkeeper do and learn whatever you're comfortable with.
This year it's been made really clear to us that the marketing/SEO that Acorn has done over the years for us has really paid off. We've really hit our target market and our keywords for Google searches have done amazing things for us.
Maddy, I think you basically have a good site. I would do a full page for each of your rooms and add more photos of the rooms/bathroom which you could do yourself. What I see it needs is more marketing/seo components. You might consider calling Acorn and getting a quote for them to just do marketing for your pages. I think it could make a huge difference for you and be much less expensive than starting over.
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website..
Totally understand that but it's $7000 we don't have. If I got a 'professional' site would it bring in $70000 in business? Not likely. I need a 10-fold return to farm out something I can do myself.
.
I made enough extra reseravations during our first month of our new site to pay for the new site. So to answer your question, YES it will! I didn't think it would either but it will! So you have to ask yourself, is $7000 a good investment to make $70,000.00? Over the last 3 years with our new site I have doubled that. I was the one who designed our site before and added things to it. My wife finally came to me one day and asked me what I thought of our site. I told her it was great. She then showed me some examples of other sites and asked if it would hurt my feellings if we had someone build us a new site. I was kinda upset at first and then swallowed my pride and decided to do it. $7000 is a lot of money. I'm still kicking my self because of the amount of money we have lost because I thought I was the man and could do our own website. Its your right to do your own. Please don't be mad at me. Just trying to tell you what happened with my website upgrade!
.
Yes, your new website is very nice and a step up from your previous site. My project for next off season is to buy a template and redo the site so it no longer it a home built site. At 70 pages it will take some time to accomplish everything I want to do. I still like the creative control. Can you make updates on the fly to your site or do you need to file them with Acorn and let them do the updates?
I hate the idea of being in a queue and waiting to add photos or text or packages.
I've seen sites done by Acorn that were not up to their usual standards and the owner of the site told me it was $7000 for the site and there were maintenance fees and update fees and then the photographer fees as well. I guess if we get a windfall we'll consider it.
However, it would take more than a year to recoup the investment and there are a hundred other things the property needs.
.
I can change anything on my site I wish. They give you as much control as you want. Your site is built for what you want. So the sites that you see them building are the owners choice not Acorn. I agree, some of the sites I see them build are horrible. Keep in mind, thats what the owner of the site wanted. Once your site is built they will host it for under $200 a year. If you want them to make all the changes for you then yes, it will cost you money. We recouped our money in a month. Everyone is different. For the last 3 years we have had record years. Last month we had a record month of 94% oc for 7 suites. Everyone has to make their own choices in the way they run their business. I wish you the best!
.
Bob said:
So the sites that you see them building are the owners choice not Acorn. I agree, some of the sites I see them build are horrible. Keep in mind, thats what the owner of the site wanted.
This is so true! It cost me more money, but I was very active (controlling?) with what they did on each and every page. It is very difficult to convey to a designer what your vision is. When they would unveil each page, I gave my input. A couple of times we butt heads. I ended up with the site I wanted and was very happy with. It really has paid off many, many times over.
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website..
Totally understand that but it's $7000 we don't have. If I got a 'professional' site would it bring in $70000 in business? Not likely. I need a 10-fold return to farm out something I can do myself.
.
I made enough extra reseravations during our first month of our new site to pay for the new site. So to answer your question, YES it will! I didn't think it would either but it will! So you have to ask yourself, is $7000 a good investment to make $70,000.00? Over the last 3 years with our new site I have doubled that. I was the one who designed our site before and added things to it. My wife finally came to me one day and asked me what I thought of our site. I told her it was great. She then showed me some examples of other sites and asked if it would hurt my feellings if we had someone build us a new site. I was kinda upset at first and then swallowed my pride and decided to do it. $7000 is a lot of money. I'm still kicking my self because of the amount of money we have lost because I thought I was the man and could do our own website. Its your right to do your own. Please don't be mad at me. Just trying to tell you what happened with my website upgrade!
.
I do not know your location but I do know mine. For me, it would not matter. I DID get my site done by a pro and it DID up-tick my reservations but not to that tune. I am not in a location that will do that nor do I have an inn that will be full 94% of the time (nor do I want that much). Right now, if I wanted to do a weekly rate of 300 to 350, I could have all 3 rooms booked solid for the next year or 2 (no thanks). I would be happy with 30 to 40% occupancy and would even take 50%. Will not happen in this location. Too many hotel rooms too close to the highway. I am a whole 6+ miles from the Interstate.
 
Best move I ever made was having Acorn do my website, money well spent. Mine is what I call a "small" website the bare minimum. I'm finding that alot of my guest are doing more searches on the web and not so much from directories so when they see my website they are impressed, and book! ( tonight one guest said they looked at our's and another place's website and she said the other one was scary!)
wow.gif
I do need to have better pictures ( is hoping soon) but what I have is working!
 
What my problem is - is in the uk the customer is soo trained to use lat erooms or bo okin g.com they would never even consider looking for an individual Bed and breakfast's web site it would never cross their minds. Once they have stayed I make sure they book direct next time and why ie commission which they are being ripped off for by those companies. Hopefully I have helped other bb's benefit by spreading the word but its a hard cycle to break as their sites do make it so easy.
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website..
Totally understand that but it's $7000 we don't have. If I got a 'professional' site would it bring in $70000 in business? Not likely. I need a 10-fold return to farm out something I can do myself.
.
I made enough extra reseravations during our first month of our new site to pay for the new site. So to answer your question, YES it will! I didn't think it would either but it will! So you have to ask yourself, is $7000 a good investment to make $70,000.00? Over the last 3 years with our new site I have doubled that. I was the one who designed our site before and added things to it. My wife finally came to me one day and asked me what I thought of our site. I told her it was great. She then showed me some examples of other sites and asked if it would hurt my feellings if we had someone build us a new site. I was kinda upset at first and then swallowed my pride and decided to do it. $7000 is a lot of money. I'm still kicking my self because of the amount of money we have lost because I thought I was the man and could do our own website. Its your right to do your own. Please don't be mad at me. Just trying to tell you what happened with my website upgrade!
.
Your big photos (and plenty of them) are one of the things that I really like about your site, Bob. They are what keep me on your site to find out more! Also, good navigation is a huge plus.
 
Hi would recommend arbutus website design. For any B&Bs or Inns. Affordable prices. And knowledgable customer service.
www.arbutuswd.com
 
Its amazing to me how many Innkeepers do their own websites. Unless you do this for a living, leave this to a pro. If you want to save money, then find a different way to save. This is the front door to your business. If people think it looks old and outdated, they wont open it. Go search some websites. You could have the best property and do the worst business if you have a bad website..
Totally understand that but it's $7000 we don't have. If I got a 'professional' site would it bring in $70000 in business? Not likely. I need a 10-fold return to farm out something I can do myself.
.
I made enough extra reseravations during our first month of our new site to pay for the new site. So to answer your question, YES it will! I didn't think it would either but it will! So you have to ask yourself, is $7000 a good investment to make $70,000.00? Over the last 3 years with our new site I have doubled that. I was the one who designed our site before and added things to it. My wife finally came to me one day and asked me what I thought of our site. I told her it was great. She then showed me some examples of other sites and asked if it would hurt my feellings if we had someone build us a new site. I was kinda upset at first and then swallowed my pride and decided to do it. $7000 is a lot of money. I'm still kicking my self because of the amount of money we have lost because I thought I was the man and could do our own website. Its your right to do your own. Please don't be mad at me. Just trying to tell you what happened with my website upgrade!
.
Yes, your new website is very nice and a step up from your previous site. My project for next off season is to buy a template and redo the site so it no longer it a home built site. At 70 pages it will take some time to accomplish everything I want to do. I still like the creative control. Can you make updates on the fly to your site or do you need to file them with Acorn and let them do the updates?
I hate the idea of being in a queue and waiting to add photos or text or packages.
I've seen sites done by Acorn that were not up to their usual standards and the owner of the site told me it was $7000 for the site and there were maintenance fees and update fees and then the photographer fees as well. I guess if we get a windfall we'll consider it.
However, it would take more than a year to recoup the investment and there are a hundred other things the property needs.
.
I can change anything on my site I wish. They give you as much control as you want. Your site is built for what you want. So the sites that you see them building are the owners choice not Acorn. I agree, some of the sites I see them build are horrible. Keep in mind, thats what the owner of the site wanted. Once your site is built they will host it for under $200 a year. If you want them to make all the changes for you then yes, it will cost you money. We recouped our money in a month. Everyone is different. For the last 3 years we have had record years. Last month we had a record month of 94% oc for 7 suites. Everyone has to make their own choices in the way they run their business. I wish you the best!
.
Bob said:
So the sites that you see them building are the owners choice not Acorn. I agree, some of the sites I see them build are horrible. Keep in mind, thats what the owner of the site wanted.
This is so true! It cost me more money, but I was very active (controlling?) with what they did on each and every page. It is very difficult to convey to a designer what your vision is. When they would unveil each page, I gave my input. A couple of times we butt heads. I ended up with the site I wanted and was very happy with. It really has paid off many, many times over.
.
For $7000 dollars, you must have got a really great website! Good point about the SEO, your website isn´t much use unless you are ranking well in google. The great thing about having your own website is it is reasonably easy to get listed in the "local" results on Google, which the big boys can´t as they list hotels in multiple locations.
 
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